All throughout my college years I worked in two hospitals — one during the summer in my hometown and the university hospital at school. My hometown hospital was built in the early decades of the 20th century. There were six floors, plus a penthouse and a basement, which housed the inhalation therapy office and the morgue. The first floor housed the admitting and billing offices, the Emergency Department, and about six observation / overflow rooms. The second-floor housed employee health, x-ray, the pharmacy and the laboratories. The third floor was the men’s medical-surgical unit. and the fourth floor was women’s medical-surgical unit — sexes were separated in those days. All of the rooms on three and four were semi-private, except for one ward of six beds on each floor. The fifth floor housed the ICU and a few private rooms. The sixth floor held six operating rooms, surgical prep areas and the recovery unit. The penthouse held men’s and women’s locker rooms.

Each of the rooms had a solid door which I had never seen closed. There was a privacy screen door covering the middle half of the opening which obstructed one’s vision, but someone could see into the room if he or she was standing at the door. Each of the beds in the hospital rooms was of the old-style, iron hospital beds that could only be raised and lowered by hand. Oxygen from masks, nasal cannulas and inhalation therapy was delivered from portable tanks.

The nurse’s stations on the two med-surg units were just off the elevators. Each station had two medicine cabinets — the one for narcotics was locked and the charge nurse held the only key — and one refrigerator. Although medicine could be and was dispensed at any time, as needed or ordered, routine medicines were administered four times a day — at 10 am; 2 pm; 6 pm and 10 pm. One of the RNs would take the orders off the chart and request whatever was not on hand from the pharmacy. She would then fill little cups with pills or suppositories and prepare whatever syringes were needed for injections and place them on a cart. Each patient’s medications were identified by a piece of tape which held the same printed information that was found on the patient’s wrist bracelet. The RN would then roll the cart down the hall, stopping at each room to administer the medications.

Usually the floors were busy — either with visitors in the afternoon or early evening, or with stretchers transporting patients to and from the OR in the morning and early afternoon — but at 10 pm, it was very quiet. Often, patients were asleep and the nurse had to wake them up to administer their medications. If you were on the floor, you could hear what was transpiring in the rooms at least halfway down the hall — “wake up; I have your medicine”; “take these pills and this water”; “can you turn over for me?”; etc. And on occasion you could hear the reaction of a patient receiving a shot.

I was working the second shift in the OR one day during the summer between my junior and senior years and when I arrived for work, I saw Ellie, a college classmate who lived in the same city, and her mother coming out of the admitting office. We knew one another from school, but lived at the opposite ends of the city, so we were not really close. There was a shocked recognition and a mutual “What are you doing here?”. She told me that she was going into the hospital for a minor surgical procedure – removal of a impacted wisdom tooth -- in the morning. I told her that I was working there and asked if she would like me to visit with her later that day when I had a moment. She looked at her mother for a moment and then told me that she would like that.

That afternoon, when I was on the fourth floor, I checked with Pam, the charge nurse at the nurse’s station, and learned that Ellie was in a room without a roommate. I stopped in for a moment to say “hello” and asked how she was doing. She was lying in the bed by the door, and her mother was sitting on the chair. I told her I’d be back later when I had a little time to visit. A little before 10 pm, I took the elevator down to her floor. The medication cart was a few doors away from Ellie’s room and as I passed the cart I noticed what I thought was a tape with her name on a large syringe filled with penicillin. I kept walking and entered her room.

When I entered, I saw that Ellie was lying on the bed on top of the sheets, wearing a light blue satin nightgown which displayed her feminine curves. Her arms and legs were tanned from the summer sun. She looked happy to see me. She told me that she was a bit nervous, having never spent a night in the hospital since she was born. We talked about school and she asked me about my work at the hospital. We had been talking for about five minutes when Pam, her nurse, came into the room.

“I have to interrupt for a couple of minutes. Ellie, Dr. Bishop wants you to have some penicillin, so they’ll be in your system tomorrow morning.”

“A shot? Ellie asked with a shaky voice.”

“Yes. “I am going to give you a shot of penicillin,” Pam responded.

Ellie’s eyes widened, and she gasped “oh gosh! I hate those! Are you going to put that in my rear end? It hurts a lot when I get them there. Can I please have it in my arm?”

Pam replied softly, “I’m really sorry, Ellie. I know you don’t want to get a shot in your backside, but this one has to go there. I promise it will be all over in a couple of minutes. I need you to go ahead and lift up your nightgown and turn over on your tummy for me. And then face the wall.”

Ellie was good looking, nicely proportioned, and she had been in the sun that summer. She had a terrified look on her face as she turned over. Ellie lifted up her blue satin nightgown, exposing her milky white buttocks, which now were set against her well-tanned thighs. She was uncovered from her waist to her feet, and I couldn’t help staring at her beautiful behind.

Pam uncapped the syringe. She reached over and with the alcohol-soaked cotton ball swabbed Ellie’s left buttock and quickly pierced her skin with the sharp point of the thick, 18-gauge needle. Ellie yelped, then sucked in an audible breath as the needle was slowly pushed all the way in to the hub — a full two inches into her muscle. When Pam started injecting the thick white medicine, Ellie couldn’t say “OW!” fast enough. It took Pam about a minute or a little more to push all of the penicillin out of the syringe and into Ellie’s increasingly sore cheek.

As Pam slowly pushed down on the plunger, I could see Ellie’s legs moving around as she tried to escape the pain. She was squeezing the sheets on the bed and her yelps of “OW!” were coming at a more rapid pace. She was breathing hard, her face was beginning to turn red, and she was tearing up by the time the injection was almost over. There was one final “OW!” as Pam finally pulled out the needle and applied pressure on the wound with the cotton ball.

“I’m so sorry, Ellie. I know that shot hurt a lot, but it’s for a good cause and you’ll feel better in the morning. In about a half hour, I’ll come back and give you something to help you sleep.”

Pam massaged the injection site with the alcohol swab for 30 seconds or so before lowering Ellie’s nightgown and telling her that she could turn back over when she was comfortable. Pam left the room about 10 seconds later and a second or two after that, the privacy door closed with its characteristic bang.

Ellie must have forgotten that I was in the room watching her penicillin shot, because she didn’t notice me again until the nurse was already out of the room. I was standing by the doorway. By that time, almost a full minute after the nurse had taken out the needle, Ellie had turned a bit, lying on her side. Her nightgown was back down to the top of her thighs in front, but it was riding up a little in the back while she was continuing to rub her sore cheek. I saw tears on her face.

“That nurse just gave me a really painful penicillin shot and my backside is killing me.” she sobbed. “Am I going to have to get any more of them? Do you know?”

I felt really badly for her. Working in two hospitals, I had seen many patients receive injections, but they all had been strangers. This was different; I knew Ellie. She was cute and she was my age.

“I really don’t know, Ellie,” I replied. I hadn’t looked at her chart, although I suspected she would get at least one or possibly two more the next day.

As she reached back again to rub her sore cheek, she bravely tried to smile. As she vigorously rubbed, her nightgown rode up and her backside was uncovered once again.

“You just witnessed a rare and golden opportunity,” she told me.

I said nothing; I just smiled back at her, but it was a pretty sight. We talked for a little while longer and she asked me again if I knew whether she was going to get any more shots. Again, I could honestly tell her that I didn’t know. We chatted for a few more minutes and then I had to leave to finish up. I wished her “good luck” in the morning.

On the way out, I grabbed a glimpse at her chart. I saw orders for a couple of pre-op shots before her procedure and, afterwards, if needed, one or more for pain, and / or nausea. And yes, there was an order for one more dose of penicillin. I decided not to tell her.

I was off next day, and she had was discharged before my next shift. I called her at her home to ask how she was feeling. She said she was feeling fine but complained that her backside was still very sore from the shots she got on the day of the procedure.

Several months later, when we were back at college, I was sitting with Ellie and a few of her friends and she told them I had visited her at the hospital during the summer. It was then that she remembered that I was in the room when the nurse came in to give her a penicillin shot and she realized that I might have watched the nurse giving her the injection. She waited until her friends had left us.

“Did you really see me with my whole backside exposed when the nurse gave me that wicked penicillin shot?” she asked. I just shook my head “yes” and smiled. She blushed and said that we’d talk about this later. It turned out that a few years would pass before we had that opportunity to do so.