The man sitting next to me on the suburban shuttle bus may have been a doctor, though he didn’t look like one at first glance.

He spread his papers out on top of his briefcase, perched on his knees. As they spread out and over into my cramped space, I noticed that he was scribbling notes on an application for a fellowship position at a local oncology department.

As he scrawled notes and we passed the pond, his mobile rang in his pocket and across the chilly morning and the hush of the bus, a polyphonic version of Club Tropicana rang out.