<strong>Kate Frost, Explaining GOMERs to Amaya Foreman in B Ward</strong><br/><br/>Pushing open the door, Kate stepped into B Ward, looked immediately to her right … and saw dear Mrs. Staudemeyer lying there, draped on the bed. Her skin was pallid and grey, same as it always was. Kate forced herself to smile. Already, Dr. Harris was giving her the signal –<em>get over here and take care of this.</em><br/><br/>“Dr. Harris, good to see you,” Kate said. She liked Dr. Harris, or Mox, as she better knew him. He was a little rough, but Kate liked guys like that. “Meet Nurse Foreman, she’s new … just like some of the other fresh meat that’s apparently joined your ranks.” She looked over some of the new doctors, fighting back the urge to lick her lips.<em>Female doctors … and one’s a smoking hot Latina! And a hot black guy too … yummy.</em><br/><br/>Kate shook her head, bringing herself back to reality. She looked at her patient.<br/><br/>“Hello Mrs. Staudemeyer … so we meet again!” Kate said, through half-gritted teeth. “It’s been, what, a day since we sent you over to Radiology?” She picked up the chart hanging from the end of the bed, and glanced over the notes scribbled on it. “And they … didn’t … find … anything … wrong. Of course they didn’t. That’s just<em>peachy</em>.”<br/><br/>Kate turned her attention to Mox. “Figure we’ll run some basic tests, then?” she asked the doctor. “Or did you have something specific in mind?”<br/><br/>Kate looked back over at Amaya, ignoring her assigned patient for a moment. “Mrs. Staudemeyer is what we call a gomer, or a gomere – Get Out Of My Emergency Room,” she said quietly. “Haven’t found anything wrong with her … and we probably won’t. At least not anything we can properly fix. She’s simply, old, she’s not well, and to be honest, right now she’s keeping us for giving proper attention to other more serious patients. So today we’ll do some bloodwork, get some results, and find an excuse to send her to a different department. And hopefully, they can officially send her home.”<br/><br/>Kate shrugged. “Sounds weird, I know … but believe me, it’s for her own good. I learned that from the Fat Man.” She pointed up towards Dr. Goldwasser, making his rounds through B Ward. “That’s Dr. Goldwasser, but everyone calls him the Fat Man. The man’s a genius, and one of the best doctors here. Pay attention to what he says.”<br/><br/>Kate’s fingers drummed rapidly against her clipboard. “Amaya, why don’t you take Mrs. Staudemeyer’s blood pressure? Let’s see if it’s still high.” She moved out of Amaya’s way, standing opposite the new nurse on the other side of her elderly patient’s bed.<br/><br/>“Mrs. Staudemeyer has nine cats, they love apples and wheat germ,” Kate said sweetly, even as she gave her patient a withering look. “And mashed potatoes talk to her in tongues, isn’t that right? Anything else I missed, or do you have any new nuggets of wisdom for us today, dear? This is Nurse Foreman, by the way. Be nice to her, she’s new and she’s the best thing that’s happened to me today.”