• Solo • Otorhinolaryngo … whatever!

[Devin]

Ashan 21st, Arc 721

“Medicine“, Devin told Magdalene, a red-haired young human woman and one of his classmates as they walked to class together. “Doesn’t make any sense. Why do we have dentists? Why do we have doctors that specialize in cutting people open? Why do we have toxicologists?” he wanted to know in a fairly exasperated tone of voice.

“We have dentists so that people don’t have to extract their own teeth – or get nasty infections or even sepsis and die because they decide to keep their infected teeth in – and we have toxicologists because someone has to study poisons and cure people who have been poisoned, and as for surgeons”, Magdalene began in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Once upon a time, she might have looked at Devin a little strangely because he had asked such a question, but over the course of time, she had come to the realization that Devin always had a reason. The problem was that his reason was often quite different from other people’s!

“I know, I know”, Devin, who was garbed in a fashionable royal blue suit and a black lace shirt that trial assured her. “But why are there all those specialized specialists? If you specialize, you risk becoming narrow-minded and being unable to see a disease as a whole. Sometimes, the teeth aren’t all that matters. Sometimes, a problem with a patient’s toe can be related. What if you overlook that because you spend most of your time extracting teeth?” he asked Magdalene and looked at her questioningly.

“You are a dentist”, Magdalene pointed out.

“Yes”, Devin replied and shrugged his shoulders, thoroughly unimpressed. “But I’ll write my thesis on mutations, I cut boils open, I fix broken limbs, and I even treated someone with bronchitis once. I do everything. I just happen to like teeth. And mutations. Those are great as well."

“If you specialize, you can master a specific branch of medicine and subsequently become better at treating patients with similar symptoms. It also helps when it comes to research”, Magdalene argued. “That’s important. You can’t master every branch of medicine”, she insisted only in order to look at Devin incredulously a moment later. “Oh no, please don’t say that you’ll plan on mastering everything! I’m willing to concede that you are pretty clever, but nobody can do that!”

“Wanna bet?” Devin retorted, grinned and fluttered his eyelashes for a bit of an additional effect.

Whatever it was that Magdalene wanted to say, she never got the opportunity to say it as it was just then that they finally reached the classroom that was already quite full that trial.

Devin grinned at Magdalene, bowed in a somewhat exaggerated fashion and gestured for her to walk in first, and then he quickly followed her.

Together, they went looking for an empty desk.

[Devin]

Devin knew that it would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, for a human to master every branch of medicine because humans had a limited lifespan. He wasn’t a human though. Delroth’s daughter had told him that he was a Mortalborn. He still didn’t know who his Immortal parent was (He was hoping for Edasha because she was just so beautiful!), but he literally had eternity to work with now. He could master every branch of medicine if he wanted to!

(He just hoped that that didn’t make him a nerd. He didn’t want to be a nerd. Nerds sucked!)

He didn’t tell Magdalene that though. He wasn’t sure if she’d be inclined to believe him; and besides, having such a big secret was fun. He just wished that he had more interesting powers!

Muttering something under his breath for a moment because he really wished he were able to make people feel pleasure, like Zana, rather than seeing the future, he removed his notebook and his pencil case from his backpack that was made of black leather and decorated with royal blue tassels.

Magdalene who was sitting next to him did the same.

Devin was just wondering if he should quickly drink something or stuff a couple of cookies into his mouth (He always had a bag of them in his backpack, in case he got hungry.) when Argus Hamilton-Smith, their professor, walked through the door and up to the blackboard.

When Devin had first met the handsome young academic, he had had a bit of crush on him. A little later, he had changed his mind and decided to hate him though because he had “asked” him to grade the essays of his Letter students because he had misbehaved in class. Since his Charter meeting during which Argus Hamilton-Smith had supported him, he was okay with him again though.

For that reason, he sat up a little straighter, looked at him and listened to him attentively rather than doodling something in his notebook when he finally began to speak,

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. To-trial we will talk about otorhinolaryngology as those that have checked the schedules that I distributed at the beginning of the season know. Now, I expect you all to already be familiar with the basics, being Licentiate students. We will cover a few more aspects of this particular branch of medicine though, talk about diseases and discuss treatment options.”

“Furthermore, you will be asked to perform a few practical exercises”, he finished.

That was something that Devin was particularly looking forward to. He loved practical exercises and mock surgeries and such. He just couldn’t help but wonder why so many things in medicine had weird and barely pronounceable names. He knew that otorhinolaryngology dealt with matters of the head and the neck, being an advanced medical student, but …

… why?

Where were all those weird names coming from? He could barely pronounce them sometimes. How much more overwhelmed were people that hadn’t spent a couple of arcs studying medicine? Shouldn’t medicine be easy to understand for the average citizen of Scalvoris?

Why couldn’t they just call it “head and neck studies” instead?

For a moment, he was tempted to change the topic of his thesis and write about how medical terminology sucked and should be simplified, but he just loved mutants too much!

Maybe he could write two theses though!

[Devin]

When Devin had decided to write his thesis about mutants, he had decided to subsequently familiarize himself with every body part and take classes in that regard, because every body part could mutate. Familiarizing himself with how a body part worked in the first place and what kind of diseases existed would help him understand the mutations thereof. At least, he hoped so!

So, when Professor Hamilton-Smith talked about all the weird little things that were located in the ears and in the neck and such as well as various ear and neck-related diseases, the young man immediately grabbed his pen and started to take notes in his incredibly messy handwriting.

Otitis externa, or swimmer’s ear, is an inflammation of the ear canal. It often presents with ear pain, itching and irritation around and swelling of the ear canal. Sometimes, the patient’s hearing can also be impaired, and there can be a discharge of liquid or pus from the ear. Fever usually isn’t present, apart from in severe cases. Otitis externa may be acute or chronic, he wrote and put his pen down again quite abruptly in order to shake his hand a bit.

It already started to hurt!

Before long, he grabbed it again though and continued to write because he didn’t want to miss anything, silently wondering about the many ways in which ears could possibly mutate. If you got mutations that gave you Mer ears, provided that Mer actually had ears, would you still be able to get swimmer’s ear?

There were other causes for that particular condition as well though!

Sometimes, otitis externa can get better without treatment, but that can take several seven-trials. When the patient is given ear drops, symptoms usually improve within a couple of trials. Removal of debris from the ear canal can also be helpful and make it easier for the prescribed medication to reach the affected part of the ear, Devin wrote and shuddered a bit.

He quite liked crazy mutations and unusual deformities, and he didn’t mind cutting boils open either, but removing ear wax from someone’s ear canal? That was not his idea of fun. That yellow stuff was disgusting!

[Devin]

“Now then”, Professor Hamilton-Smith said after he had talked about how to check a patient’s ears and throat in theory. “I want you to partner up and check each other’s ears and throats now – but not with your usual partners”, he added upon seeing how a number of students, including Devin and Magdalene, immediately turned to the person next to them. “This time, I will assign a partner to you”, he informed them.

For that reason, a somewhat grumpy Devin found himself facing a young woman with very light blonde hair and big grey eyes that looked at him with a mixture of fascination and wariness before she lowered her head and proceeded to stare at his nails that were black and kind of sharp and didn’t look exactly like human nails were supposed to look like.

“A Grafter made them for me”, Devin informed her in a cheerful tone of voice and wiggled his fingers a little before he introduced himself, since they had never worked together before. “Devin Thorn, Baron of Smooglenuff. And you are?” he wanted to know. He had initially been somewhat irritated because he wasn’t allowed to work together with Magdalene, but meeting new people, he realized, had potential. It meant new admirers!

“Laura”, the young woman replied somewhat shyly and blushed before she asked. “Are you really a Baron? I mean, I heard about the Smooglenuff Barony, but … and did you really meet a Grafter?” she wanted to know, changing the topic because that interested her just as much.

“Sure”, Devin replied and grinned before he looked at her questioningly. When she nodded, he began the exam. He carefully pulled the outer ear up and back which straightened the ear canal and improved visualization. Finally, he asked her to lean back, examined the mouth, noted the condition of the tongue and pressed down on the tongue with a wooden tongue depressor in order to examine the back of the tongue as well as the …

“… tonsils!” he remarked and looked at the white stuff on the back Laura’s tonsils with a mixture of fascination and revulsion because he was pretty sure that his tonsils didn’t have that!

[Devin]

Upon hearing Devin wonder about Laura’s tonsils, Professor Hamilton-Smith who had been supervising the class, sitting behind his desk, rose to his feet and quickly walked over to them. “What is the matter?” he wanted to know. “Let me take a look, please, Doctor Thorn!”

“Ah, yes, I see”, he remarked a few moments later, once he had examined Laura’s tonsils as well. “Apparently, you have discovered Miss Jamison’s tonsil stones, Doctor Thorn. Tonsil stones are a somewhat uncommon occurrence. They are the result of material accumulating within the crypts of the tonsils – and harmless”, he added upon noticing that Laura had begun to look at him a little worriedly.

No student should be worried in his class and wonder if they had a serious health problem!

“I wanted to talk about them next lesson anyway”, he continued, addressing the entire class now. “I might as well do so now. Tonsil stones are, as I told you, harmless, and they don’t require treatment if they don’t bother you. If they do, gargling saltwater can help dislodge them. Manual removal is also possible”, he added.

“My tonsils don’t hurt”, Laura who had found her courage again piped up at which the professor smiled at her and nodded before he gave them the sign to continue and returned to his desk.

Laura looked at Devin and smiled somewhat shyly and hesitantly before she asked, holding a tongue depressor up, “Let’s see if there’s anything unusual about your throat?”

As he had expected, Devin’s throat was fine. Why, he didn’t even have bad breath because he rinsed his mouth with a solution that contained peppermint every single morning.

A priest of Delroth couldn’t have bad breath!

[Avalon]

Review Rewards

Name: Devin

Points awarded: 10xp

Knowledge:
Medicine: Symptoms of otitis externa
Medicine: Treatment of otitis externa
Medicine: How to perform an ear exam
Medicine: How to perform a throat exam
Medicine: Tonsil stones
Writing: Taking notes in class

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriate to level

Notes:

The continuing adventures of Doctor Devin!

So, the first thing I laughed at was Devin's whimsicalness about having a crush on the young academic and then deciding to hate him because of some minor thing. That fits Devin's mindset perfectly.

Devin comes up with the most outlandish ideas, and the reader totally wants to go along for the ride because Devin, as a character, is utterly charming. He makes the reader root for him, even if whatever it is that he's come up with is so bizarre and odd that it's never going to work.

This solo was a bit of a multi-tasker. You have some skill pieces in there, wrapped up with beautifully written character pieces that show us who Devin is and what he thinks about everything. I actually think his approach to the 'master everything' concept is very logical, and his argument sound - sometimes focusing on one specific subject will make you miss the bigger picture.

Devin, as always, is a joy to read....no matter what craziness he's up to. Great job!


If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!

Avalon