- Sloane Pierce:
I am Thirty-two years old, and my entire life has been a series of calculated steps toward one goal: medicine. More specifically, neurosurgery.
Some people chase love, others chase wealth, but I have never been interested in distractions.
Every hour I have lived, every decision I have made, has been weighed against the single question: Will this make me a better doctor? If the answer was no, then it was discarded without regret.
I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was twelve.
My parents still laugh about the night I told them I was going to "fix brains for a living." I had been reading an anatomy book while other kids my age were reading comics or gossiping about crushes.
Crushes—those were always foreign to me. By the time high school arrived and dating became a currency, I had already shut that part of myself down. Men asked, women asked, and I rejected them all. I never felt guilty about it.
My heart beat only for the hospital halls I hadn't even entered yet. My pulse raced only when I read about surgical innovations, case studies, brain mapping. Love was not on the syllabus.
My parents sometimes worried, and still do, about how single–minded I am. My mother once asked me, during my third year of medical school, if I was lonely. I remember setting down my coffee and staring at her, genuinely confused.
Lonely? How could I be lonely when my days were filled with studying, shadowing, and practicing sutures until my hands cramped?
How could I be lonely when my head was crowded with the voices of professors, the cases of patients I had yet to meet, and the steady drum of knowledge demanding to be memorized? Loneliness requires empty space.
I never allowed myself any.
That philosophy governs not just the broad strokes of my life but the minutiae of my day. I live by the clock. My routine is my anchor, and it is sacred.
6:00 a.m. – Wake up. I allow myself exactly two minutes to lie still and blink my way into consciousness. Any longer, and I risk drifting back into sleep.
6:02 a.m. – Brush my teeth. Two minutes, thirty seconds. I time it with a song—always the same song, never different.
6:05 a.m. – Wash my face. One minute. I do not linger; I do not indulge.
6:06 a.m. – Get dressed in my running clothes. Sixty seconds. Shoes laced, ponytail tightened, watch strapped.
6:07 a.m. to 6:47 a.m. – Run. Exactly forty minutes, no more, no less. I run the same route through my neighborhood, past the bakery that opens early, past the park where dogs pull their owners along. The rhythm of my feet against the pavement is the only music I allow myself in the mornings.
6:47 a.m. to 6:52 a.m. – Shower. Five minutes, water kept lukewarm to avoid drowsiness.
6:52 a.m. to 7:02 a.m. – Dress for the hospital. I wear plain clothes under my scrubs, neutral colors, nothing distracting.
7:02 a.m. to 7:10 a.m. – Breakfast. Always the same: two boiled eggs, half an avocado, one slice of whole–grain toast, and black coffee. On Sundays, I meal–prep the entire week's worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. I eat for fuel, not for pleasure.
7:10 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. – Review flashcards. I keep a deck on my kitchen counter—neurosurgical terminology, drug interactions, anatomy trivia. Five minutes every morning. I don't leave my apartment without flipping through them.
7:15 a.m. to 7:20 a.m. – Pack my bag. Stethoscope, spare pens, small notebook, protein bar. Double–check.
7:20 a.m. – Out the door.
Every day is like this. And I need it that way. Because if I let my schedule unravel, even slightly, I fear I'll lose control of the bigger picture. Medicine requires precision. So does life.
Today began no differently. The sky was still pale when I stepped out of my car and walked toward the hospital's glass doors. I remember adjusting the strap of my bag, feeling the cool morning air against my cheeks, reminding myself of the patients I needed to see today, the charts I needed to review. My head was already buried in the list when I pushed the door open.
But the moment I stepped inside, everything shifted.
The air in the lobby was thick with noise—shouts, sobs, the metallic crash of a gurney wheel against the tiled floor.
People crowded the waiting area, clutching arms, pressing bloody cloths against their faces, crying out for help.
Children wailed, women sobbed into their hands, men sat hunched over with expressions that spoke of pain and shock.
Nurses darted back and forth with gauze and IV poles. The usual low murmur of the hospital had been replaced by something that felt closer to chaos.
I stopped, my eyes sweeping the scene, and for a moment I forgot to breathe. My mind tried to catalog it, organize it, the way it always does. But there was too much: too many sounds, too many colors, too much blood.
Then a nurse spotted me. "Dr. Pierce!" she called, her voice breaking.
She hurried toward me, her shoes squeaking against the slick floor. Her face was flushed, strands of hair sticking to her temples. "There's been a pileup on the highway—massive accident. We've got dozens incoming, maybe more. We need every available surgeon in the ER now."
My pulse jumped. "How many critical?"
"Too many to count. At least fifteen already in trauma bays, more coming in by ambulance. Some DOAs."
I nodded, my bag already sliding from my shoulder as I stripped off my coat. "Page whoever's on call. Get anesthesia down there. Where do you need me first?"
She swallowed hard, gesturing toward the hallway. "We've got three polytrauma patients in 2, 3, and 5. Ortho's swamped. No Neuro has arrived yet except you. One's a motorcyclist—head injury, possible spinal involvement. We need you on her."
I pulled my badge forward, secured my hair, and forced my lungs to steady. "Take me to her," I said. And just like that, a new day in the hospital started.