A Day’s Work as the Sexy Head Doctor in a Medical Drama

Gaze upon my rugged good looks and not the patient bleeding out before me

Image Copyright: ABC. (Fair Use.)

I brief my team for the shift change. My eyes are a soulful blue-green, the color of the sea and the color of the zip ties we’re using to restrain a suspect in police custody with a bullet wound. The E.R. is in chaos. On top of the population genuinely experiencing medical emergencies, we’ve become a dumping ground for unhoused psych patients, individuals affected by a primary care provider shortage, and an onslaught of adult men committed to inserting foreign objects in their rectums. But look: when I reach for my first patient’s chart, my biceps bulge.

Unfortunately, we’ve learned that a woman’s insurance won’t reimburse for the medicine she needs and we have to discharge her without it. The bright fluorescents illuminate the depths of my baby blues as I relay the news. I put my firm, supportive hand on her arm. She smiles. I remember my oath: first, do no harm. Second, be sexy.

I screen a patient with a fever. “Your skin looks like it’s glowing,” he tells me. “Is that a symptom?” I tell him not to worry: I have a natural tan.

A woman is struggling to accept that her elderly father is dying, urging the team to do something. We have two options. One: we could perform a three million dollar operation that will most likely worsen his suffering, and make his last days hellish. Two: she could spend a few minutes with the chaplain down the hall to process the inevitability of death. I cross my arms below my muscular pecs while I explain, a tuft of chest hair emerging through the v-neck of my scrubs. “Actually, whatever you think,” she says–and swoons into my arms. “I feel a lot better now.” Sometimes all a patient’s loved one needs is a toned deltoid to cry on.

Dr. Gorgeous, my on-again off-again ex-wife, and I debride a burn together. The patient wants to know how much it will cost, so I explain that the finance department prices each treatment by throwing darts at a wall marked with different numbers and then adding $2000. When we’re finished, Dr. Gorgeous wants to talk to me in the hall. She removes her mask and cap to reveal a perfect blowout and a flawless lip gloss application. I turn away. I’m wounded, as all sexy people are, in the place medicine can’t heal.

A patient dies on the operating table. Reflected in the blade of a scalpel, my stern but still smoldering expression almost softens — almost.

A huge, throbbing transplant heart arrives on ice. I complete the transplant in thirty seconds, while a gaggle of onlookers observes from the bay.

Light reflects off the metal edges of two gurneys as two unvaccinated children with suspected measles arrive. The first is D.O.A. Life is so fleeting, like sexiness. I gaze into the distance mournfully, one hand stroking my dimpled chin.

I catch Dr. Gorgeous’s eye again as I palpate a woman’s abdomen. Women often see me and think: I can fix him. Like what politicians say about the healthcare system. They never do. Best we can do? Treat our patients with the sexiness the ill and dying deserve.

“Why is everyone here so good-looking and neat? Doctors shouldn’t look so rested,” a patient complains. “Did Bella Hadid just walk by? Am I losing it?” I give her the sultry gaze I used in the Dr. Hunk calendar shoot for pancreatic cancer awareness. An individual hero, when he’s the right kind of ruggedly good-looking, helps the medicine go down.

More charting. Our new AI transcription tool inaccurately records Celebrex as Celexa — oops! I chuckle hotly. Dr. Gorgeous clocks out with a backwards glance towards me — a glance that means: come over later. Amidst all this pain and suffering, sex appeal prevails. For a few hours after our shift, the chaos will belong to someone else. Catch my round glutes as I perform my last rounds.

***Kara Panzer** is a writer and comedian based in New York. Her work has been published in many discerning and tasteful outlets like this one. Yes, of course she has a website.*

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