"The Flip Side of Medical"

[Guest Fiona Weber]

As far as she could think, there were few things that Fiona loathed more than playing the general practitioner. Actually, scratch that -- there was already something she'd thought of that she hated even more -- playing pediatrician. Her primary form of doctoring was sitting in front of a computer monitor, happily watching scan results and studying theoretical medicine. She hated battle medicine in another way -- but she disliked the concept, rather than the exact act. Battle medicine meant that something had gone wrong. Battle medicine meant that someone hadn't done their job.

 

Battle medicine also meant (in usual scenarios) that you didn't have noisy little progeny screeching around the lab, crying for food, crying for Mommy, crying because the lights were too bright... crying for reasons unknown to god and man...

 

Johnson's offspring -- and dealing with said offspring -- was going to send her off the deep end far before her time. Why they even allowed families on starships at all escaped Fiona's reasoning. It became a risk -- your family became more important than your duty. She always came back to the perennial scenario: in event of a crisis, did one save his or her family, or crewmates? And again, you had the hassle to the ship's doctor...

 

Oh well. Maybe one day she'd be some high mucky-muck and have the chance to change those rules. And therefore become unpopular. Otherwise, she could always find some high mucky-muck to blame it on.

 

... the future looked good.