“How did you manage to be accepted to take the boards?” Noah asked. He was flabbergasted and wasn’t sure if Ava wasn’t still toying with him.
“It was all relatively easy,” Ava said. “The critical event was moving from Brownfield to Lubbock when my dentist boss became dean of the new school of dentistry. As a founding faculty member, he had administrative status with the Brazos Medical Center computer. Using his log-in, I had full access. With my computer skills, it was not difficult to create an entire record for Ava London that matched the other anesthesia residents, complete with grades, evaluations, and letters of recommendation. What helped enormously was that the entire university and the medical center were growing geometrically. It was almost like a revolving door with new personnel, profiles, and résumés being uploaded daily. It also helped that the system had an almost nonexistent firewall, so I probably could have done it all without my boss’s log-in. But the log-in made it so easy. I was even able to insert pictures of myself with the real residents for the appropriate years.”
Noah found himself nodding. He could remember seeing the photo of Ava with the 2012 resident photo. As astounding as all this was, he was beginning to think she was telling him the truth. “What about your name change?” Noah asked. “When did that happen?”
“That didn’t happen until I had to take the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination,” Ava said. “That was when I needed the new identity. It was before I took the anesthesia boards.”
“So people think that Gail Shafter still exists,” Noah said.
“For sure. It was key,” Ava said. “Particularly my old boss, Dr. Winston Herbert, who is still dean of the Brazos University School of Dentistry. It’s why I keep a Facebook page in her name. Presently, she is working for a virtual dentist in Davenport, Iowa. I mean, at this point I suppose I could kill her off, but why? I enjoy contrasting my old life with the new. It makes me continuously appreciative of what I have achieved.”
“Good Lord,” Noah said. His head was spinning. “Who got the M.D./B.S. degree, Gail or Ava?”
Ava laughed. She was enjoying herself. “Of course it was Ava,” she said.
Although Noah was surprised at this news, he recognized that he shouldn’t have been. “In other words, you didn’t go to medical school, either?”
“Of course not,” Ava said. “Nor college, for that matter. That would have been a bigger waste of time than doing the anesthesia residency. I wanted to become an anesthesiologist. I didn’t want to waste time getting a general liberal-arts education, particularly not the kind you Ivy Leaguers think is appropriate.”
“So that means you are not even a doctor,” Noah snapped.
“That is a matter of definition,” Ava said. “I did take the USMLE as I said, and I did pass it with flying colors in the ninety-fifth percentile because I studied my butt off. According to the State of Massachusetts, I am a doctor. I have an M.D. license. They say that I am a doctor. I feel like a doctor, and I act like a doctor. I have the knowledge of a doctor. I’m a doctor.”
“What about the degree in nutrition?”
“Made up as well,” Ava said. “That was something I realized later that would come in handy. I just read about the field online.”
Noah closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. This was all so incredible he was having difficulty wrapping his mind around what she was telling him. “I’m not sure I believe all this,” he murmured.
“Wake up, my friend!” Ava said. “Come and join the digital age in the twenty-first century! The basis of knowledge has changed. It is not hidden away any longer by professional societies, some more secret and restrictive than others. Knowledge of just about everything is now available online for everyone, not just the few who are lucky enough for whatever reason to go to the right schools. Even professional medical experience and expertise is available in simulation centers with computer-driven mannequins that are better in many respects to the real thing. With the mannequins, a student can learn to handle a problem by doing it over and over until it is reflex, like handling malignant hyperthermia. Most anesthesiologists have never handled a case of MH. I’ve handled seven, to be exact. Six with a simulator and one in real life.”
“So you really did use the simulation center?” Noah said. It was a statement more than a question.
“Absolutely,” Ava said. “Like there was no tomorrow. Within months of my arriving at Brazos University Medical Center, I started my quest to become an anesthesiologist by using the simulators almost every night when the medical students and the residents had gone back to their beds. I did it religiously. I even started writing programs and to trouble-shoot the system because initially there were a lot of bugs in it. But it was a fabulous way to learn, so much better than the standard methodology. It is almost a crime that medical teaching hasn’t been altered for a hundred years, still adhering to a paradigm that started back in 1910, for God’s sake. It’s almost unbelievable because everything else about our culture and technology has changed drastically. Don’t you find it embarrassing that medical education is the most backward of all the pedagogies?”
“I guess I haven’t given it that much thought,” Noah said.