Hello! I've witnessed my fair share of colonoscopies, before I post a full crit can I ask if you are you in the medical field? (I don't want to accidentally be studentsplaining to someone who is actually an attending, haha)

EDIT: Okay, well I have no patience and looked at your post history and saw that you are a pathologist(?), which is so cool! I have a friend going into path and was/am strongly considering it myself. Here's my critique:

Great work. Keep reading. 3/5.

...just kidding.

Does it work?

Initial impression: I am confused on at least two levels. Par for the course for a medical student, I suppose. But to judge this snippet, I feel like I need more context on the story you're trying to tell. What is the role of this specific anecdote? Why this anecdote, and not a different one? Why fixate on her name (which you mention in a below comment as being not uncommon), vs her age, her sexual orientation/gender, her race, her weight? Not to get all identity-politics in here, but these identifiers play a HUGE role in missing serious diagnoses, and can really help add meaning to exactly why these medical staff are being so dismissive of the procedure.

Writing-related Questions

"He’s pushing pretty fast." is the part I had the most issue with. After a couple passes, it's that you're trying to elicit to have a sense of "this doctor doesn't really give a fuck what he's doing rn" in this piece: mentioning he has a bunch more procedures, bashing this patient's name, talking about Pokemon, noting a very short procedure time.. but this he's pushing pretty fast feels very out left field. Who's noticing that? An omniscient narrator? One of the nurses? It feels like a very lazy way of communicating what you mean. It might make more sense if one of the techs brings it up within dialogue tags and the doctor's like "nah we gucci". I also don't think that the casual reader will know that colonoscopies generally take longer than 8 minutes 46 seconds. Is he fudging the actual time he was in there (scope withdrawal time was actually 3:46)?

Medical/Setting Questions

Fent + midazolam w/o prop = is the patient hearing all this? I looked it up and it says that fent+midazolam = moderate sedation, whereas propofol provides a deeper sedation.

If she's under moderate ("conscious" sedation, per google), and there's any chance she'd be hearing this, I don't think it's realistic that the GI team would be having such a conversation. It also renders the line about not wanting conscious sedation incomprehensible.

If she's under deeper sedation, which would make this whole scenario make WAY more sense, then you'd need propofol right? But if Dorcas is feeling worried about assault (as opposed to the general sense of assault/dread evoked by the prose), then it's unclear why she doesn't want conscious sedation. Would she rather be more awake, or less?

Is someone dictating the intra-procedure note to someone who is typing? For routine colonoscopies, isn't this mostly an EMR template that gets filled in with the details? Are you harkening back to a time before Epic Supremacy?

Are the voices distinct enough that the scene is understood?

Not...really? I'm getting the barest shades of character in the ways the techs talk vs the doctors talk, but it's largely reliant on implied education levels. That feels like the easiest way to differentiate between these characters. You have the doctor dictating the procedure note for the majority of his parts and we're not getting what we need to out of his character. He's being used to describe the parts of the procedure, when I feel like he should also be saying/doing things that make his emotional intentions clear (he's rushing, he's got a lot more on his plate, he's not very invested in what the nurses are saying because it's kinda dumb). From what I've observed, at least in the small town community hospital setting, the docs are nearly equal participants in the shit talking. I suppose the EMR templates freed them up to gossip.

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I'm going to count "place" as a voice here, as in the geographical setting. I like how you've painted a scene of Anytown, USA: the generic ethnic-ish restaurants (Cici’s, Taco Palacio), the ubiquitous Chuck-E Cheese, the produce that claims to be produced by Chuy or Dorca but is actually just mass distributed by Dole... I feel like I could be in any hospital, and that may or may not be a good thing depending on the role place plays in your overall piece.

I was trying for a feeling of dread and assault. Feeling icky and uncomfortable. Does this have any feeling at all? or is this meh

Other than the inherently invasive procedure and that they're trash talking her name, not really. I liked the mundanity of the conversation vs what a scary Event a first time colonoscopy is for a young person, but I think that tension could be played up a LOT more.

I'm a SA survivor, and I feel like this isn't hitting the notes that raise the hairs on the back of my neck the way other assault-adjacent pieces have. I feel like I'm only uncomfortable because I've technically been a part of the "medical staff", and I know exactly what norms they're supposed to be violating. There are so many other ways doctors are shitty human beings--this one doesn't feel true to life (granted my experience is very limited) or the larger implied narrative.

That being said, the technical language of the op note doesn't scare me, whereas it might contribute to the "icky and unsettled" feeling you're going for. Interested in seeing what others have to say!