The short-lived cheer of a successful surgery common with working in the trauma ward had died down as Dr. Jude Maxwell, chief of the trauma surgeons, led his team out of OR3 in victory. The patient was being wheeled to sleep off the rest of the anesthesia and later fight off infection with the help of medicine and deal with recovery pain all thanks to the efforts of Dr. Jude's excellent response team. Days like this did not always happen, so even though the cheer had fell, all members departing the room did indeed revel in the small victory. As they washed up and sanitized after throwing their gowns in the hazardous waste can they all gave cheerful congratulations - standard procedure for a 'win' when it finally did come along.
As Dr. Maxwell pressed the door release, he got one final farewell before he headed towards the common room for his fellow chiefs of surgeries. His own office was located on the same hall, a few doors down, but he rarely spent much time inside since he often was called down to an OR. As chief, he is supposed to be reviewing residents' files, train them, and eventually recommend them out - or keep them if able and showing enough promise. Those files still were sitting on his desk, he remembered as he swiped his clearance card, gaining access to the common room. Usually at least one chief was around, but the common room seemed empty. He took the time to review the hospital updates coming from the top down as notices flashed on the LCD tv on the wall. A while ago, the hospital pushed to go paperless and installed interactive LCD screens for their bulletin boards. Dr. Maxwell had been one of the few representatives who pushed the motion to the board.
He stretched, looking over the room one last time before allowing the exhaustion cause a yawn to escape. He'd been on his 48 hour shift with little rest between since there was a back-to-back surgery directly in the middle of his shift, leaving only a few hours to rest before the surgery he'd just finished up. Knowing he'd have the day off tomorrow, he figured grabbing the residents' files and taking them home would probably help lessen his workload later on - especially since the display bulletin notified that all chiefs had to make their selections by the end of the month.
The coffee near the exit was practically lulling him in with its warm, strong aroma though, so he grabbed one of the recyclable paper cups and filled it before heading towards his office for the stack of files. This was a typical night for him - when he wasn't researching for an article to be published, which always made life much more busy. Overall, he liked the bustling trauma ward - much better than the irregular pace of neurosurgery, and less grotesque than any gastro surgery. He was thinking over the pros and cons of each surgical specialty as he made his way to the elevator and stepped inside when it opened. Typically this time of night, no one would be inside an elevator on this wing - or the chances of running into someone were significantly slimmer - but there stood a slightly younger man. He looked as exhausted as Jude felt, Jude thought with a glance before reaching to press the ground floor button but retracting his hand upon seeing it already lit. He instead took a sip of his coffee which had been in the hand traveling towards the button a moment ago, the other full of overstuffed files on the residents, before he turned to look over at the other male, "Late night for you as well, I take it."