To hell and back

Posted on 17 Nov 2014 @ 3:46am by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle

2,854 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Counselor's office
Timeline: MD -26 - 1600 hours

[ON]

"Doctor Carlisle," called out Tuula, as soon as the doors to the counselor's office opened. After how badly her last visit here went, she was surprised to find herself here again. But she had been so shaken by the events of the day before that she needed someone to talk to, and talking to distressed officers was Delainey's job. "Doctor Carlisle?" she called out again, hearing movement in an adjoining room.

Fortunately, the other woman was not in session, but when she emerged from the office, Carlisle was no less alarmed. "Tuula? What's wrong? Did I forget we had an appointment?"

"No, no..." replied Tuula. "I just... I had a bad day earlier, and I was hoping, if you didn't have any appointments, I could drop in and talk to you about it." There was a lot of nervousness in her voice, in part because of the gravity of the situation and in part because here she was, voluntarily subjecting herself once again to the hell that was counselling. "I can come back later if you're busy," she quickly added, so as to avoid coming on too strong and intruding on Dr. Carlisle's practice.

Delainey knew if Tuula was asking to see her , something serious must have happened. After their first session, it didn't take a therapist to know the last place the doctor wanted to be was in front of Carlisle. "No, it's fine. I cleared my schedule some in anticipation that people might need to talk after the Away Team. Let's go to my office and we can talk."

"Okay," said Tuula as she entered the gates of hell. She found herself a spot next to Delainey's couch and started talking. "I don't know if you saw, the whole situation with the non-critical patients is kind of a blur. But I was doing surgery the other day when..." Tuula bit her lip. "When the commodore came in."

"I heard about that," Delainey offered with a nod, "though I wasn't there and was busy myself. Will you tell me what happened exactly? I'm afraid the re-telling of it all has made everything a bit unclear."

"Everyone's talking about it," acknowledged Tuula. Her mind was racing, and she could barely stay coherent. "I had to do a surgery on Petty Officer Hex, to save her life. But things got bloody... and then they got messy, when the Commodore came in. We had an argument and she pulled a phaser on me. And now..." Tuula took a deep breath, she could barely concentrate on what she was saying. "This isn't going well, Delainey. I've only been on board the ship a few days and already I've pissed off the entire command staff, and everyone on board thinks I'm some kind of psychotic butcher."

"It sounds like a very chaotic situation on top of an already chaotic situation," Delainey acknowledged. "Why would anyone think you psychotic? It sounds like you were the victim."

Tuula took a deep breath. "Two things. First, the surgery was really bloody. I had to cut her open and repair lacerations to her intestines. People aren't used to seeing that. They didn't see that I was doing what was necessary to save her life, they just saw me as some crazy person cutting someone open. I even overheard someone in the mess hall refer to me as 'Dr. Bathory.' No one gets it, not the commodore, not the executive officer who just belittled and bullied us all in front of our colleagues, and not even Jaana."

Delainey paused. She wasn't there, so she couldn't speak to what was medically necessary, but she felt like there was more to the story. "So, you said she saw what you were doing and you argued. What were you arguing about? What did the two of you say?"

"She got in my way. She grabbed my arm in the middle of surgery." Tuula held her forehead in her hands and shook her head. "I got angry. I didn't realize who she was, and told her that unless she is a qualified surgeon she should 'f*** off' and let me work. And then she pointed a phaser at me... and then we started arguing again after, when she wouldn't just leave me alone and let me work." Tuula took a deep breath. "This isn't like me, I haven't been this angry since... well, since I saw Zuwtt two days ago."

Delainey inwardly winced when she heard what Tuula had said to the Commodore. She understood it was an emotional time for everyone and that Lirha should not have interfered with a medical procedure and then pulled a weapon, but that kind of language was uncalled for, whether directed at a civilian or the Commander in Chief of Starfleet. Carlisle was most interested, for the moment, at least, in how Tuula attributed her behavior. "How were you feeling before the Commodore arrived?" Delainey wondered if Tuula was admitting to feeling angry all along or if the argument with Lirha triggered feelings related to Zuwtt.

"I don't know," started Tuula. "It's just so stressful, starting a new assignment, trying to impress people and show them that I know what I'm doing. And then having him show up." She took a deep breath. "I guess I didn't impress anyone the other day, did I?"

"It doesn't sound like you came too close to that no," Delainey replied. "Granted, it sounds like everyone could have made better choices, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth exploring what you could have done differently to manage your stress more effectively."

"Yeah, I guess..." said Tuula, trailing off. "It's just been so horrible these past three days. Getting threatened with a phaser, getting pushed around in sickbay by lower ranking security officers, and then getting berated and criticized by the XO in front of all the medical staff... I didn't think it would be this bad when I joined Starfleet."

Delainey was surprised to hear Tuula mention Blake had done the criticizing. She would expect Allyndra to step in, seeing as she was the department head. She wondered if the CMO had approved of Blake stepping in or if she felt as undermined as Tuula. Carlisle pushed that aside as a conversation for another time. "In all of those instances, you were under threat," Delainey noted. "Was your reaction to being pushed around by security and being berated by Blake to be aggressive?"

"I tried to defend myself," replied Tuula, shooting an icy stare back at Delainey.

"Which means you perceived you were under attack," Delainey answered. "You mentioned when you first saw Zuwtt here, you were scared. Were you scared in those other instances you mentioned?"

"I was scared when I had the phaser pointed at me, yes," replied Tuula. "I've never been threatened with one before. I don't like phasers. I'm not even qualified to use one." She took a deep breath before continuing. "I guess the rest of the time I was more angry. That I was trying to do my work and all these people without any medical expertise see fit to judge my performance, and don't even want to listen to facts." Tuula stared into Delainey's eyes. "I'm sure you understand; you're a doctor as well. I worked and studied and fought so hard with the academy to get to where I am today. How would you feel if some former Marine started lecturing you about how you're doing your job wrong? Or if Starfleet's version of a glorified mall cop busted into your office in the middle of a session and threatened to throw you in the brig if you used a treatment method that she disapproved of?"

"Scared and angry," Delainey repeated with a nod, ignoring Tuula's question for a moment. "Those emotions trigger the fight or flight response," Carlisle noted. "Is it possible you felt threatened not only physically but emotionally with your judgment being questioned, and because of that you weren't in the best position to receive feedback?" Before Tuula could respond in protest, Carlisle added, "I'm not saying the messenger was appropriate or not. I'm not even saying the tone was right. I'm asking, putting the messenger and her approach aside, were there some legitimate points within the message?"

"No, there weren't," insisted Tuula, starting to feel a little hot under the collar. She wondered why she came here in the first place. "The decisions I made in my treatment of the patient were sound and were perfectly defensible. Had any of these armchair doctors actually examined the patient or had the medical training to know what they were talking about, they might have known that." She paused for a moment. "Okay, I shouldn't have swore at the commodore. But she also shouldn't have interrupted me in the middle of a delicate surgery."

"I find it hard to believe you got through medical school without having to focus in the midst of chaos," Carlisle replied. "I'm guessing you didn't swear at your instructors," she added wry. "Or forget the privacy forcefields."

Tuula grunted in disgust. "I got through medical school just fine, thank you very much," was her reply after a brief moment of shock. "Triage demands that you take care of critical patients before worrying about curtains. And letting the doctors do their work unmolested is just common courtesy. And common sense."

Delainey wasn't unsympathetic and had even conceded in her own mind that she might have forgotten the privacy shields herself in that chaos. She didn't agree with how the staff had been talked to, but she didn't think the content of the message was off-base entirely. "I have no doubt you did absolutely everything you could and believed was best, Tuula, and I'm not doubting your skill or your intentions. I also don't think you're the type to believe you handle everything perfectly and have nothing to learn from each situation, especially at this phase of your training. Am I right?"

"You're right, I want to learn," said Tuula. "But this..." she shook her head. What she had gone through over the past few days at the hands of the command staff and the security officer had very little to do with teaching. "All these people, it's like they don't even want to hear my side of the story, they just want to bully me into submission. Not to mention that with how everyone is reacting, I'll be lucky to not be kicked out of the fleet. Which might not even be a bad thing if this is how things are going to be." She let out an exasperated sigh. "I should have stayed in Helsinki."

"Are you being kicked out?" Delainey asked. Last she knew, Tuula wasn't, but she wanted to address the heart of Tuula's fears and help her to manage them more realistically.

"Well, not that I know of." Tuula raised her hand to her forehead; she had just been emotionally exhausted with all the events of the past few days. "But the command staff... they're convinced that I'm some butcher who doesn't know what I'm doing, all because I did what had to be done to save Siren. And even if somehow they don't get rid of me at the earliest opportunity, I'm not sure I can work in this kind of environment." Another deep sigh emanated from Tuula. "This was supposed to be perfect. My first starship assignment, exploring new worlds, with so many opportunities for learning and research. And to top it all off, I have my sister as a roommate." Tuula frowned. "But... now I'm just some psycho with a laser scalpel to them."

"You sell yourself short when you allow yourself to think like that, Tuula," Delainey chided gently. "If you're convinced you will be defined by your mistakes, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As I see it, you have a choice to make. Either you let yourself be defined by your mistakes or you decide it's what comes after that matters."

Tuula tilted her head slightly at Delainey's response. "If only the defining were up to me," she muttered meekly.

"Isn't it?" Delainey asked. "I would've thought after your accident you discovered that if you show people what you're capable of despite your setbacks, their views of you, and what they defined as possible, would be forever changed."

Tuula furrowed her brow slightly as she contemplated Delainey's comments. "Maybe you have a point, doctor," she conceded. After all, her very presence as a doctor in Starfleet defied the expectations of a fair number of people, including, initially, the Dean of Starfleet Medical. "But it's not always that easy," she added. "One thing I've learned is that people are very quick to judge, and very slow to change their minds."

"Now who's pre-judging?" Carlisle offered. "If you assume people are out to judge you negatively based on not being perfect, aren't you doing to them what you don't want them to do to you?"

"Maybe," said Tuula. "I guess time will tell... that is, if I don't get shipped out within the next few days."

"It's possible," Delainey allowed. "You were insubordinate, but even if you hadn't been speaking to a superior officer, you were rude. You've focused a great deal on the disrespect you were shown, but it seems to me, you did your part to escalate things as well. If you were in the command staff's shoes, what do you think an eff you is worth?"

"If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't grab a doctor by the arm in the middle of surgery and then point a phaser at her," muttered Tuula. "That kind of behaviour puts patients at risk and disrupts the entire operation of sickbay." She shook her head; there was no use arguing the point anymore. "It doesn't matter anyways. Everyone has already drawn their own conclusions, facts be damned. Yes, I made a mistake in the heat of the moment. But that was because I was angry. I care about my patients, and having people distract me unnecessarily in the middle of surgery puts them at risk. But it doesn't matter to them that I was doing what was necessary to save someone's life. I'd say that all that matters is rank, but somehow even Ensigns with no medical training outrank me on medical matters." She took a deep breath. "I can't work in this sort of environment. The medical staff is great, but for the amount of respect we get from the rest of the ship, we might as well not have gone to medical school. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I got railroaded out of here, the grass might be greener somewhere else."

"You're a doctor who's trained to treat the sick and wounded. I'm not sure what greener grass would look like for you," she replied. "Here's what I do know. Sometimes getting people to see things from your perspective requires first showing that you see things from theirs. When you put a 'but' in your sentence, often what people hear is that everything you said before the 'but' doesn't really matter to you and everything after it is what you really feel. Admitting you made a mistake will go a long way in closing the distance you're feeling with command right now. If you admit you made a mistake and quickly follow that up with 'but I was angry,' it will come across as though you're trying to justify telling your commander who was also a very scared secondary trauma patient to eff off. Other places may provide new people and new surroundings, though if you're bringing the same mouth with you for anger management, that's not going to matter. Wherever you go, there you are."

"So... what are you suggesting I do?" asked Tuula, her eyes wandering to the door.

"That depends on what you want to do," Delainey offered frankly. "If you want to remain here, ask yourself how focusing on what other people may or may not think of you because of something you cannot change helps you do that? In the end, I'm not saying you are to blame for everything that happened. I'm saying the only person you can control is you, and working on the things you could have handled better could help you feel better about yourself and help to bridge the gap you're feeling right now between you and command."

"I'll... I'll do that," stammered Tuula. She took a deep breath before continuing. "Thank you" She tried to offer Delainey a smile. "Thanks. And if I don't see you before I get kicked out, it was a pleasure serving with you."

Delainey regarded Tuula for several moments. If the young doctor was determined to think negatively, Carlisle couldn't stop her. That, however, didn't mean Delainey thought Tuula was as incompetent as she and others perhaps felt she was. "Likewise, Tuula, likewise."

[OFF]

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen, M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Delainey Carlisle, M.D., Ph.D.
Counselor/Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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