The Duelists

A big-city emergency room is a unique place. Back when I did my time I never went a full shift without at least one gunshot wound. My personal record was seven.

As a patient, you would think if you rolled into a massive Level 1 trauma center you would be cared for by the greatest medical minds in the area. To a degree that is sort-of true, however, there are an awful lot of medical students and residents standing between the meat on the table and that rarefied medical mind. It is in those interstitial spaces where the real magic happens.

The practice of medicine is like any other human pursuit. If life was like The Matrix, you’d just download the information you need to fly a helicopter or perform brain surgery — but life is not like the movies. Out here in the real world, to do such stuff you need practice. The only way to learn to be a doctor is to practice on the sick and injured. That’s what happens in those gigantic teaching hospitals.

In a manner of speaking, what followed was a duel of sorts. The details certainly diverged from the world of Burr and Hamilton, but the basic premise remained unchanged. They would settle this conflict once and for all through feat of arms.

The duel began in a most unusual location. The lighter of these two women weighed maybe three hundred pounds, or three ‘Mississippi Units’ in med student vernacular of the day. They were both arrayed on the backseat of their man’s ghetto sled car. While he was off selling drugs, pimping, or whatever else it was he did for a living, these two ample women each presented matching box cutters and just went to town.

Imagine for a moment what might occur if an aggregate 600 pounds of Mississippi woman-flesh went at it at contact ranges with box cutters, winner-take-all. I’d paint you a word picture, but to be honest, limitations of the language prevent me doing it justice. These two women were just sliced to pieces.

I let them choose who would go first, and they were cordial about it. While I pulled together inch after gruesome inch of lacerated flesh, these two women just passed the time as though they were sitting on the front porch sipping iced tea. When I finally wrapped up the first, I cleaned up the gore, broke out another set of gear and went to work on the second. The first lady stayed on to keep the second distracted as she had done before.

More than three hours passed before I finally threw the last suture. Subcuticular Vicryl provided the strength, while interrupted Ethilon reflected a vain effort at some degree of cosmesis. The final result was about what you might expect. The enthusiastic but unskilled efforts of a fourth-year medical student were unleashed on a surprisingly grateful pair of generously lacerated subjects.

The two ladies waddled out together, apparently happy. I never saw how it all turned out, but neither woman was actively bleeding upon discharge. I’m not sure which woman ultimately got the man, but he was one lucky guy.

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