大象传媒

When Stevie Nash was 8 she saw her little sister, Emma, get chased round the park by a bigger boy. To this day she remembers the hot sense of outrage. No one scares her sister. Well, only she scares her sister. Stevie charged him, knocking the boy into a dirty puddle and fighting like a wildcat. Though she was smaller and scrawnier he’s the one who ran. Stevie remembers explaining her dirty clothes to her disapproving mum and the nod of approval she got from her dad. You two are a team and you’ve got to look out for each other.

So when Emma suffered life-changing injuries in their twenties, the simulacrum of a ‘normal’ life fell apart for Stevie. She dedicated herself to getting justice for Emma through the law. Boyfriends were a distraction, friends too. It was Emma and it was the job. ‘The job’ was rising through the ranks as a registrar and consultant in emergency medicine. She was dedicated, fierce, good with the patients but brutal on colleagues who failed to meet her high standards. After all, Stevie knew personally what it was like to be let down by the system. She was rewarded professionally but alienated from her team. But then, as she’d started to say, she wasn’t here to make friends.

Medically, Stevie is a skilled diagnostician but really flies in Resus. She’s an adrenaline junkie and has minimal interest in the personal lives of her patients. She’s comfortable telling them hard truths bluntly. She has little time for people who’ve got hurt through their own idiocy but her compassion shows for people who’ve suffered an ‘act of God’, wrong time, wrong place, just like Emma. With these patients we see her go above and beyond, giving the kind of care she believes her sister didn’t get.