Dr. Alex Boston

Alex Boston had stacked up medical degrees from premier medical colleges, but he was

best known for his degree in attitude from God knows where. He walked the hallways of

Medhotist Hospital with a confidence not seen in doctors three decades older and much wiser.

His peers said he was arrogant because he belonged to a family of remarkable doctors and

extraordinary businessmen. His father was the country's leading Cardiologist his mom, a

sensitive and highly popular psychiatrist amongst rich, bored and horny housewives, and his

older sister, a paediatrician whose average day was littered with appointments with

celebrities—medicine and excellence ran in his blood.

But the arrogance didn't stem from his impressive background. He just knew he was that

good.

And he knew he wasn't just a jerk. Had he been one, he would have worked in the chain

of hospitals his father had amassed in the last twenty years. He would have been sitting

pretty in a corner office with a few brilliant doctors working under him, doing whatever he

would have asked them to. But he didn't choose to be that, instead he chose to work out the

grind and prove his worth every minute of every hour in a hospital where he held no

influence. He had earned every bit of the reputation that he had got himself in the last three

years. His sincere good looks—he stood at six feet, had short hair and wore expensive

rimless spectacles—and savage drive to succeed had helped.

'So, you look like you made someone's life hell today,' Maria said as Alex approached

her.

'Hell? Guys like him make their own lives hell and come here with diseases which I have

no intentions to diagnose or treat. It's a waste of resources,' he said and added with an evil

smile, 'I was praying he wouldn't wake up. Wouldn't that have been so much better?'

'You wished he would die?'she asked, shocked. Just a few weeks had passed of her

internship under Alex and she was still trying to come to terms with the genius doctor's

behavioural eccentricities. Alex knew he wasn't the best boss or the most cooperative of

colleagues to have. But he believed it was other people's liability to accept him for what he

was. He was, after all, a rare genius.

'Don't you think he should die? A guy who cracks a competitive exam to a good

MBA college only to drink and smoke himself to death. Should he live? Or should the

people who die on the streets be given that chance?'

'Well, they can't afford it,' Maria retorted, trying to outsmart him.

'I don't care about them. But the guy on that bed doesn't deserve to live,' he answered.

'Imagine what his parents must go through. Disgrace.'

Seinna Thomas Age 20. Alex saw Maria's eyes rivet on the file. She didn't move a

muscle.

'Is there a problem?' he asked.

'She has ALS? As in Lou Gehrig's disease?'

Alex could sense the shock in her voice—a definite marker of a young, inexperienced

doctor. He had expected it. When he had first heard about the case, he had felt the same

thing. Shock. Disbelief. Pity.

'Yes, why do you look shocked?'

'Isn't it something that afflicts people over the age of forty? She is just twenty.'

'That's what makes it interesting. Have you heard about Stephen Hawking?'

'The super-genius scientist? The wheelchair-bound physicist who can't talk any more?'

she asked, just to be sure.

'Yes, the same guy. He was diagnosed at the age of twenty-one. Doctors said he had three

years. It has been forty years since then. His disease was progressing slowly. Hers, on the

other hand,' he pointed to the file, 'is progressing at a faster rate. She was diagnosed one

year back and she might not make it through the next three months.'

'What do we do? There is no cure, right?'

'No, there is not. I am on the research panel trying to find one. Let's see what happens.

We will decide when the right time comes,' he said and got back to his work. He had no

intentions of indulging in a 'poor girl' type conversation with Maria. Clearly, Maria was

stunned and her face contorted to signify the pity she felt for the twenty-year-old dying

girl.

Maria had studied to be in the noble profession and save lives and get people healthy, but

she never really had the heart to overlook the pain of sick people in the first place. It

reminded her of her own angst. She felt sorry for Seinna, and for the bastard who lay in the

room with a damaged liver.