So You Want to be a Doctor

Perfectly Reasonable is a romantic comedy about Margo and Trace who are both considering a career in medicine – but from opposite ends of the spectrum. Margo has finished medical school and doesn’t know whether she wants to continue, and Trace wants to write the perfect medical school application to get in.

In the story, Margo agrees to help Trace apply to medicine and she quizzes him with a variety of patient scenarios to teach him about empathy and to help him understand how a doctor would approach patient problems. Play along and see how you would do!

“Any of those muffins left?”

Trace pointed to the container still sitting on the island counter. “Help yourself. I’ll get you a plate. Coffee?”

Margo shook her head. “Just the muffin.”

Trace returned with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal and a plate for her.

Margo set her brush down and walked over to sit on the stool at the island. “Aren’t you too old to be eating sugar for breakfast?”

“Breakfast of champions.” He grinned with his mouth full.

“All part of your strategy?”

“You bet.” He scooped another mouthful. “Okay, ready. Hit me.”

“Here’s the scenario. A twenty-six-year-old single mom brings her three-year-old daughter into the Emergency Department with severe asthma. The child ends up in the intensive care unit intubated and on a respirator. Mom smokes at home. This is the third time the child has been admitted. There’s some discussion about whether the child needs to be put in foster care. How would you talk to the mom about this?”

Hmm…not that easy. Here’s another:

“A thirty-six-year-old truck driver comes in for a physical exam to renew his driver’s license. He has epilepsy and hasn’t had a seizure for seven years – until three weeks ago. He was partying, celebrating his wife’s pregnancy, and forgot to take his medication. The next day he had a seizure. He doesn’t want you to write it down because he’ll lose his driver’s license for a year. He needs it, especially now with the baby coming. He swears he’ll never forget his medication again. What do you do?”

“Put myself in his shoes. You gotta feel sorry for him. A bun in the oven, his livelihood on the line. I’d have to say I’d side with the dude and pretend he never told me.”

Margo nodded and rolled the paint on the wall. “The following week he’s driving on the highway, has a seizure and causes an accident, killing three people, one of them your Aunt Teresa.”

Yikes! He’s not quite ready yet. One more scenario:

“K. Here’s another. You’re a surgeon.”


Trace’s face lit up. “Always wanted to be a surgeon.”

Margo laughed. “You operate on a three-year-old child to remove a mass. During the operation, the specimen is sent to a pathologist and you’re told it’s cancer. Immediately following the surgery, you tell the parents. Obviously they’re devastated. The next day, the pathologist calls you and tells you that now that they’ve had a chance to look at the sample more closely, do further testing, and consult another pathologist with more expertise, they’ve determined that it’s benign. It’s not cancer.” She paused. “What do you do?”

Not as easy as it sounds! The bottom line? “Empathy isn’t about avoiding harsh decisions. It’s about supporting patients when those harsh decisions come down the wire.” Margo has great advice for Trace, but is she as clever with affairs of the heart?

Here’s more about Perfectly Reasonable~

Love what you do and do what you love. Sounds perfectly reasonable, but chances are, you’ll find your passion in the last place you look . . .

Margo MacMillan finished medical school, but in the process, her self-confidence and self-esteem took a beating. So for the sake of self-preservation, she’s stepped away from medicine to re-group. In the meantime, painting soothes her soul and pays the bills.

Trace Bennett set his sights on a medical degree and has to prepare the perfect medical school application. His big plan is to paint his condo for a little feng shui divine luck. When Margo shows up to paint, he realizes he’s found exactly what he’s looking for. He just has to convince Margo to share more than the art of medicine.

She’s got it. He wants it. It’s Perfectly Reasonable.

Buy it HERE! 😀