[snip]

“Kate?” Faith asked, “I know I’m only an unqualified nurse in training, but isn’t that a lot of questions to ask that poor man at once. He only just opened his eyes and it feels like an interrogation. And he is already suffering so much too from his great loss!”

‘’Oh Faith, its Hunter that is asking the questions and I do feel the same way as you’’ replied the nursing officer.
Since they were near the doctor Hunter spoke to both women ‘’ I agree but I’m just following orders from the Captain ‘’ he intently looked at the patient ‘’He has already given us a lot of information .The Lt was coherent in the state before ,now he is more stable though still in pain’’ .

Hunter although he too was not comfortable in asking for more information..the doctor was just following orders.

“Well, I’ll be asking Captain Glen what on Earth he was thinking of!” Faith told them. “He has no right to over-ride the permission of the medical staff. That’s section 5, subsection 2 of the Starfleet Medical code. And subsection 3 says we must also provide some privacy, they can’t just be questioned in public… I was just reading it in the textbook, The Students Guide to Starfleet Medical Law and Ethics, if you want to see?”

Hunter got up ‘’Faith dear in the situation we are in any section 1 or 100 does not matter since the Merrimack and all the crew might be in danger .A danger that took the lives of all crew of the Trudograd , I’m quite sure the Captain knows what he’s doing and only our patient may or may not give us answers we so desperately need ‘’ he went on ‘’It was the CMO herself who passed on the Captain’s message and if she thought that any section was valid in the said circumstances she would have over ridden his request ‘’.

“Well, if you say so,” Faith replied to Hunter’s interruption, but then she continued to Kate, “There is another book, ‘Epidemics’, Book One of the Hippocratic school: ‘Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient’. But maybe what I’ve read in books doesn’t apply to the practice of realistic medicine? Medical practice seems to be very confusing!”

• Faith, yeoman

With all the back and forth banter, Carol gave a weak chuckle as he came back around. “..B…Boy you folks sure like to cough banter around the sick on this ship huh?” he said with a faint wheeze, one of the NE nurses helping with the biobed controls to prop him up at a 20 degree angle to be more comfortable. After a moment he spoke, “..I am....I am unsure what else I can contribute really. Everything happened so fast,” he sighs heavily with a somber tone. “..I guess I’m just still feeling in shock with it all happening. Everything is so jumbled and I can’t really recall the order of events properly if I am honest. Sorry..” he said.

The medical staff could probably tell the man was still in some form of shock mentally. While physically he would recover and was more or less stable, the mental recovery would take more time, days even. Not to mention the no doubt longer term recovery for survivors guilt he would suffer further on.

GM CockRoach