Solo The Doctor's Inspection

[Kurin Fell]

42nd of Winter, 518 AV

"Hmm. At least you're punctual."

Those were the words that greeted Kurin as he pushed open the door to the Clinic.

"I do my best." He responded, toeing the door shut behind him. Squinting to adjust to the sudden darkness, he took in the room before him, and the man who was to be his employer. Four operating tables — only one of which was currently in use — , two cabinets, bottles and equipment set down seemingly haphazardly around the room; the Fell clinic had been cleaner, but given the general state of Sunberth, this wasn't as bad as he'd thought it might be. The scent of blood filled the air, so thick he could feel it seeping into his sinuses, and Kurin rubbed his nose, resisting the urge to sneeze.

The man standing over the occupied operating table, presumably Petricious himself, looked up as Kurin drew near, twirling a scalpel between his gloved fingers. The doctor held himself with confidence, and his eyes cast over Kurin like he was already half open on the operating table. The boy between them made a gurgling noise deep in his throat, but aside from that, the room was silent as the two men took the measure of one another. After a tick, Petricious nodded. "Come closer, and take a look at the boy. Give me your best judgement."

"A shykeload of blood." Kurin said immediately, leaning in to examine the boy more closely. Above him, the doctor let out a soft huff, though whether it was amusement or irritation, he couldn't tell. Pulling on his own gloves, he gently tugged the boy's tattered shirt from his chest, exposing the injury to the air. "A clean cut." He noted, touching the area around the injury. "Right over the ribcage, very neat edges. Might have nicked the ribs, but didn't go through. Bleeding fairly sluggishly... I suppose the pectorals don't have that many important blood vessels, so that seems about right. Got a steady pulse for now, but I should bandage this so he doesn't lose too much blood during the examination."

"No. Finish your diagnosis first."

"Your call." Kurin told him. His hands moved down, feeling over the boy's lower ribs. "Ah." He said, as the boy shuddered in pain, a fresh wave of tears trickling from his eyes. "A fracture here?" The doctor gave him a flat look with a very clear message: figure it out yourself. Shrugging, Kurin ran his finger over the curve of the rib, ignoring his patient's soft whimpers. "Is this a sharp pain, or a dull one?" He asked, pressing down on the spot. The boy's face twisted in obvious distress, but he said nothing, squeezing his eyes shut instead. "Probably just a bad contusion." He guessed. He was used to patients being much more vocal about their pain, but maybe Sunberthians were just different. "Boot to the rib or something like that. No visible bruising yet. These are fresh injuries, I'm guessing."

A quick inspection of the boy's lower half revealed nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual collection of scars, scrapes and bruises he expected were common among Sunberth's population of youths. His arms were another matter. "Definitely a break here." Kurin told the doctor, holding the boy's right forearm still. The boy was beginning to tremble, and it was making careful examination a little difficult. "Scratch that, two breaks. One on each bone, here and here. Damn painful looking too. Bruises along the other arm, but no breaks, I think. Might be a fracture, but the kid's so quiet it's hard to tell."

[Kurin Fell]

A thought gave Kurin pause, and he frowned as he realized something abnormal about the situation. Setting down the arm, he ran his fingers over the boy's throat, pressing and prodding. "Huh. Open up for a tick, please." His fingers dug into the boy's jaw, pushing his mouth open. "Tongue intact, though bitten, and no throat injury as far as I can tell." He ran his fingers over the boy's skull, finding a small lump, but nothing else. "Got a bit of a bump on the head, but nothing that serious." Kurin looked up at the doctor, eyebrow raised. "Never met a kid this quiet. He mute? I can't find any injury that would cause something like that."

"Nor will you." Petricious told him, a trace of a smirk on his lips. "There is no such injury on the boy. I merely threatened him before you arrived; should he speak a word, or make an excessive amount of noise, he'll find himself my newest experiment." Under his fingers, Kurin felt the boy's trembling redouble.

"Huh." He said, blinking. He'd known the doctor had a reputation around the city, but this was an impressive level of terror from a mere threat.

"Indeed. Continue."

Kurin nodded, then turned back to the boy with an encouraging smile. The boy stared back at him, eyes watery with terror. "Alright kiddo, up you come. Just gotta check your back for a tick." Helping the lad into a seated position, Kurin urged him into several positions, checking for any obvious indications of pain along his back. "No spinal injuries. Not even sure how you'd go about healing those. Can it be done?"

"Depends on the type of injury." Kurin waited for a moment, but it seemed that was all the doctor had to say to him.

"He's pulled something along his shoulder, right here. Can't quite tell if it's a ligament or a muscle though." For a moment, Kurin was tempted to take a closer look with auristics, but he dismissed the thought. He hadn't been in the city long, but he could already tell he would have to be even more careful with magic here than he had in Zeltiva. "No bruising, so I'm going to go out on a limb here" — he grinned up at the doctor, only to find no reaction to his pun — "and call it a muscle strain. Although if he got this injury with the others, the bruise might be too fresh to show just yet."

He gave the boy another once over, then took a step back, stripping off his gloves. "That's everything I can find on him."

"Are you quite certain? His breathing was... quite uneven when you came in."

Kurin shook his head. "It sounded quite high up in the throat, and it's cleared up since. Probably just some blood or spit going down the wrong way for a moment. He's bitten his tongue, might have choked on the blood." Smiling, he clasped his hands behind his back. "So, doctor, what's your judgement?"

[Kurin Fell]

"Hmph." The doctor stared at him for some time; evaluating him, perhaps, or maybe trying to intimidate him. Kurin just waited patiently, still smiling softly. "Adequate." The man pronounced eventually. "You've shown decent enough judgement, under the circumstances. A good eye for common injuries, and you don't stick blindly to your first guess. But you were right the first time; he does have a fractured rib. Two in fact. And a minor concussion, which you missed. Never assume a head injury is negligible just because the bump is small. Also, you were too rough with the final part of your examination. If the boy had had a spinal injury, your manhandling certainly would have aggravated it. Hmm, what else... Ah, that's right. You should have noticed he was unusually quiet earlier. Small oddities like that often indicate a deeper injury. Though not this time, obviously."

Kurin nodded, mentally cataloguing each piece of information as it came. The doctor seemed like he was going to have high expectations; Kurin was going to have to learn fast. He'd only had much experience with simple injuries in Zeltiva, but Sunberth was evidently a much more dangerous place. And seeing as Petricious was the only doctor he'd heard anything about, he expected to be kept busy.

"You have your own supplies?" Kurin nodded. "Fix up what you can on the boy, and then tell me what further treatment you'd recommend. Feel free to make use of anything here." The man folded his arms across his chest, watching carefully as Kurin got to work.

First things first, the chest wound. It was shallow, but the boy had been bleeding out for quite some time, and was beginning to grow a little wan. No doubt his smaller body had less blood to lose. Glancing around, Kurin saw the doctor was well prepared; there was a kettle over the fire, and soap, cups and bowls set out already. Pulling out a clean cloth, he pressed it over the wound, and pressed the boy's hand over it. "Keep that there, and don't take it off, okay?" He murmured "Be a brave man, and press down on the wound, even if it hurts, until I come back." The boy swallowed heavily, his chest visibly hitching, but he nodded jerkily, holding the cloth to his chest. "Good lad."

Pouring boiled water into two bowls, he left his instruments to sterilize in one, and brought the other close to the boy for later. "I don't have anything for the pain." He said over his shoulder, washing his hands. "I don't suppose..." At Petricious's flat stare, he shrugged. "Worth a shot." Pulling a piece of leather from his medical kit, he presented it to the boy. "Bite down on this. It'll help some. Better than biting your tongue off." He said at the boy's doubtful look.

Taking a ladle from one of the cabinets, Kurin carefully scooped up a little of the boiling water. A little too hot, he decided with a critical frown, but there was nothing for it. He peeled the cloth from the wound. "This is going to hurt." He warned the boy, and poured the water over the wound, flushing out as much of the blood as he could. The boy let out a muffled shriek, but a firm hand on his shoulder kept him from thrashing.

With his preparations complete, it was time to start stitching.

[Kurin Fell]

Holding the skin close together, but not so close that the skin began to pucker, Kurin pressed the curved needle into the boy's skin, carefully threading catgut through to hold the wound together. He could use a standard interrupted suture for this, he decided. The wound was relatively shallow, and that suture was the one he'd had the most practice with. With that decided, he carefully tied off the knot, and snipped the catgut at the base, before eyeing his work critically. The knot wasn't as tight as it could be, and there was just a tad too much excess material, but overall, it was acceptable. And the overall visual effect, the slight pinching on one side of the wound while the other gaped open, really was rather lovely. If he'd been doing this for fun, he'd have made his second knot on the other side of the wound, closing it on both ends for symmetry, but since this was a proper medical procedure, the needle dipped in just beside the last knot.

There was a soothing rhythm to this, a comfortable familiarity that broke through even his usual haze. Not the rush he craved, but it was something all the same. He kept his focus on keeping the stitches as even as possible, the length of each stitch approximately the distance between them. Every stitch or two, he paused to pour a ladle of water over the wound, clearing out the blood that seeped from it. "You're doing so well." He cooed as the boy sniffled. "Just a few more, alright?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Petricious scoff. As he closed the last stitch, he gave the boy an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Alright, stitches are all done. Now we just need to put on some salve so it heals nice and neat, and then a bandage to keep it clean."

"Seeing as the lad isn't paying for this, just the bandage will do." Kurin raised an eyebrow at that. That seemed odd. The boy wasn't paying for this? Pro-bono work didn't seem to fit the doctor's reputation. Still, he was new to the city, and this was his first meeting with the man, so he dismissed it.

"Alright, straight to bandages then. Sit up for me?" Urging the boy up, Kurin snagged a roll of bandages from a cabinet, and began to carefully dress the wound. No need to be too careful, since it was just to keep the stitches clean. A few turns from shoulder to hip, then a few more around the waist to secure it, and the whole thing tied off with a square knot. Checking the pressure, Kurin nodded, satisfied nothing was too tight, and moved on to the boy's broken arm.

"Splints are over there. Your third and eighth stitches were incorrectly crossed. They'll slip under pressure. And your knots could stand to be tighter. Less material in the body makes for a cleaner scar, and if the wound puckers up a little, the scar won't depress as much."

"And the type of knot?" Kurin asked, fetching the splint and ties.

"Hmph."

"Ah, I see." Kurin grinned at him. "I'll keep that in mind next time."

[Kurin Fell]

Ignoring the doctor's annoyed look, Kurin measured out a splint of the appropriate length, and carefully laid the broken arm along it, underside up. Gently feeling along the break, he frowned. "The bones are mostly in place, so I don't think I should risk trying to realign them any more. Alright, try to keep your arm flat along the board, just like that, there you go." A second splint went over the arm, and he gently pressed it down, checking that it was putting pressure at the proper angle. When he was satisfied, he used one hand to keep pressure on the splint, while the other bound the splints together on both sides of the break, close to the elbow and wrist respectively. His one handed knots were sloppy, but they did the job of keeping the splints in place initially. Then it was just a matter of adjusting and retying the knots where they were off center or too tight, slipping his littlest finger under each tie to make sure it wasn't cutting off circulation to the arm.

"Nothing much else I can do for those more internal injuries. Let's see, that's a minor concussion, a fractured rib, bitten tongue and muscle strain. I'd tell him to ice the strain every bell or so, maybe put a bandage on it to keep the swelling down. Ice the rib as well. Tongue will heal on its own, and the concussion..." Kurin shrugged. "I'll admit, I don't know much about healing brain injuries." His lips twisted into a grim smile at the irony of that. The doctor raised an eyebrow at that, but appeared to let it go for now.

"As I thought, inexperienced with more serious injuries. Well, not to worry. You'll soon have more of those to deal with than you'll know how to manage. Fighters at the Blood Pits seem rather partial to head wounds. You'll have to learn to splint and stitch quicker, too. Many of the pit injuries need to be treated with speed, not care. Learn continuous stitches too, you won't always have time for interrupted ones. And that" — he waved his hand dismissively — "soothing thing you do, you can dispense with it. I don't know what it was like wherever you were, but Sunberthians don't take well to coddling. I'd say to do away with the faux sympathy, but..."

The doctor stepped closer to Kurin, and cupped his chin, tilting his head to study his face for a tick. "Hmph. You really are genuine, aren't you? You're an odd one, to be sure. But you've proven you have potential. How fortunate for you. If I'd gone to all this effort of breaking this boy so carefully to test an incompetent, I'd have been very cross indeed."

He whirled suddenly away, and began to walk briskly towards the back of his clinic. "Come along, and bring the lad with you. You've proven yourself capable of half of our work here; let's see what else you can do. Watch the steps on your way down, and pay no mind to the screams."

Continued in The Torturer's Test

[Orakan]

Kurin Fell

Skills

● Socialisation - 3XP
● Observation - 5XP
● Rhetoric - 2XP
● Medicine - 5XP
● Investigation - 2XP
● Deduction - 2XP
● Interrogation - 2XP
● Intelligence - 1XP
● Caretaking - 2XP
● Leadership - 1XP

Lores
● Location: The Clinic
● Medicine: Conducting a basic examination
● Medicine: Assessing the severity of a stab wound
● Investigation: Feeling a patient for internal wounds
● Medicine: Getting feedback from a patient
● Medicine: Differentiating between a fracture and a contusion
● Medicine: Diagnosing a broken arm
● Doctor Petricious: Owns and operates The Clinic
● Doctor Petricious: Reputation for terror precedes him
● Exercise caution when using magic in Sunberth
● Medicine: Diagnosing a muscle injury
● Medicine: Never overlook the potential for a head injury if there is trauma present
● Medicine: Exercise caution with a patient when checking for spinal injuries
● Doctor Petricious: Has high expectations and is difficult to win over
● Medicine: Signs of blood loss
● Medicine: Cleansing a wound
● Medicine: Stitching up a wound
● Medicine: Simple interrupted suture best for clean, shallow cuts
● Medicine: Dressing a wound
● Medicine: Setting a break with a splint
● Sunberth: A violent city means a busy clinic

Comments

What a wonderfully written thread! I love your use and brilliant portrayal of the NPC as well as your handle of your character's skill levels. Thanks for the read! Do let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade and don't forget to delete/edit your request in the grading queue.