Players:
Summary: Travis comes to Angelo to ask for some education in the medical field.
Date: March 3, 2011
Log Title: Getting Education
Rating: G
Barnes Academy - Medical Center
The name medical 'office' rather undersells what his, in essence, a state of the art, high-tech and extremely well stocked medical bay and treatment center. There are always orderies and nurses in attendance to handle minor injuries and a doctor is always on call for more serious problems. In addition to a locked medicine storage facility, there are modules for isolating patients, a (hopefully never used) cryogenic storage and stasis module for preserving life (or bodies) when the local team can't stabilize a patient and a pair of ten bed infirmary modules attached to the main area. Each bed and exam table is equipped with the latest Stark-tech diagnostics gear.
Thursday is not the most busy day. All the stupid accidents happen on Monday, most of the unexpected accidents happen on Wednesday or Friday, and the random illnesses usually show up on Friday. So Thursday is statistically a good day for private lessons.
Angelo's in scrubs as usual, but unlike the normally pristine desktop, his workspace is covered with a bunch of small plastic models, realistic ones, and he's rapidly typing away at his monitor.
Wearing his custom Barnes uniform, Travis walks in to the Medical Center looking for Angelo. After the recent events in Mutant Town and Africa he's been doing some thinking and he figues the school Medic is the best person to talk to. "Hello Mr. diLucci, I was wondering if you have a few moments." Travis has been in the medbay to learn more about his healing powers in the past.
"Hello, Travis. Sure, pull up a chair. Is this about needing a checkup or about powers training?"
Angelo turns away from the keyboard and monitor and picks up one of the plastic models. It seems to be a stick or twig, made of flexible soft brownish plastic… but then he squeezes it and a seam appears, opening it to reveal that it's a hollow tube, with two sections, one smooth and open, the other lined with a yellowy puffy mass that restricts the opening.
Travis pulls up a chair and sits down folding two pairs of hands in his lap. "Kinda powers training. I want to learn more medical knowledge to help with my healing powers. Like I can heal a broken bone but it has to be set first so knowing things like that would be helpful. I know healing is just a sixth of my powers but it's been the most useful after what happened in Africa and with that woman in mutant town getting kidnapped." He looks curiously at what Angelo is doing quite cluess as to what it is.
That earns a smile from the medico. "Healing is a third of your powers, actually. Here's a secret, although it's not supposed to be. Some of what doctors do in general requires the ability to inflict harm. Removing a diseased organ, cutting into the body to get access to a blocked artery… oh, this is a model of a blocked artery, by the way. Even maintaining a healthy immune system, you need constant stresses of the right kind to keep it balanced."
Angelo gestures at the other models. "You caught me while I was reviewing anatomy for a test next week. Even with magic healing powers, it's better when I know what I'm doing with my own brain. So I'm becoming an actual doctor. So. Where would you like to start? What do you know already?"
"Well I know if you're bleeding put a band-aid on it." Travis says in a bit of humour. "Actually I don't really know much. I know to alternate heat and ice on a pulled muscel, I know if something is bleeding really bad you have to elevate it. Just basic first aid stuff. Nothing like what I do when I heal people."
"Good, then you don't have more than the usual preconceptions," Angelo says, putting the artery on the table near Travis and picking up something that looks like an apricot, with tubes coming out of it. While he rolls it from finger to finger, he asks, "What's it like when you heal people? Do you sense anything that guides the power, or does it just work by itself? I should have you heal someone so I can see what exactly goes on, I suppose. That would require you to be here on a Monday, most likely."
"Well it's only with this hand that I can heal people." Travis says lifting his bottom most right hand. "This one I can actually make people sick." In regards to his lower left hand. "But my hand glows blue and with in a short period of time I can heal someone. I can kinda feel cuts knit themselves back together but it's more a warmth I feel and that warmth is what is doing the work. It doesn't take much focus to do it."
Angelo puts the 'apricot' - actually a model prostate - back on the table, and temples his hands together, and peers across them, eyes flashing white for a moment as he glances at the young man's multiple arms.
"Right. This is a little complicated, Travis. I'd like to start by having you take some standard pre-med courses. Anatomy, Biology, and probably some surveys on pathology - that's the study of disease and injury - and a history of medicine. Meanwhile, I'm going to want to watch you heal a minor injury. That will tell me how much perception you have and whether it can be trained. And, eventually, I'm going to want you to use the hand that can harm, because I want to know whether you will be able to focus it to be useful for the other side of healing."
He smiles, but it's a bit grim. Medical school is intense. "This isn't going to be easy, if you want to do it right, but you can do it in stages. I'm proof of that. So, are you OK with this? If so I'll add the classes to your schedule, they'll be assisted self-study mostly, but I'll be your primary mentor if you wish."
"Well I don't mind taking the classes but I just want to say I don't think I want to be a doctor as a profession. I honestly don't know what I want to do yet but I think learning this stuff to know one aspect of my powers better is good." Travis says as it just sounds like a lot on top of all his other classes. "But I can definately be by Monday to help out and you can see how my power works." He doesn't mind doing that. "I just always had the idea that I'd be a baseball player, or I'd play for as long as I could but that kinda ended before I expected. Carpentry was always a fall back but it's hard cause of the six arms and with the other stuff."
"I very much understand that. If you don't have a calling for it, so to speak, becoming a doctor is … not good. I know a few people who wanted to be doctors so they could get rich. Bastards, all of them. You have a gift, though, and you want to be able to use it safely and correctly, so … the self-study is at your own pace. In a normal situation those courses would take one quarter, but," and Angelo does things with monitor, keyboard, and mouse, bringing up Travis' scholastic information. "I see that you're a pretty good student. I think you can do them in two quarters without messing up your social life and your other classes. If you find them interesting, that is. If not, we'll figure something out."
The smile is back; Angelo adds the classes as optional self-study, related to powers training, which unlocks the information for Travis to read and access on his own. Then serious-Angelo is back. "I would think that carpentry would be easier for you now… Have you been having issues with coordination?"
Travis shakes his head. "Actually, in regards to the arms, I'm a lot more coordinated now. I wasn't ambidexrious before, I was left handed but now none of the six are dominant. I felt a difference in them when I lost my powers like they were more weighty and a bit of difference in my coordination in my arms. It's not the lack of ease Sir that I was referring to, it was the fact that who wants to hire an obvious mutant. Also I'm an obvious mutant in the witness protection program sir." He says a bit awkwardly before taking a deep breath. "But I don't want to do this to be a doctor or for money but I find I like helping people."
Angelo nods. Those are good considerations, of course. "So being trained as a carpenter without unwanted complications, would be the issue. You do know that SHIELD has carpenters, right? I believe that as part of this school, they can even do the standard apprenticeship programs if you want to get that kind of certification. And they won't care if you're a mutant or a robot or a mythical beastie."
Of course they might yell at Ange for making that promise on their behalf, but they DID tell him 'we do anything necessary to teach our students what they need to know." Nothing secretly scary in THAT promise, is there?
That leads to a momentary pause, then Angelo asks, "So, what kind of carpenter? Large frame carpentry like housebuilding, or furniture and cabinet making? Because the latter two, you don't HAVE to take off your shirt in public and climb all over roofs."
"It's just I'm nineteen sir, I'm still thinking about it. A lots changed in the last year and I just want to see what's out there too. In regards to Carpentry, I've done both." Travis says. "I did some funiture building in High School and I had a job helping with carpentry work at a hospital before I came here. My father was a carpernter so I learned a lot from him." He says with a shrug. "But I just want to start studying more about first aid and anatomy."
"Of course. Some people know what they're going to do when they're five, some people don't ever get it. No big deal. But part of my job is to help you guys, the students here, to figure out what you want to do. Anyway, I've unlocked the self-study courses for you, and if you want, when you've gotten to the right parts, we can go over these anatomical models so you can get a better feel for things."
Angelo pauses and then says in confessional tones, "Those are pretty much the entry level courses, I had something very similar when I was studying for my EMT certifications, and I passed even when I was a student partying too much. Don't worry, but if you do better than I did, I won't be very surprised at all."
Travis stands up and offers a hand to Angelo. "Thank you very much sir. I'll probably be starting the self study soon and if I have any questions I'll ask you. I used to know what I wanted to do but like I said, a lot changed." He shrugs and offers a smile. "But ya gotta work with what ya got and really things aren't all that bad. Not like I'm on a time limit." He says. "I have to get to my training class now, thanks a lot Sir."
Angelo nods, sketching a salute, and returns to his studies. The boy might not have the gift or the calling but Angelo? He was going to be an M.D. dammit. And the test next week was one stepping stone on the way.
