BRAM MCCABE
Hellhound
Kresnik
Posts: 98
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 13, 2024 16:38:44 GMT
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Post by BRAM MCCABE on May 31, 2023 22:01:43 GMT
When he’d sunk into that seemingly inescapable depression after his ice hockey career had melted away it had felt like nothing else would ever feel as good as the game had. All those hopes and dreams shattered like his knee, the pieces of his busted future too small to hold on to. His parents had spent months trying to talk him around to the idea that things would be different, but he’d still find something amazing to do with his life. Bram snorted as he closed his locker and slipped his scrub top on over his t-shirt. It had only taken a wildfire that had nearly killed him to really turn around his thinking. He’d put the story on his med school application but he’d felt a little sleezy about it, like he was trying to milk what had almost been a tragedy for what it might get him. Everything after his application had all been his hard work though.
The half smile on his face settled into a faint frown. He’d had plenty of time to throw himself into that after Milena had died, after he’d thought she’d died. Outside of hockey practice and trying to keep a tight rein on a hundred kids who seemed hell bent on winning a Darwin award, studying had been his way of keeping his mind off of that hole that had been ripped right through his heart by the loss of her. Bram pressed the heel of his palm to his chest now, like he could rub away the memory of that feeling. Sometimes when he woke it was still with tattered dreams where she hadn’t come back to him wrapped around him like a shroud. Anxious and panicked by it, he’d reach for his phone to call her. Just a little reassurance, the one band aid he could stick over that wound, when none of the others worked.
”I’ll catch you later,” he shot back to one of the other med students as he headed out, trying to leave those lingering doubts behind in the locker room. If he was lucky then the shift would be a busy one and he wouldn’t have time for his mind to start wandering to all the other crazy stuff in his life. It was bad enough that walking across campus could send him into a cold sweat. Not today.
Other med students had already headed out into the ER, upstairs into the other departments. Their rotations through them were supposed to give them a taste for everything before they settled on a specialism in a couple of years, but he’d known from the start just where he wanted to be – ortho. It was cliched as hell, but if he could stop other folks from ending up exactly where he had then he would. He’d put orthopaedics as his first choice, had ended up in his second in the ER first. He definitely wasn’t going to complain about that.
The excitement was back as he emerged into the waiting area. There was a scatter of folks in the chairs, more that he could hear and see the vague shapes of behind the curtains and behind the doors of the exam rooms. They weren’t going to let him free on patients on his own for a while yet though, he had a fully fledged doc to shadow. Bram scanned the docs and nurses at the admit desk and fixed on the dark haired doc he thought was Doctor Leroux. Approaching, he offered his hand, then felt a little awkward about it. ”Bram McCabe. I’m hoping you’re Doctor Leroux, otherwise I’m totally screwing this up already.” He winced faintly before smiling. ”I’m your med student for the day. Did they tell you I was coming?” Hopefully they had, if not it was doubly awkward.
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JULIAN LEROUX
Werecreature
White Tiger
Posts: 57
Age:
31
Occupation:
Doctor
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Apr 29, 2024 23:29:05 GMT
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Post by JULIAN LEROUX on Aug 30, 2023 22:06:58 GMT
Everyone had their own dreams when they were a kid. Some wanted to become astronauts, others police officers, others firefighters but for Julian he had always wanted to become a doctor. He had known it from a young age and throughout his time in high school and college that had stayed with him. Now he had been working at the hospital in Mystic Falls for years and he loved it. He never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next but that was just how he liked it. The hours were long and he didn’t always have a lot of free time on his hands but the truth was that he didn’t really mind that too much. Julian enjoyed helping people and even though he was a surgeon first he still got to interact with patients and treat them on a day to day basis given that the hospital wasn’t that big. He had been offered positions in bigger hospitals where he could just focus on surgery but he liked having different ways of occupying his time and the truth was that Mystic Falls was his home. It was where he was born and where he was raised and after Brady and the rest of his friends were taken while they were in Ecuador it was where he had needed to be. Now he wasn’t in a hurry to leave the town at all, instead he was working his way up within the hospital and that year he had agreed to help with some of the med students. Julian could still remember what it was like going through Med School and trying to take everything in and he wanted to help the students who were going through that the same way that his mentor had helped him. Julian had worked with a few different students over the last few months but that day he had been assigned someone he hadn’t worked with before so he knew that it was going to be interesting to say the least. Every one was different but he knew that was a good thing, the hospital had a lot of different areas the students could specialise in and given what the town was like they often needed new staff. Some of them knew about the supernatural world and knew how to keep themselves safe from it but others remained in the dark and that meant that they could find themselves at risk if they didn’t keep their wits about them. Julian had known about the supernatural world for a long time and thankfully he was able to work his shifts around the full moon without raising too many eyebrows but he knew that others perhaps weren’t that lucky. Julian wasn’t sure whether the med student he had been assigned that day knew about it or whether he would think that there were just a lot of animal attacks going on but he knew that he would find out soon enough. As it was he had been standing at the nurse’s station talking to one of the nurses when a voice spoke and he turned to look at the newcomer. “You’re not screwing anything up, just relax,” Julian assured him as he reached forward and shook Bram’s hand. “I’m Doctor Leroux and yes, they did tell me. It’s nice to meet you. Tell me, what have they had you doing so far?” he asked, knowing that would be the best place to start. BRAM MCCABE
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BRAM MCCABE
Hellhound
Kresnik
Posts: 98
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 13, 2024 16:38:44 GMT
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Post by BRAM MCCABE on Oct 11, 2023 18:34:09 GMT
As a kid there’d been no question in his head about what he was going to do for a living. He was playing hockey, just like his dad. Both of his parents had tried to warn him about things maybe not working out - the same way they hadn’t for his dad – but he’d been stubborn. His career was going to rival Gretzky’s. They were gonna be cheering his name at the glass, his face was gonna be on hockey cards! Bram guessed he’d been leading some sort of charmed life up until that last tackle. It had all gone so smoothly, even when he’d gone through the ice as a kid. Who would’ve guessed that fate would deal out his punishment in one bone rattling – bone breaking - blow instead of the little love taps that so many others seemed to suffer. That one sickening tackle had changed the entire course of his life. Most people would’ve said that being caught in a forest fire just a short time later wasn’t any less horrific, but having come through it almost unscathed, Bram had found that it had put him on a new path, one that was better than he ever could’ve asked for. In a strange way what had happened on the ice had kinda prepared him for where he was going to end up. He understood sports injuries and trauma and after years of med school, he hoped that some day soon he’d be able to help save somebody else’s career.
Getting to work in the hospital full time was both exciting and intimidating, probably in equal parts. It wasn’t the sort of place where you could bring your troubles to work. A bad day might mean making it the worst day of someone else’s life. Bram felt like he was dragging those nagging doubts about what had been happening with him for a while everywhere these days, but he shrugged off the feeling as he left the locker room. If he wanted to pass this last year of med school then he was gonna have to keep his head in the game. Bram shot Doctor Leroux a rueful grin as he shook the man’s hand. ”Easier said than done,” he admitted. ”Feels like someone’s getting ready to take the training wheels off and it’s hard to know if I’m ready.” They wouldn’t have allowed him into the place if he wasn’t – a training hospital or not, they wouldn’t put the patients in danger. ”It’s a pleasure to meet you too.” Especially since Doctor Leroux was already treating him like he was there to do more than just run samples to the lab. Bram puffed out a breath, glancing around the ER as though he could picture everything he’d done there in his head. ”Mostly the hands off stuff – taking histories, running samples to the lab, taking vitals … simple sutures last week, and I got to put in an IV a couple of times.” Thankfully he hadn’t been stuck with anybody whose blood had been hard to draw.
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JULIAN LEROUX
Werecreature
White Tiger
Posts: 57
Age:
31
Occupation:
Doctor
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Apr 29, 2024 23:29:05 GMT
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Post by JULIAN LEROUX on Oct 29, 2023 17:44:39 GMT
Julian still remembered what med school was like, it had been so difficult trying to juggle his studies and everything that he had been learning while he was working at the hospital and there had been times when he had thought about quitting but he had stuck with it and he was glad that he had done. Becoming a doctor had been his dream for as long as he could remember, he had wanted to help people and this was the best way he knew how to do that. The hours were long and it could be difficult at times but he knew that he wouldn’t trade his job for anything in the world. Thankfully his boss was able to arrange his shifts so that he never had to work during a full moon and he knew that it would be a disaster if he tried. He was born a weretiger and he hadn’t had to trigger a curse to activate that side of himself the way that Brady had, it was something that had been happening ever since he was a teenager. He had control over it but the night of the full moon was always different. Then there was no stopping the shift once it started but that wasn’t such a bad thing. It didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it once had and if he was honest he loved being able to run free once it was over. Even with everything that was going on in Mystic Falls at the moment he felt like he had the best of both worlds and he certainly wasn’t going to argue with that. Now he had the chance to help some of the junior staff members who were coming through and even though there were doctors who would argue and do anything that they could in order to get out of it, that wasn’t Julian at all. His mentor had been someone that he couldn’t have done without while he was training and he knew that he wanted to be that for some of the new doctors now. He always tried to make sure they knew that they could turn to him when they needed to and he tried to give them some hands on experience that some of the other doctors didn’t. There were always going to be some who thought that they should do the grunt work and the running around without actually interacting with patients or doing too much of the hands on work but Julian wasn’t like that and he wasn’t sure how that was going to go down with Bram but he knew that there was only one way to find out. “The fact that you’re still here shows that you’re doing a good job and today you’re with me so I’ve got your back,” he said, offering the guy a reassuring smile before a laugh escaped him when he said it felt like someone was about to take the training wheels off. “It has to happen sooner or later, playing it safe won’t get you anywhere,” he chuckled. “The only way to know for sure is to throw yourself in at the deep end but if you ever feel out of your depth let me know, that’s what I’m here for,” he assured him. Needless to say Julian would be keeping a close eye on him anyway and would be able to see if he got himself into any difficulties but he wanted to make sure that he knew he could talk to him as well. “No one gets everything right straight away, we all have to start somewhere.” Julian could still remember how difficult it had been for him in the early days but it had made him stronger and he hoped that it would do the same for Bram too. As he explained what the others had been having him doing, Julian nodded. “They’re not the most interesting of jobs but they’re still important. Today we’re going to be doing things differently though, we’re going to start with rounds and you’re going to take the lead and figure out what our patients need,” he said as he took the clipboard from the nurse at the nurse’s station and held it out to Bram. “Are you ready?”BRAM MCCABE
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BRAM MCCABE
Hellhound
Kresnik
Posts: 98
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 13, 2024 16:38:44 GMT
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Post by BRAM MCCABE on Dec 2, 2023 20:20:38 GMT
The academic side of things hadn’t been important the first time he’d been at college. You had to keep your grades up to a semi-decent standard, of course, but when you were winning the school national trophies, even those standards could slip a little and nobody blinked too much. Bram had never found himself struggling the way some of the others had, but it hadn’t been like he’d focused too hard on anything except for hockey. After he’d decided to go back and try to bump his grades high enough to get into med school that had all changed. You didn’t get to do that if you had a 2.0 GPA, especially not at a school like Whitmore. The place was prestigious and it had felt like a miracle he’d gotten in there at all. Maybe it was his entrance essay that had done it – let me tell you all about how my life got turned, flipped upside down … and I almost died.
Juggling classes, placements at the hospital, the RA gig and being assistant coach for Whitmore’s team had felt like trying to keep a thousand balls in the air at one time. He always felt like he was about to drop something and once that balance shifted it was gonna be impossible to get it back. Graduating had felt like it would mean he could concentrate on just one thing again – even if he was still driving over to Whitmore a couple of days a week to help out at the rink (at this point not skating would feel like losing a limb). At least he didn’t have to sit through classes anymore, homework had thrown aside, studying had taking on a different feel when most of it now involved working on actual people.
Bram had imagined that today would be another day where he get that about half the time. The hands on learning didn’t always mean hands on another human being – the amount of time he spent scuttling back and forth to the lab was proof of that. He knew that charming, or rather, impressing, the senior doctors was the best way to get more experience, but doing that had been easier said than done until Doctor Leroux had just taken an interest in him. Bram felt his face heating slightly as he admitted his doubts about doing well here. The guy was quick to reassure him and Bram found himself grinning right back at him. ”I’ve gotta admit, it feels good to hear it. It’s kinda scary making that leap from school to being here full time.” Having someone watching out for him was gonna make that a thousand times easier, even if it was just for a single day.
At some point the nerves would fade entirely (hopefully) and he’d be striding into emergencies looking like he could handle whatever he was about to face, the same way the other docs did. ”What happens if you can’t swim?” Bram asked. Oh he could, and twice he’d ended up treading water in seriously dangerous situations. He hoped there wasn’t a third time in his future, but if it didn’t come along he’d use every ounce of energy he had to stop himself from drowning in the deep end of a situation. ”That’s reassuring,” Bram admitted, his smile turning wry. They were still only going to let him do the basic stuff, even if it was more hands on, and that was absolutely fine with him. ”I know,” he promised, with a nod. ”Not every case is gonna be mega exciting and you need to have the basics solid before you more onto other things.” Talking about the basics – the idea of him being the one to lead had Bram puffing out a breath. He froze for a moment before he nodded and took the chart from Dr Leroux. ”As I’ll ever be.” Feeling like he was skating out onto the ice at a championship game, Bram headed into the exam room their patient was in. "Hi, I’m Dr McCabe, this is Dr Leroux. What’s brought you in today?”
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JULIAN LEROUX
Werecreature
White Tiger
Posts: 57
Age:
31
Occupation:
Doctor
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Apr 29, 2024 23:29:05 GMT
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Post by JULIAN LEROUX on Dec 31, 2023 0:42:27 GMT
Julian could still remember how nervous he was during his early days of working at the hospital. He had gone to college in New Orleans but had moved back to Mystic Falls after his best friend went missing while on a trip in Ecuador. Julian didn’t regret that choice one bit as he really couldn’t think of a better place to work and now he had been there long enough that he was able to help the new doctors and med students who were going through the same thing he had a few years before. That was one of the things that Julian loved most about his job, he enjoyed being able to help his patients but he also enjoyed being able to pass on the knowledge he had gained to others. There were doctors at the hospital who had been there longer than he had and were set in their ways, some of them weren’t interested in trying to teach the next generation coming through but that wasn’t Julian’s style at all. He always tried to be someone that they could turn to when they needed someone and that day it was his chance to help someone new so he knew that he was going to take it. Getting those he was meant to be training to do the menial tasks wasn’t his style, Julian preferred a much more hands on approach as that was how he had always learned best. He knew that everyone was different, there were some who learned better by studying but bedside manner wasn’t something that could be learned that way and not every case that came their way was text book. Sometimes it was more about getting to know the patient and filtering through the symptoms and factors that weren’t relevant to find the ones that were. “I remember that all too well but it’s worth it, trust me,” Julian nodded. “Your time here isn’t going to be easy but it will be rewarding and you’ll learn a lot.” He wasn’t sure what field Bram wanted to end up in but right now Julian was more interested in helping him get to grips with treating patients. As Bram asked what happened if he couldn’t swim, Julian thought about how to answer for a moment. “Best to not think about that,” he said at last. There were some who had made it through med school but then fallen at the hurdle that was a residency and Julian didn’t want that to happen here. As Bram said he needed to have the basics before moving onto other things, Julian nodded. “That’s exactly right. Every day will be a challenge but I get the feeling you’re going to rise to it.” He had heard about each of the new doctors from his colleagues and two of them – Bram and Evan – seemed to have the potential to do well provided they put the work in. “You’ll find that each doctor here has a different way of working and you need to find the one that works best for you. If you prefer to observe first and try it yourself later then that’s fine but others like myself prefer to guide you and help you figure it out for yourself.” His style might not be what Bram would prefer but only time would tell. As he said that he was as ready as he would ever be, Julian nodded. “Then let’s do this,” he said, letting Bram lead the way into the room so they could meet their patient. It was standard practice for patients to be told when they were taken into a treatment room when training was going to be taking place so Julian knew that he didn’t need to worry about that. Already he was off to a good start and Julian stayed quiet as the patient revealed the trouble he was having. “Start by checking your patient over and see if there is anything out of the ordinary. If not, try listing the symptoms and see if there’s a pattern, it will help you narrow down the possible cause,” he instructed, knowing that was the best way to start. BRAM MCCABE
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BRAM MCCABE
Hellhound
Kresnik
Posts: 98
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 13, 2024 16:38:44 GMT
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Post by BRAM MCCABE on Jan 12, 2024 20:47:22 GMT
As a kid he’d never hesitated. He’d been fearless, the peewee hockey team he’d played with at 11 nicknaming him Bram the Bear cause of the way he’d come charging in – roaring at times. That had softened a little as he’d gone through high school and he’d been forced to put more effort into the academic side of things, but he’d tried to stay fierce. The talent scouts weren’t looking out for guys who’d back out of a tackle, they wanted fighters, guys who would put everything into a game. He had, but that had come with a cost in the end. It had felt like that part of him had snapped just the way his knee had, the pieces of him as impossible to repair perfectly as the ligaments and nerves had been. Bram was sure he could still claim the title – especially after he’d dragged himself back from the edge, saving lives on the way – but the question was really, did he want to?
At this point all those years in school, trying to catch up with people who were years younger than him and had just come straight out of high school, had better be worth it. Failing at this point would just end up being damn embarrassing. What could he crawl off to then? Working at the club everybody seemed to spend their weekends at, or tending bar at the Grill? Bram puffed out a breath, feeling his gut knot at the thought, but his smile didn’t dim. ”I hope so. I could’ve gone back home to try and match with a hospital there, but I heard that this place was one of the best.” And more importantly it would keep him around Mystic Falls. Home was always gonna be Alaska, but Mystic Falls had turned into a real second home after the last couple of years and he’d miss the place and the people here too much if he did go.
There’s no way he would’ve been taken on at the hospital if they didn’t think he had it in him to succeed here. At least a handful of people in their graduating class had missed out on spots there, he had to keep reminding himself of that. ”Out of sight, out of mind,” Bram muttered as Doctor Leroux tried to encourage him to think about what could go wrong here. The corners of his mouth twitched, the wryness vanishing from his smile. ”Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Now he just had to start earning it. He was trying to do his best here, learning from the doctors whose service he’d been put on. Right now he was trying to drink up everything Doctor Leroux was telling him, even if it was just general advice. The smile melted away, a faint frown taking over as he thought over what he’d just been told. ”I wanna figure it out for myself,” he said finally. If things didn’t work out when he did, then he knew that the more senior doctors were always gonna have his back. They wouldn’t let him get too far in over his head.
Nerves jumped in his stomach as he headed into the exam room with Dr Leroux following him. This was gonna be on his shoulders, he had to prove he wasn’t a screw up from the start. He swallowed hard, listening to the man in the bed who’d been suffering from a fever, stomach pain and nausea. Maybe it was gonna prove to be something viral, but Bram knew he couldn’t rule out things like appendicitis, pain and nausea were common symptoms. ”Should I get the labs started now?” he asked, glancing back as he snapped on gloves. ”If you could lift your shirt for us,” Bram murmured. The obvious starting point would be his abdomen. Maybe there was something else going on, but the stomach pain was the big thing here. ”How long have you been feeling unwell?” He continued to ask questions as he gently palpated the patient’s abdomen, wincing as the guy yelped and tried to curl away from his hands. His abdomen had definitely felt tense, the skin hot. ”I think he might have rebound and guarding.” Two classic signs of appendicitis – and a dozen other things, Bram had to keep reminding himself that he couldn’t leap on the first diagnosis here.
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