SCENE 7
The following afternoon. Scene opens at restaurant table. Carolyn is sitting alone, contemplative, faintly smiling. Her eyes light up as Richard approaches. Richard sits down as he addresses her.
Richard
warmly
Hey.
Carolyn
Even more warmly, with a big smile
Hi.
Richard
Sorry I’m late. I was applying some sort of cream to a rash my roommate couldn’t reach himself.
Carolyn
How did you meet, um..
Richard
Skeeter? I did a roommate hunt on the internet. He described himself as “Gentle nonsmoker.”
Carolyn
Wow.
Richard
How was Debbie feeling this morning?
Carolyn
She had an awful headache.
Richard
Yeah, she looked like she had more than her share of drinks last night.
Carolyn
That had nothing to do with it. She always has a headache the morning after she doesn’t meet any “nice people.”
Carolyn make rabbit-ear quotes with her hands
Richard
Confused, makes the quotes with his fingers, too
“nice people?”
Carolyn
Never mind. Richard Cartwright, what have you been doing with yourself? What happened to you after high school?
Richard
Well I went to college and everything.
Carolyn
You always talked about medicine.
Richard
I feel like I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.
Carolyn
Why?
Richard
I dunno.
Carolyn waits for a better answer.
Richard
It’s such a great profession.
Carolyn is still not satisfied.
Richard
I don’t know, there’s something about doctors, I mean..I don’t know.
Carolyn
That’s what you told your interviewers?
Richard
chuckles
I told them I want to help people.
Carolyn
You don’t want to help people?
Richard
Of course I want to help people.
Richard wants to redirect the conversation, he mocks the interviewers:
“What attracts you to medicine, Ms. Kensington?”
Cut to interview scene, Carolyn and her interviewer in the interviewer’s office.
Carolyn
She contemplates for a moment and is sincere in her answer
I’m attracted to medicine because I’m capable of pursuing medicine.
The interviewer looks at her expectantly, as if to say, “please go on.”
Carolyn
Life has treated me well, Dr. Cox, and I resent that. I spend a lot of energy coping with upper class guilt. I’ve volunteered all my free time away, worked for a dozen nonprofits, rallied, campaigned..
Dr. Cox holds up her application.
Dr. cox
So I’ve noticed.
Carolyn
Medicine is for me.
Dr. Cox
For you.
Carolyn
Health is the primary good, it is the asset upon which all
other assets are built. What could possibly be more interesting, more
fulfilling, than learning to preserve it?
Dr. cox
Nothing.
Cut back to restaurant scene.
Carolyn
resigned
I told them I want to help people.
Richard
What else is there to say?
Pause
I suppose everyone’s got their own reasons for going to med school, but none of them are going to get you into med school.
Carolyn
Well I definitely agree that the process of getting into medical school is sickening.
Richard
It’s a game.
Carolyn
Such a game.
Richard
But you have to look at it from their perspective.
Carolyn
Who are “they?”
Richard
You know, them, not us. The admissions people. There are a lot more applicants than spots, so how do you deal with that?
Carolyn
You reduce a person to a number.
Richard
You’re not being fair.
Carolyn
You’re right: you reduce a person to two numbers. Richard, did you try to socialize with our new classmates last night?
Richard
I spent most of the evening trying to find a bathroom.
Carolyn
I understand that we need surgeons, but lord have mercy, I mean I thought the whole point of the interview was to verify that an applicant is capable of communicating.
Richard
You have to wonder what goes on behind those closed doors.
Cut to behind those closed doors: a conference room with a dozen faculty members around a large table with large stacks of folders that represent applications.
Dr. kerman
Presenting to the rest of the group
This applicant is a 24 year old white female, with a history of two years in the peace corps, two first-author papers and proficiency in four languages, who presents to this committee for the second time in two years. She was in her usual state of career indecision until three years prior to presentation, when she reports that during her tenure in the corps, where she built houses and improved sanitation for an indigenous central american village, she was inspired by the native faith healers to devote her life to the care of the sick. She has a family history remarkable for a maternal pathologist. She denies bad habits including having a personality and consorting with lawyers. She is positive for volunteer experience, alpha epsilon delta honor society, and basic science research.
Her vital signs are remarkable for an GPA of 3.6 and an MCAT 27. Physical exam is remarkable for a well-developed caucasian woman without obvious physical deformities or deficits.
Dr. Kopel
Any history of previous MCAT scores?
Dr. kerman
She scored a 27 in August of last year as well.
dr. blumberg
Hmmm. Therapy, which I’m sure consisted of a broad-spectrum review coarse, was ineffective at raising her score.
dr. kerman
She may have been noncompliant with her therapeutic regimen.
dr. funk
That’s an important point Dr. Kerman.
Dr. wolf
There was an issue in her region, I’m not sure if it was at her testing site, regarding a very noisy test-taker that was shown to be statistically significant in lowering the scores of the other examinees.
Dr. Seldin
The senior faculty member, in charge
Let us focus our attention on horses and not zebras, Dr. Wolf.
Dr. funk
This is an unfortunate case. Her vital signs are unresponsive to therapy, which is predictive of a poor outcome. Did we uncover her mother’s MCAT score?
Dr. Wolf
Twenty-eight.
The committee members shake their head disappointedly. Dr. Kerman puts the file in a large stack of rejects. He picks up the next file.
Dr. Seldin
Dr. Kerman, I know this is your first time on the committee, but if you could please abbreviate your presentation to include only the aspects of the case that will change our management we would all be grateful.
Dr. Kerman
Yessir. This applicant is a 42 year old male who, after discovering and implementing the vaccine, eradicated a rare filavirus that threatened to wipe out an entire African tribe. GPA 3.8 and MCAT 26.
The group grumbles, moans, and shakes their heads on hearing this MCAT score.
Dr. Kerman
I would like to remind the committee that an MCAT of 26 is at the upper limit of normal for this age group.
Dr. Funk
An important consideration. How many nontraditional students did our lawyers mandate?
Dr. Blumberg
Twelve.
DR. kopel
Don’t forget that 34 year old with one arm – they said he counts as two nontraditional students.
Dr. Blumberg
We’re capped.
Dr. Kerman puts the folder into the reject stack. He picks up the next folder and addresses the group.
dr. kerman
This is a 22 year old who presents with an MCAT of 37.
The group nods and voices their unified approval. The folder goes in a much smaller accept stack. Next folder.
Dr. kerman
Slowly and clearly
This is a 24 year old female who in middle school chemistry class devised a proof for a fifth state of matter and later verified its existence on one of the moons of Saturn. She also discovered a new element and named it after her cat, who survives to this day at the age of 29 due to our applicant’s harvesting the organs of recently deceased cats in her neighborhood and successfully transplanting them using immunosuppressants derived from plants in her aunt’s garden. Additionally she runs a homeless shelter, is a top-ranked chess player, an olympic decathlete,
As Dr. Kerman continues the committee is visibly bored. Dr. Funk motions to speed things up.
Dr. Kerman
..and a virtuoso of the quamabeh, an instrument played only by Australian aborigines. She was selected as a youth ambassador to the United Nations and in 1997 brokered an agreement between three Mongolian factions that had been at war for over three thousand years. Her college thesis proved that greenhouse gasses cause small cosmic pressure zones that shift the axis of planetary orbits by one tenth of one degree every six thousand years; based on this discovery, starting in the year 2010, there will be an extra day added to November. She invented a perpetual motion machine and since the age of 11, after the tragic death of both her parents in a hot air balloon accident, has supported her four retarded siblings by working full time as a cocktail waitress-
Dr. Seldin
Sternly
Dr. Kerman!
Dr. Kerman
Earlier this year she walked on the moon.
Dr. Seldin
Vital signs Dr. Kerman!!
Dr. kerman
GPA 3.94 MCAT 29.
The committee members shake their heads, obviously frustrated. They want to accept her, but they just can’t.
Dr. Kerman
She is documented to have very severe dyslexia but refused to take an untimed MCAT.
Dr. Funk
Andy, what is the average MCAT score Baylor is reporting for this year’s acceptees?
Dr. Kopel
33.42
Dr. Funk loses it.
Dr. Funk
Impossible!!
He pounds on the table
Thirty-three point four two! That’s fully twenty-two one hundredths of a point over last year!
He stands
They must be falsifying data!
He turns to Dr. Seldin
Don, can you imagine any way they could have achieved that kind of MCATtage?
Dr. Seldin motions for Dr. Funk to calm down. Dr. Funk sits back down, exasperated.
Dr. Funk
Shaking his head
Thirty three point four two.
Dr. Seldin
I’m afraid she’s simply not Southwestern material.
Cut back to restaurant scene. Time has passed, and their table is littered with used dishes. They are laughing and shaking their heads. Carolyn gazes longingly at Richard.
Carolyn
Whatever happened to that guy who was talking about medicine in 8th grade..from Mrs. Buxbaum’s homeroom?
Richard
Brian Randolph?
Carolyn
Yes. He’s the one who wouldn’t play sports because he wanted to be a surgeon and wouldn’t risk injuring his hands. He went to Eugene with you, right?
Richard
Yeah. He’s back in Portland. He’s a manager at the Gap.
Carolyn
Drastic career shift.
Richard
He was a great student, too. I have no idea why he couldn’t get in.
Carolyn
I know tons people like that. Tons of super people who were totally qualified and can have a conversation at a party.
Richard
Tons of people who were better qualified than me. I have no idea why I got in.
Carolyn
It makes you want to be a totally stellar med student, sort of as a tribute to them.
Richard
Speak for yourself, it makes me insecure.
They both laugh at this remark. Richard laughs sheepishly, Carolyn is falling in love but conceals it save that glint in her eyes.
Carolyn
You have survivor guilt.
Richard
I have imposter guilt.
Pause.
Carolyn
Gross anatomy starts tomorrow.
Richard
Nodding
It sure does.
Cut to black.