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Dr. Hawkins and I were my best friends. We were small time medical professionals (essentially interns) working in what we referred to as Cardiology Section. We were responsible for treating and evaluating patients who sustained heart related problems. Our humble facility was located in Sector South East Base located on the planet Torart. We were restricted to the military installation which housed, among other things, the Cardiology Section and the medical laboratory where all medical analysis was done.
Dr. Hawkins and I worked very well together. We focused our efforts on healing, medical treatments, and other experimental procedures. During our shifts, we would come together around an empty table and we sat across the table from each other at one end. At the other end of the table was a structure that contained a partitioned glass screen. Because we were surgeons, our work involved a lot of cutting, moving, and taking out organs. We protected our hands with thick white gloves that extended up to our elbows.
For much of our shift, we would focus on performing surgeries and when we were not in the operating room, we spent the time in the prep room. We utilized this time to do orderly and calculated clean up. We cleaned our instruments and sterilized our surgical tools. During surgery, the patient was unconscious. We then shifted our focus on to the other patients. We took their information and added it to our official database for the facility.
The official database was stored on a central computer system. This computer system was connected to every single terminal on the star base. Each terminal was operated by an individual and each terminal performed a different function. We did not have a connection to the central database, so we maintained our own copies on all record discs that were imprinted and distributed to every terminal on the star base.
There were many people on the base that we did not know. They worked a great deal of the time and we did not see them very often. However, there were a few individuals that we got to know in a more personal way. For instance, there was a chef that worked on the base who we referred to simply as the cook. The cook was responsible for preparing all the meals for the personnel aboard the star base. He would be off duty at certain times, but he would always be at work early.
Dr. Hawkins and I would often visit the cafeteria and we would notice the cook and his assistant. We were friendly towards them, but because we were working, we did not engage in much conversation. Since the cook was a chef, he would prepare food that was not very healthy. Dr. Hawkins and I basically only ate the meals that he would make because the fare was so good. The most frequent meal that we enjoyed was made out of eggs, fish, and rice which we called the omelette, fish, and rice.
Dr. Hawkins and I were responsible for maintaining a clean medical work environment. We did not, however, focus on our patient’s rooms. There were two nurses which were assigned to each floor of the building housing the Cardiology Section. The nurses were responsible for the cleanliness and maintenance of these rooms.
Each floor of the building would be split up into panels of rooms, one panel on the left and another panel on the right side of a hallway. All the rooms were divided up with a door for each patient. There were many rooms and each pair of nurses had one room each, which meant that the nurses to the Cardiology Section had thirty rooms to maintain.
We could not mop the floors, but we were responsible for the cleaning of the rooms. For example, the average room would require us to clean the bed and our instruments. We would take our instruments and put them in a drawer in their designated drawer. For me, it was the drawer under the sink and for Dr. Hawkins, it was the drawer under the work surface.
We assigned our salary to the installations foundation. For every year that we worked there, the foundation would then place the value of our salary in a special box. We received a portion of this money, our salary back payment, which then covered all our expenses and provided income for our families. About ten years earlier, we had saved enough to purchase a small two-room house for our families to reside.
There were two other medical staff members with us. There was a teenage nurse, who was helpful, and a nurse with military training. She was a senior nurse and was very experienced. We often interacted with her because she frequently worked on rounds with us. She was also responsible for the administration of medications to the patients.
I had been working in a hospital back on my planet for about six months just prior to coming to work for the Cardiology Section on the star base orbiting planet Torart. I prepared for my job on the star base.
The star base was comprised of a large disc-shaped base that would be surrounded by a circular docking bay. The docking bay would contain many ships and also a number of docking bays that would be housed around its circumference. The docking bays would be large doors, capable of being sealed with a light beam which would create a vacuum and effectively lock the ships in the docking bay.
On the base, there would be many small facilities throughout the base. One of the most well-known facilities is the cafeteria. This would be located in the middle part of the base on the side opposite the docking bay. There were two baselines on the star base, one that was on the floor below the other one. As a medical staff member, I was assigned to the first baseline. During my time there, I always worked from 08:00 to 16:00. If a surgery ran during this time period, I would be temporarily transferred to work with Dr. Hawkins in the Cardiology Division.