ArchivedLogs:Do No Harm

Do No Harm
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Rasheed
In Absentia	2014-02-26 A small crisis of conscience.
Location <NYC> 806 {Rasheed} - One Sixty-Seven - Upper West Side
Spacious and elegant and impeccably kept, this apartment is pristine enough that it looks barely lived-in. The living room is just a short hallway down from the entrance, set down a couple stairs in a wide sweep of pale hardwood floors. Dark leather couches and armchairs and pale wooden furniture sits on a plush rug of soft grey. A large balcony runs along the side of the living room, accessible through wide French doors and shaded by an overhang; below, there is a clear view of Central Park. The kitchen adjacent sits a little bit higher, a few stairs leading up to its dark tiled floor. It is roomy as well, granite countertops and sleek new appliances and a wealth of elegant dinnerware. There are two bedrooms, here, both set opposite each other down a short hallway and both with their own bathroom. The end of the hallway holds a large study, with book-lined walls. Another half-bath sits off the living room, underneath a carpeted lofted area accessible by ladder and big enough to be a room itself, though it lacks walls; instead, a short balcony looks down on the living room beneath. The sound of knuckles against the door of Rasheed's apartment is a loud one, insistent and out of place in the posh apartments. Iolaus' voice is insisting as he calls through the heavy wood, voice lightly teasing. "I know you're in there, Rasheed. You can't hide from me forever. I brought Vietnamese food for us." Iolaus knocks against the door again, fingers drumming against the door as he puts his eye up to the peephole so it is giant in the view, staring directly into his iris. "I have Reg here with me; don't think I can't just come in if you ignore my knocks just like my calls. It takes a short while, but eventually there are footsteps behind the door, the locks turning to thunk open. "Vietnamese. I had had a craving. I would ask how you even got into my building but -- well." Rasheed's eyes are darkly shadowed as he opens the door, glace shifting from Iolaus over to Reg with a polite inclination of his head. He looks a little more worn than usual, clothing -- more casual than his usual attire in just a dark button-down paired with khakis -- somewhat rumpled, a salted shadow of unshaved stubble -- considerably greyer these days than it had been in months past -- sprinkled over his jaw. "Please." He takes a step back, gesturing the others inside. Reg nods back to Rasheed as Iolaus holds out a plastic bag. "I'm glad my cravings and yours are aligned." Iolaus says, smiling. "I got your usual." He steps into the room, Reg following a few steps behind. "I have to say, getting in and out of places isn't the most difficult task when Reg is escorting me." He flashes the guard a warm smile before he turns his attention back to the other doctor. Eyes flicking once up and down Rasheed, the smile fades to a look of concern. "You look like crap, Rasheed. What's going on?" he asks, voice softening as he tears open the paper bag and holds out a container to Rasheed. "What's happened?" "Can I get either of you something to drink?" Rasheed takes the container, slipping further into the apartment to set it down on the kitchen counter. "Juice, tea, coffee. I have --" He rubs a hand against his jaw with a quiet rasp of skin against stubble, moving around to retrieve utensils from a drawer. "Happened?" His brows raise. For a moment his eyes flick back to Reg, and then to Iolaus. "Nothing's happened. Work gets demanding sometimes. I'm sure /you/ can relate." "For sure, I can." Iolaus says, with a little laugh and a shake of his head. "But that has never stopped you from pulling /me/ aside and seeing what was weighing so heavily on my mind." A pause as he unpacks the food and hands a container off to Reg. "I'm fine, for now. I may change my mind after I have some of my bun bo hue." A pause, as Iolaus folds the plastic and paper and heads into the kitchen to throw it out. "Not that I've always appreciated your interventions in the moment, but in retrospect…" Iolaus trails off and places a hand on the other man's shoulder, a light and gentle weight. "What's going on, Rasheed?" Rasheed's thin shoulder tenses beneath Iolaus's hand, and he draws in a slow breath. He slips back out to the living room to deliver utensils to Reg, returning to the kitchen afterwards to claim a glass of water for himself. He takes his food to the kitchen table, seating himself with one elbow resting on its surface and long fingers pressing to his temple. "Just -- a particularly troubling patient." His voice is softer, now, not pitched loud enough to carry out to the living room. He pokes his fork at his food, but doesn't take a bite; instead he lifts his glass to draw a long swallow of water. As the other man walks the silverware out to Reg, Iolaus opens the other man's refrigerator and peers through it - despite his denial of Rasheed's offer of a drink, when he sits down at the kitchen table, he has a glass of juice. "Troubling how?" Iolaus asks, studying the other man's face. "With the kind of neurosurgery cases you take on, I'm sure it's not merely one with a low survivability rate." Rasheed's eyes fix tiredly downwards on his food, a heavy droop to his shoulders. "I sometimes have cause to wonder why it is I got into this work," he admits with a very faint twitch to the corners of his mouth. "You start out thinking you're going to help people and --" He swallows the end of his words in another sip of water, a quick shake of his head. "No. Well, yes, the case itself is complex. In this case, though, it's the patient more than the condition that is troubling. I'm not," Rasheed says, slowly, "entirely certain that I'm in a position to treat them impartially. But --" He reaches for his fork, tapping it slowly against the side of the takeout container. "-- I'm also not entirely certain there are /many/ people around in a position to treat them at /all/." "Ah. That can be a very dangerous position to be in," Iolaus says, taking a sip of his juice and then swirling the liquid around it slowly, watching the small vortex that it forms. "Ethics was one of my personal interests back in school. I think I would have become a philosophy teacher if not a doctor," he says, chuckling. "I used to say it'd be a way less sure career, but considering the paths my own has taken, I'm not so sure that's the case anymore." "A friend of yours?" Iolaus asks. "Someone you know from without the coat? Or someone that you met recently and now feel that you can't do it justice?" "Oh. We go back quite a few years." This statement comes with a soft breath of laughter from Rasheed. He finally digs into his noodles, twirling them around his fork to take a first bite. "Quite a few --" He plucks out half a spring roll from his container, dipping it into sauce. "Friend would be a stretch. If our positions were reversed I imagine they would have little compunction about --" The faint half-smile fades from Rasheed's lips. His fingers curl tighter against his fork. "But. Then. Most people are not bound by our oath." "A good friend, then," Iolaus says, with a little smile of his own. "Our oath, indeed, can bind us hard, and put us into positions that we might never want to be in. Man was not meant to be God, to decide who lives or dies, and yet that is our responsibility. To stand against pain, and to strive to help all who can be helped, and to comfort all those who can't." Iolaus is silent for a few moments as he looks at the other man. "That doesn't mean that it is always easy, though." he says, quietly. "At the end of the day, Rasheed, it is you who you have to live with. If that means referring them to another surgeon, that's what you have to do. But if you truly think they are better in your care…." Rasheed lifts his hand at that first comment, pinching tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "If I passed them on the street and they were on fire," he says, oddly mildly despite the edge of strain in his expression, "not only would I not piss on them I might invite my friends for s'mores. But as my patient --" His head shakes, the next stab of his fork into noodles a little more forceful than it needs to be. "There are some people the world is better off without. And -- yet." His lips thin into a faint grimace before they part to admit his next bite of food. There's a moment of quiet while he chews and swallows. "Referring them elsewhere wouldn't quite be a death sentence. But I have strong reason to believe their chances of recovering to a full life afterwards would be -- notably diminished." Iolaus chuckles and shakes his head back and forth. "I like smores." he says, opening his food and digging his fork into it to eat a piece of meat. He is silent for several seconds as he eats, contemplatively. When he speaks, he waggles his fork in Rasheed's direction. "It's a dangerous thing to remember that our patients are people, and it is equally dangerous to forget. It is as they wrote in Geneva. Our obligation is first to our patients, and second to the whole world." "You sound," Rasheed grouses down into his noodles, "like a god-damned professor, Io." He eats one of his spring roll halves in two quick bites. "-- and ourselves. Where does that obligation fall? If they were passing me by and /I/ were on fire, I would lay decent odds that they were the one who lit the match." His tone here is wry. He dabs his thumb against the corner of his mouth, wiping away a stray fleck of sauce from his spring roll. "I did teach for a while, as a post-doc. We all did that." Iolaus says, chuckling. "I'm just glad you're more intelligent than most of the students I taught." His voice is light and teasing as he forks up more of the food and savors it. "As a philosophical question?" He pauses, then shrugs his shoulders. "I'd like to think I was a strong enough person to turn around and heal the person who just threw a stone at me. I'm not sure I am." Iolaus takes several more bites of food before he continues. "I don't think you have an obligation to help if you refer him to someone who can help the same. I mean, I'm not sure you even have an obligation at all, in any regard, if he's not your patient. Just the same, I think we have a higher duty than the person on the street. We are a member of society, but we have more responsibility than J. Random." "You may find out some day. You do seem to attract a lot of stones." Rasheed picks up his glass for another swallow of water, forking more noodles into his mouth afterwards. "Their particular problem -- mmnh. Perhaps it's just an arrogance to think I could help them best. But they're going to have a hard road no matter who --" He lifts his hand, knuckles scrubbing against his cheek. "Perhaps I will. And it's well deserved arrogance, Rasheed, if it is. I am no stranger to your accomplishments; after all, you are in the running this year for the Nobel. And even before that, you are one of the top neurosurgeons in the country. I've read your papers; they're nothing to shake a finger at." Iolaus smiles warmly at his friend, and then he sets down his fork and laces his hands together on the table in front of him. "If you think you can ease their path and help them, then do. If you think you can't, then refer them. At the end of the day, do no harm means not to you either." Iolaus says, resting his chin on his fingers. "Hm." Rasheed taps a forefinger against a cheekbone, resting it up against the side of his nose afterwards. "Perhaps justified arrogance is just confidence. The case is an unusual one. It will take some difficult work." He tips his head towards Iolaus at this last statement, brows slowly inching higher on his forehead. Another thoughtful hum precedes his gaze dropping back to his food. There's a very small twitch at the side of his mouth, at this, thin and slightly downward. "... I suppose it does, doesn't it."