Nurses

So what has changed over the years, well first of all the nurses. There used to be a time when as I was walking in the room, my white coat dragging the wind, my curls slightly propelled forward, the room changed temperature.

These days, not helped by the fact that hospital administration is so darn cheap and comfortable climate control obviously isn’t, I get coldhearted blank stares. Nobody looks up. Nobody bows. Nobody says Hi dr. Rover. Now from my colleagues I can understand, but the nurses are still the same. They are still 27, they still just came back from whatever music festival they just visited, they still are madly in love with the wrong guy and at the same time secretly hoping a nice curly doctor enters the room. What happened to me? Did I overdo my youth and everybody remembers? Do the nurses keep a log from days long past to make sure no information on the old staff disappears from public memory?

Somewhere between now and thirty years ago i noticed nurses not being impressed by me anymore. If secret glances were seen they went to my junior colleagues or even worse, residents. The whole implicit thing that as a supervising consultant you would have automatic sex appeal kind of slipped away. And where does that leave me. Sure I am in charge of stuff, but if nobody believes me anymore how do I hold up?

And then it dawned on me. It is not me that is turning grey and crumbled, its them that became younger  then nurses were supposed to be.  Some asshole manager probably lowered the minimum entry age for nursing school without giving us notice.  They are, as it turns out, no longer 27 but 23. They did not just come back from a music festival but from swimming lessons and they are not secretly hoping a nice curly doctor enters the room because they have been too busy doing their homework.

And thus I rest here, in my same old hospital, waiting for the nurses to mature so they will, once and for all, see the beauty in me…