Vivian has just had an unsatisfying interaction with Jason, in which he complained about having to interact with patients and said that his clinical fellowship was a waste of time and getting in the way of his research. She tried to ask him how he might comfort a patient who was frightened, but Jason just assumed that Vivian was having a side effect of “confusion” and offered to order another test.

Here Vivian examines this interaction, stepping outside of herself and referring to herself in the third person (as “the senior scholar”)—trying to remain detached and rational, as usual, but…