~(This takes place between Episodes 2 and 3 of Season 3)~
...
People weren't afraid of not being perfect now.
They were afraid of the opposite actually. Robby had insulated epistemic failure of procedure so massively, that human error was equal parts far more easier to quantify, and also made everyone more productive when they just followed the rules alone and worried about little else.
Everyone clocked in and didn't have to worry about the ward not being organized or clean enough, they found work in moments with little reminder from floor higher ups.
Innate mistakes were almost encouraged, because equally so, cutting corners on purpose became magnified to spot.
Nurses were needed only for specific duties listed in their contracts, no more consult docs passing off lab forms, and medical aides getting them to "double check" meds as a hand off to actually move them around when they were already set 2 hours ago.
Small things like that which made co-operation much easier, but only passed on rules, not heuristics built over convenience.
So when Izzie, Meredith, Yang, George, and Alex were done with a quick hour in the Pit they rose up to their usual ward at 10 o'clock and were a little shaken.
Not horrified, not in awe, just worried someone had changed something very seriously and not consulted anyone about it.
"Why does it feel like everything completely changed- or something?"
"Look at them." Stevens said after Cristina as the staff moved like a river, not rushing, but not slow either like the work was everywhere, and everywhere was work. "It's like when everything goes right in the worst way possible. All the-the the life is just sucked out of their eyes."
Alex crosses his arms. "Mm. Too much focus and drive, passion sure, just no decisions."
George checked the clock. It was two minutes and no one bothered him like they did most interns about information on where Beds, slang sometimes for patients or at least 'hospital beds', were going for OR prep, or most samples he still needed to file.
Everything was supposed to be where it was.
The last straw was when Meredith checked a room.
A man who was supposed to go into a surgery with very vague terms for his release, the details of how invasive the procedure itself would be, and the cost to his insurance. Was cool as a cucumber in his hospital bed.
She had talked to him very recently he...should not be this calm. Even if she never wanted someone to be agitated this was strange.
Stuff had been going on like this for nearly a week, and by now they were ready to ask some questions.
Izzie saw someone appear, opening a hallway door with a pen click, instantly someone appeared from behind the front desk with a clipboard, both acting like business as usual.
Meredith glanced.
Aqua lab coat. Looks young as hell despite how it feels like he set the temperature for the room before entering. All of it. She caught glimpses before- It's him.
"Wait a minute. I think he's the one in charge of this." Meredith says.
"Hold up." Izzie showed up from a nearby hospital room. "Is that the math guy I hear people mention?"
"Think so?" George said slowly.
"Man, look at him, he's adorable!" Izzie says almost blankly, seeing him read something hand it back to that person that just appeared, point, get a nod as that person vanished down a corridor like he was weather, not a tenured lab tech accompanying a Resident from Oncology.
This person looked about 26 or 27, had dark hair and a pale face, wore jeans, and was dressed like a math professor, red tie and white button up shirt, then a light thin maroon wool sweater, and a stethoscope. His lab coat was a unique shade of cyan or light aqua, no one noted it though as if quasi-mundane. Izzie was right, she was undercutting that he looked in his element by the fact that he also looked about a decade younger than his actual age.
"It's like he knows magic, look at him go, no wonder he's so hard to track down no one knows where is, what he does, where he goes, and everything just...works." mutters Karev not knowing whether to be impressed or scared.
Yang is muttering while making sure nurses have the right medicine, cups, and materials organized. "It should be illegal for someone that young to be so good at analytical triage."
They turn to her.
"Good at what?" asks George.
"Analytical triage." Cristina shrugs, organizing a box of material from a nearby rack knowing Bailey will need it for them soon when she arrives in a few minutes for OR agenda and case assignment. "It's not common but it's traditional for sure. When things get important enough and enough mistakes have to be fixed management needs to up the ante before auditors and other hospitals come sniffing. Not long till we take the intern exams so, there you go."
"Wait, so they send him?" Alex scoffs.
"Guess so." Yang glances at him.
"But look at him. He looks like he just finished senior prom, not a specialization that you know...special." Izzie brings herself to say.
Yang glances at her. "Mcbabyface will reign then, until we all turn into computer chips, not people."
Meredith can't take any more when he sees nearby front desk staff, a nurse and a medical aide, clearly making second glances every few seconds, worried if a very calm nearby Robby is secretly waiting for them to make a mistake, write it down, and leave or something.
"Hi there."
" 'G morning." Robby is scribbling something, leaning on the front desk calmly.
"Can I-" she tries to keep her smile, realizing he hasn't looked up. "Have your name please?"
"Dr. Robert T Gallagher."
His pen keeps scratching, perfect handwriting despite the speed and requirements of medical notes.
Meredith still remains polite. "Don't you wanna know my name?"
The tone was not a compliment. He sounded like someone reading from a book. "That would be pointless. Your name is Meredith Grey. In my opinion, you already qualify as a doctor regardless of classification. Both in hours clocked at ORs with impeccable performance and clinical assessment."
"H-How do you know that?" easy question considering they've never met.
"Anyone producing high enough quality work to be nationally ranked at a hospital this competitive produces enough data that the federal government needs to take at least mm." Robby hardly glances at her. "A peek. Doctors Burke, Bailey, Montgomery, Shepherd, and others aren't impressive enough on their own to have people take their words for it when they publish anything. The scientific community needs hard proof, and I need to do my job to keep everyone honest."
"Which is, why you're flattening people?"
The air in the ward changes for half a second.
"Flattenning outcome, into something this hospital can manage. If you think surgeons can win awards with the same design structure that lets interns almost assassinate their own patients due to organizational negligence then." he shrugs. "I guess I really am needed here after all."
Silence again.
"Due to negligence?" Meredith isn't insulted, just very curious.
"Of course. Do you really think George O'Malley is incompetent enough to fail to do an appendectomy, something that basic at a hospital of this level? No." she doesn't know what to say from how casually he's talking and what he's saying. "Peer pressure. Higher ups not giving him the correct courses and training when I arrived."
"You can't possibly just-"
A paper was handed to her, Robby just keeps reading and writing on his clipboard calmly.
Meredith scans it. A picture of George taken on his first day here, with a detailed list of every single bit of classroom time, clock in as an intern, and specific hours assisting, watching, and performing in the OR itself.
"I'm no expert on a guy I've never met. But the dude isn't a wingnut I'll tell you that much."
Karev laughs without any sound as he throttles George from the side, shaking him. He's too shocked to react, Cristina is chewing on a bag of Gardetto's like popcorn. And Izzie is too interested in how this ends to remotely know how to process this.
Meredith then crosses her arms. "So you get to decided everything about us? And everyone we work with?"
"You think you're good with a scalpel?"
She nods.
"This is mine." a pen clicks and he shows it to her. "I move it and every single one of the 321 patients moving at an average rate of 23.43 hours through here are registered and recorded so you never get sued and lose your license. Then over 2300 pages of data they produce if the cases are serious, get processed."
Robby merely pushes the pen forward a little bit, raising an eyebrow and speaking:
"I never said I was perfect. Just doing what I chosen for."
His wristwatch beeps the moment 10:05 hits, as if it means something. Then he starts to move.
"And what were you chosen for exactly?"
"Anything the hospital needs within mathematical reason. I don't help the patients. I help you help the patients."
"Okay," Meredith spoke as he began to leave. "Mrs. Runyon needs proofs we needed prepped half an hour ago."
"Surgery is your department Dr. Grey, my lab runs on data not whatever you happen to need." he mutters not looking at her.
"Well I know it's not dangerous or anything just less convenient-"
"Bed 4 was classified over 30 hours ago. Never got forms on my desk completed for your exact sort of request. I fail to do my job and no one realizes the real audits become lawsuits from people who needed better treatment from the data designed to save them."
Meredith stops, hands on her hips after a week of this. "Do you think you're special because no one is special to you? Not even you?"
"Bodies don't lie Dr. Grey, mouths do." His pen clicks before he walks off.
Meredith's frustration builds, not overly just a bit. "Do you remotely care about anything except numbers that-"
"Every second and every observation in every room matters at any given time, because it determines whether or not someone is about to die when they're sick. Or get help. The clock is supposed to save more lives than the OR because it might let them leave healthy before they get there in the first place."
"Where'd you do your residency?" she challenges, almost annoyed.
He shrugs. "Right by where I did my undergrad. Princeton, New Jersey. Got the best mentor, best thing he taught me is that fame's poison." he gives her a dry look.
"And where are you from?"
He grins at her slightly looking from his chart for this, fine with doing it in the hall not on the front desk counter.
"The Bronx. More important institution in my opinion." he lifts an MRI expertly looking at it. "There, I found out that no one notices something unless it's convenient."
His look is this: I am barely noticing you right now for a reason by the same doctrine.
He wasn't impressed by her beauty. He knew her name. He very likely understood the legacy it implied from his degree of institutional knowledge. He wasn't impressed by her skills or level of tact. And he wasn't fazed; everyone was listening, as if he knew it ran on time, not opinions.
"You make a great first impression if you're not supposed to be a tyrant."
He chuckles.
Robby pauses when he sees her face. She's serious. He's not scared, but he can tell it wasn't a quip. That kind of thing is not something he'd let happen:
Because even logic knows when it has gone a step too far.
He rubs his hair. "I'm here to answer questions if things aren't clear enough," he states simply.
"Then tell me why you care at all about how I work or how anyone works unless you can see it on a chart."
Robby thinks.
A few can hear his footsteps as he crosses the ward floor and places the clipboard down. People know this is the most personal thing he's going to say since they met him, even if it's purely related to work.
"See that clock over there?"
"Yeah."
Robby waits 13 seconds. The second hand reaches 12.
"Patients reach admissions to get classified, then tests begin, then a determination is made by the appropriate assigned doctor, either treatment is completed and moved to surgery or reassessment, then release after final determination. During all steps approximately 7 different forms are completed by hand by 2 different members of varying departments. In terms of data this is 21 pages of a finalized report for total data of a single serious case. If any information conflicts at all with what actually happened or aligns with exact protocol, Seattle Grace does not have actual proof to defend itself in open court, regulatory or advisory board or otherwise."
Robby's tone changes from explanatory to severe in how necessary he's sure his duty is. "I cannot stress this more Dr. Grey. Computers and people have failed to do their normally set job because those in charge of this place and the institutions that built them will fold unless someone who understands how math and lab science govern both can do their job. Your job is more essential than mine."
That part makes her shift differently.
"Because I can't actually make determinations themselves. I can only advise on them. I can't figure out which specific patient needs which specific treatment. I can only advise on it. And I can't understand how surgery works by minute detail. I can only advise on it. Because all medicine is based in science, all science in observable data. And all science boils down to math."
Robby smiles lightly, not patronizingly, not proudly, but understandingly in a tiny way. "I analyze. You execute. A pattern builds, I advise. Then you execute again. You save lives with your bare hands, and if no one wrote it down, that person dies very soon later."
He looks at the clock, Meredith sees it took about 50-60 seconds. Time was numbers, numbers were his life. A minute in, a minute out.
"Now." he takes a deep breath and picks his clipboard back up, and speaks in a very relaxed way. "Do you have another question, or can I get back to work?"
She can barely answer, Robby doesn't blame her.
"Where are you going?"
Robby is practically halfway out the door.
"To get some goddamned Tylenol."
Karev sees her turn around, Meredith freezes, and then he dies of laughter.
She ignores him and walks over to Cristina. "Analytical triage?"
Yang half shrugs and nods.
"If he's not a surgeon, why do I have to care what he says at least in terms of any work I do in the OR itself?"
Karev was instantly about to say something, then shrugged, stopping himself: Good point.
"Because they gave him a little blue cape to make him think he's a superhero."
"What?"
"He's an Interspecialist. They're basically a myth. Mathematicians and scientists so good that medical diagnostics is like....second nature."
Meredith blinks. "What do you mean second nature?"
"We just like the work at the top, you know. The bypasses, spinal, neurosurgery." Yang turns away, organizing something else. "They can just look at a patient's chart and see the treatment they need or something in their head."
It wasn't even a question, a flat repetition of her statement. "See it."
Yang didn't reply.
Whatever that meant.
Meredith knew something medical diagnostics were in fact three quarters of the work for real doctors for a reason even if it didn't minimize her own work. This was just the start of something she knew could help greatly.
Or equally be a pain.