A Bitter Pill to Swallow by Tiffany Gholar

Author:Tiffany Gholar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indie Author Project

Chapter 20: The Hungry Brain

IT WAS THE FIRST weekend she’d had in years. Medical school and her residency at Haven House had robbed Gail of her Saturdays and Sundays. But after the meeting with the parents was over, Dr. Lutkin had told her she wouldn’t need to come back again until Monday. He’d even told her that he thought she’d established a good rapport with the group. Maybe her fears and doubts were unfounded.

She never would have guessed that this job, the hurdle Dr. Hoffman had placed before her, would turn out to be such a good experience. She had to let her know that it hadn’t impeded her progress. She had to go and tell her face to face. So she went to the university hospital to see her.

“Things are going very well so far, and I wanted you to know. Thanks for giving me this chance. I’m learning so much from Dr. Lutkin.”

The warmth of Gail’s words seemed to thaw Dr. Hoffman’s cool reserve.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said with a smile, the first time Gail had ever seen that expression on Dr. Hoffman’s face without a hint of sarcasm. “Listen, I know you and most of my other former students see me as a stern taskmaster who’s never satisfied. But it’s only because the quality of psychiatric care in this country is not as good as it should be, and your generation has the power to change that. I’m counting on you. Don’t let me down!”

Then Dr. Hoffman’s phone rang. It was an important call and couldn’t wait. Gail understood.

“If Omar’s out there, can you let him know I’ll be a few minutes?”

Gail agreed to do it. She found Omar sitting in his usual spot when she left Dr. Hoffman’s office.

“Omar, Dr. Hoffman wanted you to know she’ll be a few minutes late. She had to take an important call. I see you here a lot. Are you working together?”

He looked up from the book he was reading, a medical text that Gail had read before with a great title: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

“Yes. Actually, we just got our research published.”

“Congratulations! What‘s your paper about?”

“It’s a topic of great personal interest to me, gifted children. Specifically, gifted children and how they can often be misdiagnosed with mental illnesses.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there could be thousands of gifted kids out there right now who’ve been labeled with attention deficit disorder and even major depression, but the real problem is that their parents and teachers don’t understand them. If you want to read our article, the library has a copy. It’s in last month’s Journal of Child and Adolescent School Psychology.”

Gail took a little notepad out of her purse and jotted the name of the journal down in it.

“Sounds really interesting. I’ll check it out.”

Since psychology wasn’t her major in college, she tried to read as many articles on the subject as she could. The more obscure, the better. She wanted to be prepared for anything.

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