To Be of Use: Called
Title: To Be of Use: Called
Pairings: None. House, Wilson friendship.
Warnings: Some angst.
Summary: Begins 5 years after season 7 finale. The latest applicant for the PPTH dean of medicine position (a female original character) has some baggage, and an unusual approach to job research. Originally posted on House-Wilson as a one-shot.
Disclaimer: Oh, please. Like I’m David Shore. Like anyone would pay me for this.
Author's note: This deviates from canon at the start of season 8 and will be told from the POV of an original female character.
They are so very, very civilized, she thinks. So well groomed, so self-assured.
Still oddly uncomfortable in enclosed spaces, she wills herself calm. Daniel had only faith in the lion’s den, she reminds herself; she has two post-graduate degrees and twenty years’ experience working in the most misbegotten places, with the world’s most broken people.
All things considered, she’d rather have the faith.
The unceremonious opening of the conference room door breaks the brittle civility of the occasion as one lone savage limps in. He’s rumpled, unshaven, leaning heavily on a cane, bearing his scars and his age defiantly. She’s happy to see him; he looks real.
There is a whisper in her soul’s ear: Be good to this child of Mine. Someone else wasn’t.
“You’re late, House,” the man beside her says.
“You’re religious,” this man says to her, taking the seat at the end of the table and scowling at the crucifix around her neck as if he heard her conscience and resents it.
Next to him, the head of oncology fidgets nervously. “House,”
“Deeply,” she responds.
House only intensifies his scrutiny.
The oncologist, Wilson, lowers his eyes and turns his head away from the brute, the way she’s seen hungry people avert their eyes from food, the way small deprived children reach out to - almost, but not quite - touch a shiny toy, terrified of what might happen if they dare believe it’s really theirs to keep.
It amuses her that there is such deliberation, that they all pay such attention to meaningless detail, without even mentioning the primary fact of the situation: that she has, to the astonishment and amusement of all of her family and friends, applied for a job that not one candidate has been able to successfully perform in the last five years, -- and which also, just in case they weren’t completely certain she’d taken leave of her senses, happens to be located in New Jersey.
She catches her mind drifting. When you’ve spent your life doing things that no one else wants to do and doing them well, the interview skills do tend to atrophy.
She endures a list of her accomplishments, the awards she’s received from humanitarian organizations, and the pedigrees from safe, moneyed institutions like this one. She does not add to this list the survival skills she’s learned, the times her heart has been broken, or the times she’s peed in her pants or fallen asleep standing up.
“Why are you here?” one of them asks, and she says, with a resigned smile, “Because I’m tired.” She does not say of what, and no one asks her.
She discusses, in no particular order, their difficulties, and their conceits. The patients in the clinic are not impressed by, or even aware of, the world-class credentials of the faculty; they just want to get well. They only need four full time internists and a few nurse practitioners for that. The advertising budget is lavish relative to fundraising resources, and features not the top-notch facilities or the patients who benefit from them, but the wealthy doctors paid to inhabit them. There is, appallingly, no one in charge of grant writing. The legal department is demoralized. The billing structure favors procedures over human interaction. The nursing staff has no representation on the board and enjoys little autonomy, yet bears the lion’s share of responsibility for patient care. The medical school admissions and curriculum standards are not integrated; they aren’t even synchronized. The long-time dean of instruction has a history of confusing new with worthwhile, and his proposal to institute changes in the course of matriculation seems to serve no purpose save justifying his position. Research is routinely shortchanged to the extent that even low-lying federal grant dollars go unclaimed. Virtually every computer station in the hospital runs on different technology than every other, and they’re often incompatible. There is no online appointment calendar and referral system, which significantly magnifies administrative salary costs and inconveniences patients. Uncompensated care is kicking their asses.
And the coffee in the doctor’s lounge is abysmal.
“Dr Tichenor,” House exclaims, and he smacks the conference table sharply, triumphantly. “Tichenor. I’m an idiot.”
She freezes, but just for an instant. She’s not accustomed to being caught; she likes it much more than she expected she would.
“I didn’t realize that you were a child of the South, Doctor House,” she says, inclining her head slightly.
“And I didn’t realize you were a spy. Your accent gets thicker when you’re lying,” he tells her. “That’s why you kept your answers short, when anyone tried to small-talk you. You should work on that.”
Taking pity on the rest of the board, who are now exchanging confused, wary looks with one another, she explains. “Dr Tichenor’s is the brand name of a medicinal tonic sold in Louisiana and Mississippi. I’ve been using that name as I,”
“Eavesdrop,” House accuses. “You’ve been here all week, with a fake ID badge - in the pharmacy line, the waiting area in the clinic, the cafeteria, the doctor’s lounge, the radiology station, the hospital library. The damned gift shop.”
“ -- research Princeton-Plainsboro,” she corrects. “You’d be surprised what you can learn when you listen to employees when they think no one from management is listening.”
“I had a grandmother who put Doctor Tichenor’s on everything,” House supplies, almost fondly. “Sore throat? Hold your nose and take a couple of teaspoons of Doc Tichenor’s. Stepped on a fish hook? Pull that sucker out and pour some Dr Tichenor’s on it. That shit burns.” His mouth turns up at the corners. “Nice choice for an alias, though. Is it a metaphor?”
She does not speak figurative language. She has very little patience for the courtesy of euphemism, and has never seen the point of embellishment. Things are, what they are. Words mean what they mean, and not what we would like them to mean.
But she thinks for a moment and says:
“On a day when you’ve been up since seven and have to drive until ten and feel like the wrath of God, you might pick up one of those really tiny bottles of Dr Tichenor’s at a gas station, thinking it would be a good idea to rinse out your mouth with it.
"But. Mind, that’s not a single dose of Dr Tichenor’s. It’s a concentrate that makes twelve doses of Dr Tichenor’s.
"It's like Judgment Day in your mouth, or a kind of nuclear reactor meltdown. Your eyeballs sort of roll back in your head and your hair stands on end and you somehow scream despite the way your mouth feels like it's full of live electric eels.
"And then you spit it all out and stare wide-eyed at the pavement as though you expected the substance to glow with a strange alien fury, and you experience a soft fuzzy feeling, as if all the cells in your mouth had had their membranes stripped and were sadly leaking away the mitochondria, which give you one, last reproachful look before they dissolve into their component proteins.”
House has his arms crossed over his chest and is looking at her with something that might be horror, and might just be mild interest; she doesn’t know him well enough yet to know whether there’s a difference. Everyone but Wilson is trying to feign amusement.
Wilson is watching House, and the principle feature of his expression is profound relief.
She enunciates precisely. “There is no metaphor, Doctor House. You have to read the label. You have to read the whole label.”
The salary and benefits offer beats her home.
Pairings: None. House, Wilson friendship.
Warnings: Some angst.
Summary: Begins 5 years after season 7 finale. The latest applicant for the PPTH dean of medicine position (a female original character) has some baggage, and an unusual approach to job research. Originally posted on House-Wilson as a one-shot.
Disclaimer: Oh, please. Like I’m David Shore. Like anyone would pay me for this.
Author's note: This deviates from canon at the start of season 8 and will be told from the POV of an original female character.
They are so very, very civilized, she thinks. So well groomed, so self-assured.
Still oddly uncomfortable in enclosed spaces, she wills herself calm. Daniel had only faith in the lion’s den, she reminds herself; she has two post-graduate degrees and twenty years’ experience working in the most misbegotten places, with the world’s most broken people.
All things considered, she’d rather have the faith.
The unceremonious opening of the conference room door breaks the brittle civility of the occasion as one lone savage limps in. He’s rumpled, unshaven, leaning heavily on a cane, bearing his scars and his age defiantly. She’s happy to see him; he looks real.
There is a whisper in her soul’s ear: Be good to this child of Mine. Someone else wasn’t.
“You’re late, House,” the man beside her says.
“You’re religious,” this man says to her, taking the seat at the end of the table and scowling at the crucifix around her neck as if he heard her conscience and resents it.
Next to him, the head of oncology fidgets nervously. “House,”
“Deeply,” she responds.
House only intensifies his scrutiny.
The oncologist, Wilson, lowers his eyes and turns his head away from the brute, the way she’s seen hungry people avert their eyes from food, the way small deprived children reach out to - almost, but not quite - touch a shiny toy, terrified of what might happen if they dare believe it’s really theirs to keep.
It amuses her that there is such deliberation, that they all pay such attention to meaningless detail, without even mentioning the primary fact of the situation: that she has, to the astonishment and amusement of all of her family and friends, applied for a job that not one candidate has been able to successfully perform in the last five years, -- and which also, just in case they weren’t completely certain she’d taken leave of her senses, happens to be located in New Jersey.
She catches her mind drifting. When you’ve spent your life doing things that no one else wants to do and doing them well, the interview skills do tend to atrophy.
She endures a list of her accomplishments, the awards she’s received from humanitarian organizations, and the pedigrees from safe, moneyed institutions like this one. She does not add to this list the survival skills she’s learned, the times her heart has been broken, or the times she’s peed in her pants or fallen asleep standing up.
“Why are you here?” one of them asks, and she says, with a resigned smile, “Because I’m tired.” She does not say of what, and no one asks her.
She discusses, in no particular order, their difficulties, and their conceits. The patients in the clinic are not impressed by, or even aware of, the world-class credentials of the faculty; they just want to get well. They only need four full time internists and a few nurse practitioners for that. The advertising budget is lavish relative to fundraising resources, and features not the top-notch facilities or the patients who benefit from them, but the wealthy doctors paid to inhabit them. There is, appallingly, no one in charge of grant writing. The legal department is demoralized. The billing structure favors procedures over human interaction. The nursing staff has no representation on the board and enjoys little autonomy, yet bears the lion’s share of responsibility for patient care. The medical school admissions and curriculum standards are not integrated; they aren’t even synchronized. The long-time dean of instruction has a history of confusing new with worthwhile, and his proposal to institute changes in the course of matriculation seems to serve no purpose save justifying his position. Research is routinely shortchanged to the extent that even low-lying federal grant dollars go unclaimed. Virtually every computer station in the hospital runs on different technology than every other, and they’re often incompatible. There is no online appointment calendar and referral system, which significantly magnifies administrative salary costs and inconveniences patients. Uncompensated care is kicking their asses.
And the coffee in the doctor’s lounge is abysmal.
“Dr Tichenor,” House exclaims, and he smacks the conference table sharply, triumphantly. “Tichenor. I’m an idiot.”
She freezes, but just for an instant. She’s not accustomed to being caught; she likes it much more than she expected she would.
“I didn’t realize that you were a child of the South, Doctor House,” she says, inclining her head slightly.
“And I didn’t realize you were a spy. Your accent gets thicker when you’re lying,” he tells her. “That’s why you kept your answers short, when anyone tried to small-talk you. You should work on that.”
Taking pity on the rest of the board, who are now exchanging confused, wary looks with one another, she explains. “Dr Tichenor’s is the brand name of a medicinal tonic sold in Louisiana and Mississippi. I’ve been using that name as I,”
“Eavesdrop,” House accuses. “You’ve been here all week, with a fake ID badge - in the pharmacy line, the waiting area in the clinic, the cafeteria, the doctor’s lounge, the radiology station, the hospital library. The damned gift shop.”
“ -- research Princeton-Plainsboro,” she corrects. “You’d be surprised what you can learn when you listen to employees when they think no one from management is listening.”
“I had a grandmother who put Doctor Tichenor’s on everything,” House supplies, almost fondly. “Sore throat? Hold your nose and take a couple of teaspoons of Doc Tichenor’s. Stepped on a fish hook? Pull that sucker out and pour some Dr Tichenor’s on it. That shit burns.” His mouth turns up at the corners. “Nice choice for an alias, though. Is it a metaphor?”
She does not speak figurative language. She has very little patience for the courtesy of euphemism, and has never seen the point of embellishment. Things are, what they are. Words mean what they mean, and not what we would like them to mean.
But she thinks for a moment and says:
“On a day when you’ve been up since seven and have to drive until ten and feel like the wrath of God, you might pick up one of those really tiny bottles of Dr Tichenor’s at a gas station, thinking it would be a good idea to rinse out your mouth with it.
"But. Mind, that’s not a single dose of Dr Tichenor’s. It’s a concentrate that makes twelve doses of Dr Tichenor’s.
"It's like Judgment Day in your mouth, or a kind of nuclear reactor meltdown. Your eyeballs sort of roll back in your head and your hair stands on end and you somehow scream despite the way your mouth feels like it's full of live electric eels.
"And then you spit it all out and stare wide-eyed at the pavement as though you expected the substance to glow with a strange alien fury, and you experience a soft fuzzy feeling, as if all the cells in your mouth had had their membranes stripped and were sadly leaking away the mitochondria, which give you one, last reproachful look before they dissolve into their component proteins.”
House has his arms crossed over his chest and is looking at her with something that might be horror, and might just be mild interest; she doesn’t know him well enough yet to know whether there’s a difference. Everyone but Wilson is trying to feign amusement.
Wilson is watching House, and the principle feature of his expression is profound relief.
She enunciates precisely. “There is no metaphor, Doctor House. You have to read the label. You have to read the whole label.”
The salary and benefits offer beats her home.