Modern Medicine

June 10th, 2098. As my alarm clock sounds, I wake up suddenly with a bad feeling. Something terrible is going to happen today. As I walk downstairs I could smell my breakfast cooking. I miss the days that I cooked my own breakfast but the government installed new kitchen appliances that cook for you. I sit down and the news turns on. The news has been about the same thing for the past few years but the problem continues to get worse. More and more injuries and deaths are occurring thanks to the new technology. Whether it is car accidents and crashes as a result of earbuds and phone always being used or being so addicted to the television that one simply forgets to eat, bathe themselves and go to the bathroom. As an ER doctor they keep me in business, because unlike most other professions, they haven’t created a robot to take over my job.

After my breakfast I get dressed and I head out of the door. The hospital that I work at is only a half of a mile away from my house, but because they paved the sidewalks throughout town I now have to take the monorail to get to the hospital. As I enter the hospital I go through the sterilizing chamber, I come out smelling slightly like chemicals as if I were a piece of medical equipment that they were trying to sterilize. I go to the Emergency Response area of the hospital and it is as chaotic as ever but before I get started I have to check in. As I check in I take my beeper for the day, some things never change. Once I turn on my beeper, I am in the zone and ready to save lives.

Just moments after I turn my beeper on I get a call “paging Dr. Amit Horovitz, paging Dr. Amit Horovitz”. I rush over to the station where those who are hurt are brought in. The paramedic recites what has happened to the patient in a monotone manner and since it’s a computer I could not expect much from it. I take the patient to OR 3. The patient is a John Doe meaning it has not been identified. John Doe is a male at an unknown age and has not eaten or gone to the bathroom in what looks like two weeks. His face is covered in the latest technological gadgets and as a result and can barely see his face. I have no time to prep him, indubitably I have to cut into him right away. The surgery is going smoothly but now I have to repair his bowel.

“Doctor, do you need any instruments” the nurse asked calmly.

I frantically replied, “yes, a scalpel will be needed and an extraction tube.”

“No problem Doctor, here it comes.”
I am fixing this man without a hitch. I sew up his lower digestive tract and then the unexpected happened; his heart began failing.
“Nurse, nurse, I need the shock paddles right now”, I said as this man’s life is now on the line.

“Okay doctor, no pro…pr…p. Powering down now, plug me in.”

“What!” I exclaimed. “You cannot power down now, this man is going to die!”

Now I have to save this man’s life single handedly because my Chief Attending surgeon, Dr. Bitton, is in surgery himself. I knew that those nurses were a bad idea from this start. My biggest nightmare about them has come true. I run over to get the shock paddles but by the time I return, John Doe has died. The hard part happens now, trying to identify this man in order to call his family; the paramedics never seem to find the patient’s ID. As I begin the search, I find his wallet and check his ID. It says “Nadav Horovitz”. The second I read that I broke down in tears because I knew who I had to tell that their son died, my parents. Technology and I just killed my brother. I ran to the phone and called my mom and dad.
“Hey, why are you calling from work, you’re supposed to be working, that’s why it’s called work” my mom said as she picked up the phone.
“Put dad on the phone as well please, I have very sad news” I said while holding back my tears.
“Amit, what is so important” my dad spoke in his usual way.
“Nadav just died during surgery that I was performing on him because the nurse robot…”
My parents cut me off and yelled “You did what to our little boy? Don’t you dare try to blame it on the nurses either, it is all your fault!”
My parents then hung up. I ran away from the hospital and went back home on the monorail. On the quick ride home all I wanted to do was rip everyones headphones out of their ears but before anything violent happened, I arrived home. My house greeted me in a cheery tone. I began throwing things around my house and off of the walls. My kitchen looked like a mess. I ran upstairs and I couldn’t believe what I had done. I layed in my bed and stared at my ceiling hoping to wake up from this nightmare, but this was no nightmare, this was reality and reality is horrid.
June 10th, 2018. It has been twenty years since the incident and I still lay in my bed having never gone back to work. I appear sickly and weak. My house now brings my food upstairs and I only leave my room to spend time in the bathroom and showering. I am so depressed that I cannot take life anymore. Everyday I feel guilty for what I did and there is only one solution to ending this all. The solution is ending everything.