Rickie O’Neill is a 35-year-old writer, actor, director and musician originally from Claremorris, Mayo, currently residing in Galway. For the past 13 years, Rickie has been a session musician and full-time drummer for the Irish band The Saw Doctors. In 2015, he changed his course slightly and began writing, starting off with short film scripts and poetry (which he still enjoys writing very much to this day). In 2017, he took a keen interest in the short story form and was particularly impacted by how powerful a short story can be as opposed to a long-drawn-out novel. Plus, you finish them quicker. Rickie’s writing influences include Anton Checkov, Roald Dahl, George Saunders, Lafcadio Hearn, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain, Mike McCormack & Donal Ryan. Last December, Rickie released his first self-published novella called Little Sickos, under the pseudonym Fionnain J McKeon, and in March 2026, he released his anthology under the same name titled ALIVE ALL NIGHT, which can be purchased from Rickie/Fionnain directly by emailing: saltedstrings@gmail.com
SHE’S GONNA BE A DOCTOR
By Rickie O’Neill
Any time Siofra looks back at her time in medical school, she’ll always say it was a brutal four year long slog of pointless dissertations and not enough sex.
“All we fucking did was write stuff.” she said. “Write stuff and read nonsense. I thought secondary school was for all that no? So you could get it to fuck out’a your system.”
Siofra, a thirty year old depressed blonde on tablets, along with her friends, sincerely hated the lack of hands on tutoring in such a prestigious college. She’d say that for the guts of four years, it was rarely a thing.
“All we got were books.” she said. “Maybe two books if you got into the right class depending on the first letter of your last name. Anyways, turns out those with certain surnames didn’t stand much of a chance and because of that, all we got was the one damn book and that had to do us until further notice.”
These were old things too, she’d claim. . .like ‘Ulysses’. Big dust covered monstrosities. Like something Karl Sagan would read to further broaden his understanding of the cosmos. Cobwebs hanging off of it you’d scroll through it for hours, hoping to eventually find the page, the holy grail page, where they might show you exactly how to cut someone open with a knife, or a scalpel, and if it had pictures attached showcasing the gore. . .well, that was even better.
And at last it came; Siofra’s first hands on job was in the surgical theatre. A place she would end up hating most. It was here one morning she had to shadow the main surgeon, Bob. The email Siofra received was blunt and to the point. It came directly from Bob himself and it said:
“Siofra. An old man fell off his bike last weekend. Hit by a car. His head took most of the blow when it smashed off the concrete footpath. Now the poor bugger has massive internal bleeding. Something I have to try and clean up so he can maybe live out the rest of his days as a vegetable. Come watch if your gut isn’t too sensitive. Honestly, if my professional opinion is worth anything, he probably won’t survive these few hours as his trauma is spectacular in nature. But, either way, whether he does or he doesn’t, won’t it be good experience for you? It’s next Tuesday at the hospital. 6am. But you’d need to be here at 5. . . .”Sincerely, Robert Dunne.”
That Sunday, when the email came through from Doctor Bob, Siofra was extremely hungover. It was around 8am, and she was lying in bed, her own bed for once, half naked, and when she looked down through her tired eyes all she could see was the limp and sleepy arm of a very good looking man coiled around her neck. The poor girl in that brief moment, couldn’t help herself. For a split second she thought everything was fine. That this new sensation in her gut wasn’t simply diarrhoea from all those cocktails.
What if it was love?
But even then, as this strange sallow skinned man slept obnoxiously beside her, Siofra, feeling inspired, would wonder just how far she could get with a ‘homemade surgery’ where the only anaesthetic available was a booze-filled sleep.
She quietly turned to look at the man.
“Would he feel much right now if I ever so gently sank a blade into him?” she wondered, looking at the soft crinkles on his forehead. “All that booze and cocaine, how long would it potentially get me in terms of operating time?
Would I get a minute?
Maybe a half hour?
Or would it be a measly couple’a seconds?”
Then she said “Speaking of drugs, he actually still owes me eighty quid for that second bag. Freeloading fuck. Now, how am I kindly supposed to remind him of that before kicking him out so I can peacefully reply to this email.”
This, in all fairness, was mild pressure compared to what Siofra was usually used to. At the end of the day she was a smart kid and had any amount of that raw street level intellect tucked away in her back pocket.
“I need a sly false plan.” she thought, shimmying out of the bed. “One that’s cute, unquestionable and devilishly cunning.”
Forty minutes later, and tucking a wad of cash into her lace bra, Siofra said to the man “Let’s never do this again amigo. Ok? Coz what good is a man to a woman when he can’t even get it up?” And she closed the door in his face.
BANG!
“So close.” she said, running back inside. “So fucking close.”
After that, Tuesday morning wasn’t long coming around. As requested, Siofra had gotten up early, washed herself, and was on site for 4:56am. This was a lucky break. A real lucky break. She knew that. But she also knew that she might not get another one so easily. That’s just how it works. Down the road, even if she had more experience, she figured there would be a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot more cleavage that she’d have to show, and no, she’d have no problem doing it. But until then, she made a point, a promise to herself and her medical career, that she would make the most of this experience with Doctor Bob and the old man with the busted head who would probably die just a few hours later on the operating table. But that didn’t really matter because today, Siofra was finally going to see gore.
Real gore.
In real life.
FINALLY, she would get a taste of what it’s like to have blood, real blood, dripping down your hands and whatever sensation it gave off when it suddenly dried up between your fingers.
“Yay.” she thought, almost skipping around. “Yay-Fucking-Yay. Right in the face.”
Coz so far, all she had done was observe false gore in books and the occasional medical magazine. Here they would often tone everything down to an almost remedial degree in order to keep it PC, so that the more ‘sensitive students’ didn’t get offended, and in her mind what on earth was ever the fucking point of that?
That morning, walking into the hospital with her lunch under her arm, Siofra could hardly wait to see the state of this much older geezer whose name she later found out was Dominic. Like any eager med student, she just wanted to see how bad the trauma actually was. Walking through the hospital gates, she knew right away that she’d be able to tell if he would die a death that morning or spend the rest of his life as a useless cabbage. That much she knew. And the excitement of it all caused butterflies to dance about like gypsy children in the pit of her stomach.
At the scrub sink, Siofra would ask Doctor Bob why he chose her and not one of the better students.
“Hey Doctor Bob?”
“Yeah?” he said, lathering up his forearms.
“How come you chose me for this experience and not one of the better students?”
The Doctor laughed.
“Because. . .” he said. “I’ve been following your grades and you have constantly impressed me. You’re showing real flair academically. I think now it’s time things got a little more practical for you. Don’t you agree?”
“But.” she said. “I haven’t got a good grade for over a year. I’m actually finding the whole course very difficult.”
The doctor paused, turned off the tap in front of him and looked at Siofra.
“You’re Siofra, right?” he said.
The girl paused. Half dreading what was about to unfold.
“Siofra McSweeney?”
“I’m Siofra Murray, Doctor.” she said.
The doctor sighed and dropped his head.
“Well then. Shoot. That’s my fault. I’m very sorry, dear. After all the effort you went through to get here this morning. Up so early and all of that, only to be told this. Listen.” he said, squatting down to her level. “Before you go, if you’d like it, I can give you a look at the patient in question. Donal I think his name is.”
“Dominic.”
“Yes that’s it. Dominic. And hey, I may even let you touch him as he is much warmer than you might think. Other than that, my darling, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises.”
And when Siofra walked back out through those big hospital gates, all she could say was –
“CLOSE. SO FUCKING CLOSE.”
The Galway Review 