Performance Appraisal Part 1: Triage and Recovery

Posted on 25 Aug 2012 @ 10:35am by Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Commander Andreus Kohl

1,740 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD08 - 0922 hours

[ON]

Rubbing her hand across her eyes, Pola was starting to feel the tiredness settle in. Despite the chaos from early morning having settled, there was still patients to be seen. She was trying to implement the new 4-hour duty roster across the medical and counseling teams but it was proving difficult with so little staff and so many patients. She also really needed to call a staff meeting for her own people in order to take stock of what was happening.

First and foremost though, she needed to track down Kohl. She was still worried about him after what had happened earlier during the Klingon attack. Also she was concerned about how he might be handling the stress of not just losing colleagues but also the only other nurse that the ship had.

The double-doors to the passageway parted for Andreus Kohl when he returned to Sickbay. His honey-brown hair was clean but he couldn't be bothered with the precision side-part he'd been trying recently. His face was slack, littered with stubble, and his eyes were dull. His black, grey and blue uniform was ill-fitted and criss-crossed with deep creases. Kohl had been raised to recycle his clothes in the replicator and materialize them new every morning, but he didn't imagine Galileo could spare the energy in her current state. His own unpacked luggage was sitting radioactively on deck three, and so he had been forced to pilfer a dead science officer's uniform.

Kohl's poor posture and slower pace betrayed the aches in his back and his arms and his legs. His build was relatively athletic, but he wasn't accustom to carrying one-hundred, two-hundred pound patients quite so often, and without a good night's sleep afterwards. He had intended to sleep for longer, but his dreams were all about duty. It seemed a waste to treat patients in his sleep if he could be doing the real thing, which was why he came to stand in front of the triage board on an LCARS panel in Sickbay.

Walking through the sickbay, Pola finally isolated Kohl at an isolated LCARS panel, seemingly by himself. His appearance didn't worry her too much, everyone had seen better days, she herself was still in only her uniform vest. The jacket and under shirt were too destroyed by blood and even her overcoat had been used as bedding when none could be fetched during their busy period. "Andreus? How are you doing?"

"I don't know, doctor..." Kohl said. He called her 'doctor' because she was a superior officer, and Lin had warned him that Pola didn't like 'sir' or 'lieutenant'. Staring at the triage board, his eyes systematically studied the names and locations of the patients still in their care. "A bit numb, I think. It's like sleep washed away everything that happened yesterday, and a whole lot of nothing has replaced it."

Sighing, Pola smiled slightly and ran a hand across her hair. "Why don't you just call me Pola? I've never been able to stand on formality in sickbay, after what we've been through in the last few hours, I'm even more firm on that feeling." Turning her body, she leaned back against the LCARS screen, looking out over sickbay and the patients still lining every available surface. "Would you be able to give me a brief rundown on how things stand with the people we have left?"

Kohl had nodded at Pola's request to be called by her first name, the sentiment even sustained a small smile on his face. When she questioned him on the status of the patients, though, he goggled at her. His gaze drifted up over her head to look for the answers to her question on the LCARS display. An appropriate answer didn't appear there. "They-- uhm," Kohl started and then he shook his head. Answering in blunt honesty, and apology, he said, "I don't know, Pola. It's been a few hours for me. I would need to check their charts or at least their biofunction monitors..."

Pausing for a few moments, Pola felt herself blush as she realised her mistake. "Andreus I'm sorry, I'd forgotten you'd been away for the last few hours. Did you manage some sleep or at least some rest?" Pola was feeling the tiredness herself but with her she had to keep pushing. Now it seemed that not just was she the CMO, an important role right now to ensure the crew got the care she needed, faith had dictated that in the chain of command, the role of second officer fell to her with the Captain missing and the previous second officer now dead. Now more than ever she was starting to feel the weight on her shoulders.

Kohl nodded in affirmation, hoping to deflect any worries she may have about him. She had enough for four people to worry about, Kohl suspected. "I've taken a couple naps, gorged myself on a big breakfast, and murdered a whole pot of tea. Pola, I'm Argelian," Kohl said wryly, "Self-indulgence comes easily."

Placing her hand against Kohl's arm, Pola squeezed gently, "The self-indulgence is extremely well deserved Andreus. You've been invaluable during this chaos. I've seen that you even took to treating some of the lesser injuries yourself. It really means a lot that you were willing to step up as you did."

Nodding at her words again, Kohl murmured a "thank you", and he took a moment to accept her praise. Eventually, though, he sheepishly shrugged, and he said, "I'm trained as a Nurse Practitioner. This is what I'm used to. This is what Bactricia was like. I'm getting more confident with battle triage than with a scheduled examination on a fully-functional biobed." Kohl grimaced at that, as if to ask, isn't that strange?

"You'd expect on a science vessel that triage wouldn't be of much use but how wrong would the critics turn out to be?" Smiling gently, she looked around sickbay. To the ordinary eye it might have looked like chaos, but to the people who had been here for hours, fighting to save lives, they knew that everything around them was good news. Everyone was now off of the critical list, a relief to her staff as there had already been deaths. "Your experienced helped to save people here today Andreus, that's all you need to know."

Kohl had turned to look over at the patients when Pola had done, but he threw a sidelong glance her way just then. Patients had died and patients had been saved, yes, but Galileo was still being hunted. Kohl had to take a deep breath every time he thought of a cloaked starship out there, somewhere. "Is there, uh," Kohl tentatively asked, "Are there any educated guesses on when we might need to leverage our triage experience again?"

Pola knew what Kohl was getting at but wasn't certain what to say. Part of her felt maybe he should be updated as to keep people in the dark would only cause more panic as people didn't know what was going on. Surely sharing what was obvious was fine. "Well engineering are doing their absolute best to piece us back together but with crew numbers and injuries it's slow going. Honestly I don't think anyone can give an exact timeframe." Looking across at Kohl, Pola's mind was on the fact that as acting XO she needed to be thinking of the crew overall, not just as medical. This situation was stressful on everyone, least of all Jonathan who was trying to piece a ship back together and rescue the CO.

Kohl swallowed hard at Pola's diplomatic non-answer. He couldn't blame her for it, but it still made his heart beat faster. He was about to ask a follow-up question, when Pola spoke first.

"Do you mind me asking...what do you think the feeling in the ground is? People are obviously worried but do they also have a feeling of determination?"

Taking a couple of steps to the left, Kohl leaned his hip against a freestanding LCARS console. He rubbed a couple of fingers beneath his lower lip, as he gave Pola's question proper consideration. "I suppose the Medical operations staff," Kohl said, starting with the doctors and the counsellors, "are confused more than anything. Half of us came aboard only today. None of us understand why this is happening. But when you wear a blue collar, you're prepared to do your duty without Command providing explanations." --And he grinned knowingly-- "The Security personnel I've spoken with are absolute in their convictions. They believe they can out-think any Klingon who might be skulking out there in the dark. The Engineers seem deflated by Quinn's injury, but they're also eager to prove themselves to him, I think? I could be off-base. And if Kiri Cho is representative of our Science staff, I'd say determined describes them best, yes."

Smiling slightly, Pola nodded her head at Kohl's words. A lot of people hated sickbay because of reasons such as what was happening today. People feared that they may die or be injured and sickbay was a representation of that. What people forgot to look at was that it was more. It was a symbol of hope, if you got out of here you would be ok. It was a symbol of strength, people pushing through treatment to come out the other side to go back to their jobs and save their ship. Even where people died, those who survived went on to find a bigger strength to conserve the memory of their fallen and to do what they could to ensure that the death wasn't in vain.

Realising Kohl was staring at her as she'd been quiet for so long, Pola pushed herself away from the console. In four short days she herself had gone from junior officer to acting XO, she'd grown up more than she would have conceived possible. "I'm glad to know you're so aware of what is happening around you Kohl. All of that is very positive."

Offering a nod in agreement, Kohl said, "Yeah, it's a promising crew. That might be the only thing making me think I can make it through this tour of duty, after a start like the one I've had!"

[OFF]


To Be Continued...


Lieutenant JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

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