SRU: The Perfect Scalpel

“Fuck! I can't believe it happened again”, Mike said, his eyes beginning to tear up. This was the 5th patient Mike had lost in 8 months. The autopsy had shown no malpractice, no items left in the body but almost all of the time there was always something nagging in the periphery. Most of his colleagues thought he was a great doctor and the problems that showed up in the autopsies were the kind of problems that only the most keen-eyed of doctors would pick up.

Despite what you may think doctors aren't perfect and they make mistakes. Despite how it sounds, Mike wasn't the worst of them either. Mike knew plenty of his colleagues who had become his superiors, failing up. He had even heard rumors that the heads of Oncology and Neurology at his hospital had made mistakes, a Cancer showing a recurrence, an underlying bleed in the brain not truly being solved. Luckily those patients hadn't died but the symptoms had shown up again, the Cancer recurring in a different position.

These donors were called honeypots, as they donated a tremendous amount of money to the hospital and the aforementioned doctors specifically. When it came time to have surgery they made excuses to the patients citing other conditions. Incredibly enough, these patients still asked for these chief surgeons to operate on them. The Chief Surgeons passed this off to their juniors as they truly weren't in the best physical condition to operate on them in the first place and the hospital didn't want to worry about the liability; however, on the sheet the Chief Surgeons were listed as the main surgeons in the OR.

Mike would've been in worse straits if not for his caring nature. He was one of the best doctors out there in consoling grieving families and just giving general great customer service. Despite his reputation around the hospital staff in receiving the nickname “Doctor Death”, patients still requested him to perform their surgeries.

Concluding this last surgery, Mike was truly distraught. To put it plainly, Mike was devastated. He was even sharper than he had ever been and was depressed, in the greatest funk. Mike stayed at home despite being on call and was in a drunken stupor when one of his friends at the hospital had checked on him at home. After this, he was put on Administrative leave but not let go. Most of the hospital employees knew Mike and some were even friends with him. He might have been called “Doctor Death” but they never called him that to his face as they knew he took these situations hard enough.

It was during one of these drunken stupors that Mike found himself at one of the malls around town. He didn't exactly reek of liquor but his suit was slightly crumpled and he looked a bit disheveled. Glancing around, his mind cleared a bit and he tried to remember how he got there. He remembered walking for a while but why he came to the mall who knew. After starting to look at the mall storefronts one immediately stood out: “Spells R Us”. Mike was intrigued as it was a definite contrast visually to most of the other stores. Its layout seemed quite unconventional and he had never saw a store like this in all of his 32 years.

Mike proceeded to head in and upon opening the door he heard the tinkle of a bell. Searching around the door, Mike realized the word “unconventional” was putting it mildly for the store layout. Items ranged from blowup dolls, makeup to Ming Dynasty vases to Koryo Celadon to name a few. The sheer range was staggering. Mike proceeded to take a closer look at the Celadon. “Simply astounding, this is such an extraordinary piece. How could something so old be kept in such pristine condition?!” Mike was flabbergasted.

“Well it so happens magic has its ways to get around the temporal distortion that most things suffer with age,” the Wizard responded. Wondering how the old man in a bathrobe had happened to read his thoughts, Mike saw him point up at a sign saying, “Yes I'm a Wizard”. Inwardly Mike rolled his eyes, thinking that the “wizard” might have simply read his face and surmised things accordingly. “Look Mike, believe what you will. Anyway I saw you peeking at that Koryo Celadon but that's not what you're looking for. I know you deeply care about your patients as a doctor and are beyond frustrated at how many you've lost. I have something that can fix your problems no questions asked.” the Wizard responded. The Wizard proceeded to open a nice lacquered case one might see used to hold a very expensive pen and Mike saw a scalpel. This scalpel appeared like any other scalpel he had worked with except that it had been polished to an immaculate sheen.

Eying the Wizard with suspicion, he proceeded to open his mouth and the Wizard cut him off, “Yes I know, I know you're skeptical so here's the deal. I want $20 for this and if you're not satisfied I will refund you the full amount; however if you're satisfied, feel free to pay me $1000 in additional compensation. Usually I don't say that but I think you'll be tremendously fortunate after using the scalpel, more so than some of my previous customers”.

After hearing this addendum Mike raised his eyebrow, waiting for the catch...”Some extraordinary measures see a sacrifice, not necessary of one's soul either but one that can be similarly profound”, the Wizard responded. Mike thought about all the hours of Medical School he toiled over, promising that he wouldn't lose someone else and what had happened presently. Resigned yet steadfast, he handed over the $20 while the wizard proceeded to place the scalpel back in its case.

“In order for the scalpel to work properly you must use it the next time you have a surgery. Also, don't worry about sterilizing it beforehand or anything like that, nothing will be effected”, the Wizard responded.

One month later

After a hard week sobering up, Mike proceeded to get back on his feet. It took at least 2 weeks to truly feel like he was back on par at the hospital, at least what was par for him. Even then 2 weeks after he firmly stopped drinking, even for social calls, a patient who was a favorite of Mike's asked for him to operate on her. She was in her 60's with a kindness that felt contagious with anyone she met. Mike told her she would have to wait at least 2 weeks and she agreed. Mike wanted to feel completely lucid for her surgery.

He wanted to suggest someone, anyone except those chiefs but he knew she would insist. In fact most of the surgical wing tried to politely suggest another but she would not have anyone else. She was quite stubborn even if she was kind. She was also keen of hearing and easily heard some other surgeons speculating on operating on her, requesting that Mike forge his name on the sheets so that was out.

The day of the surgery he took the scalpel out of the lacquer box, placed it in the “sterilization unit” and let it run. After this he scrubbed up and put the latex gloves on and went into the OR. The unit had run its course and the scalpel was no longer hot. If you were wondering how Mike knew which scalpel to grab when the surgery started, the sheen was still there and unmistakable.

As soon as he grabbed it, he felt an energy run through him. His surgery speed was respectable before but now he seemed almost as swift as lightning. A clarity ran through him at about the end of the surgery as well. Before he closed up like he normally would have he noticed something that most doctors would never pick up but he zoomed in on it like a hawk. He noticed the problem and then closed her up. As he was about to leave the OR, he placed his hand on the upper part of her chest, right below the collar bone then walked outside.

The rush left him, but the clarity remained. He headed to the cafeteria and grabbed 6 or 7 syrup containers along with a glass and headed up to the roof. He dumped the contents of the containers into the glass and almost proceeded to drink it in one shot.

He was so weary from the surgery that only now could he take stock of the situation. Suddenly he noticed that everything he had seen after heading out of the surgery room was in Japanese, even the cafeteria and he never gave it a second thought.

Also it began to set in that he felt differently...looking down he noticed a pair of breasts tenting his shirt along with wearing a skirt. None of these clothes were standard uniform. Already suspicious of what he might find, he made a conscious decision to enter the women's restroom. Looking in the mirror and raising an eyebrow at most , he decided that the moniker “she” would be more appropriate.

Looking at the name tag, she found that her name was Michiko Daimon. Her outfit, while not terribly casual, was not even close to the formal wear expected in hospitals. She glanced at her makeup, high heels and earrings then walked out.

She walked back to the office, feeling some nagging feeling in the back of her mind. While walking back she considered going back to the patient's room but passed on that. This decision really bothered her as she always remembered checking up and chatting with patients after their surgeries or even just generally observing them. She also ran into the Head of Surgery doing his rounds and he asked her to join him. She steadfastly refused, pointedly reminding him that it was not in her contract to do anything but surgery or related to surgery.

After this she was mortified, thinking how this would reflect on her in the future. She might dislike or even have little respect for her superiors, finding that most of them gained their positions through Nepotism or almost blind Favoritism, but she would not slight them for fear of her job. This and the fact that she didn't want to hurt her friend's positions.

She passed them by, walked into the office and proceeded to sit down and start looking for promising surgeries that would also challenge her. These would also coincidentally net her a lot of money. At this time she was still in shock. Mike could accept he was now Michiko but her behavior was still surprising.

The time was currently 4:30 p.m. After about 30 minutes browsing potential surgeries Michiko realized what that nagging/anxious feeling in her head had been...it was how much time she had left before she was to leave. As soon as 5 p.m. hit, she took off her doctor's coat, logged out, got up and left immediately.

She remembered that she was in Japan and noticed she could speak fluent Japanese. She was clueless where she was supposed to go home to now though. Suddenly memories started flooding her head, she already knew her name was Michiko Daimon but she remembered her time studying medicine in Cuba, doing surgeries in war zones et so on. The memories kept coming in and she sat down for a minute to get her mind adjusted to things. She remembered she was the best freelance surgeon in all of Japan and no one could match her.

Now knowing where home was, Michiko headed back. After returning home, she decided to open up a beer and play a rousing game of Mahjong. She knew was about to win this one...then she failed. Suddenly she remembered previous games where she almost always lost, with her boss always managing to pull a “Ron” or another move out at the last minute. After bemoaning this loss, she decided to head out to the club and start dancing to make up for this and enjoy herself.

Quietly cataloging these changes all the while, Michiko now understood what the wizard had meant by profound changes. She was unusually brusque with her superiors which she still kind of minded. She was curt with the patients which she hated as she truly cared for them. When she thought about her attitude with her fellow employees she did mind in some respects: however, some of them were truly dangerous in the OR due to their hubris. While she didn't mind those who brown-nosed if they were competent this was usually not true. Generally the ones who brown-nosed were too focused on this than doing their job.

She found she got used to the dancing, playing Mahjong and the occasional bout of Ping-pong with Jonouchi-san and even shopping. It definitely relived some of the stress she remembered building up when she was Mike.

This pattern of behavior at work and home continued for a number of months. At first she had cautiously began to see that none of her OR patients had come back at 2 months and by now 6 months had passed. She might have missed the old way she interacted with her fellow doctors and the patients but she preferred living patients over dead ones. As for the former, she had at least one colleague she was on good terms. Because of the patients more than anything, she lamented the loss of her old personality less and less and slowly but surely merged with the current personality until there was only Michiko Daimon.

The bosses didn't even bear considering to his old personality as circumstances here were even more repugnant when it came to her superiors.

She returned to “Spells R Us” in a Ginza shopping mall. After she walked into the store, she curtly placed 80,000 Yen onto the counter. “I'll give you the 20,000 Yen after I finish this next surgery as I'm almost broke. I only have 2,000 Yen left after handing you the 80,000”, Michiko said.

“I forgot that you always seem to be broke regardless of how much cash you always make after each surgery. Remember that you aren't perfect, surgeons can fail Michiko” the Wizard said.

“Shinpai shinai no de (I never fail)”, Michiko said with confidence and walked out, never looking back.

Fin

Copyright Sarang as much as it can be.
Character of Michiko Daimon of "Doctor X" owned by TV Asahi.

Thank you to Patricia Marie Allen for her editing. Domo Arigatou.