doc, have a little coffee with your cream. Okay, so tell me about this accident. Are you all right? Do you need to have a consultation with Doc Hawley before he goes under the knife?” Terryl laughed at his own joke. “Now, wouldn’t that be rich? You come here to take over his practice while he has his cancer surgery, but instead you have an accident and he has to take care of you!”
“You don’t know how close it came to being just that.” She told him the details of the accident.
“Did you wreck into a local?”
“Yes. Some guy named Regan Wakeman.”
“You’re kidding! Regan Wakeman? Big guy? Terryl held his hand about four inches above his head. “Taller than me?”
“You know him?”
“Sure, everyone around here knows Regan. Comes from an old Abilene family. Went to school here. Abilene Christian College. Played high school ball, you know, just a guy everyone knows. Good guy. Has a place about ten, fifteen miles south of here. Runs a big construction company. Can’t believe you had a wreck with him. Well anyway, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks. So what’s the deal with Doctor Hawley? The agency didn’t give me much detail. They just tell me when and where to show up for the most part. Usually it’s just a week or so, while someone takes a vacation or something.”
“Well, this is a little different. Doc Hawley, and that’s what everyone around here calls him, just so you know. Anyway, Doc’s come down with some kind of colon cancer. Okay, now he’s taking it real good. Keeps practicing, because it’s what he does. His patients just will not let him quit, and he’s not about to quit. Hawley’s like Wakeman. Born and raised here. Went to as much school as he could in Abilene, and then took off to medical school and residency. Came back after he was done and set up his practice. He’s real popular. His practice is huge. There’s other guys in town, but he’s definitely numero uno. He’s got a couple of nurses that work with him,” Terryl turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders, “but they can’t take over his practice while he’s out.”
“Does he have partners?”
“Nope. He’s pretty much a loner. Doesn’t even share call with the other guys in town.”
“Really.” Not in the tone of a question or doubt, just amazement that a busy orthopod could do it on his own. Never having a weekend off. Even when she had two partners, every third night on call had been rigorous.
Doc Hawley had been practicing for about twenty-five years, getting locum tenens doctors like Leslie, to cover him for extended vacations and asking the local guys to cover him for shorter periods of time. He got along well with his peers in town and they respected him. There was plenty of business to go around. No one felt threatened by his success because they were all eating too. He just didn’t want to deal with partners and their needs. His wife ran his business and did a good job of it, according to Wells. While Doc was out, she was going to keep things going from that end.
He had a general orthopedic practice, as did most of the surgeons in Abilene. There weren’t a lot of specialists in this community. He did a smattering of sports medicine, knee scopes, anterior cruciate reconstructions and so on. He did the bulk of total knee and hip replacements in town. All the athletes he took care of in the beginning were now coming back to him to get their joints replaced, bringing their wives and children with them. These were the signs of a long standing referral base which also included his extended family and all the people who called themselves his friends. He worked long hours and weekends. If you wanted to see Doc Hawley, you could. Once his son went off to school, there was nothing to keep him and Brenda from working hard. He did back surgery and trauma, two things a lot of guys just didn’t want to do. Too much risk of being sued. No one ever sued Doc Hawley. Probably wouldn’t unless they were planning on leaving town. Doc Hawley was an old fashioned “saw bones.” Definitely a dying breed. Leslie pictured a gracefully graying, elegant man in a seersucker suit.
“So Brenda talked Doc into getting his first colonoscopy a few years ago and they found some polyps or something like that. He was supposed to get a follow-up regularly but put it off. Then the next go around they found the cancer. Now he’s got to have surgery and chemo. You know better than me.” She didn’t. Not her line of work, but nodded her head in the affirmative. “He wants to get back to work ASAP, but they’re saying at least two to four weeks, and even then, who knows? I guess we’ve got you on line for a month or so.
“Right.”
It didn’t really matter to her one way or the other. Some places she went for a weekend, some for a week, depending on the circumstances. There were still a number of guys out there trying to hang on to solo practices. When they went on vacation, they needed someone to cover them. There were some guys in small communities who just couldn’t get partners or other orthopedists to take care of their patients while they were out. More recently, there was a growing need for orthopedic surgeons to cover emergency room call in larger cities where the local docs couldn’t tolerate the load on their practices or just didn’t want the liability. The hospitals were forced to try to recruit surgeons to come build a practice in their community, basically paying them to use the hospital and cover call in the ER. When that failed, hire a locum tenens doc. Agencies had developed to provide these doctors. It worked for Leslie. No commitments. No extended stays. No relationships.
This assignment was a little different. A month was a long time for her. Can’t let things get too complicated. This was enough time to get complicated if she wasn’t careful. Get to know people and they ask you for email addresses. They want something from you. They want to give you something. Extended weekend assignments were the best.
“So basically you’ll be taking over his practice and let me tell you Ozzy Osbourne could be taking over his practice and the patients would go for it. Whatever is good with Doc Hawley is good with them. Occasionally some will see the other orthopods in town, but not many. It never makes a dent in his business.”
“But he’s never been out like this before.”
“Sure, but nobody’s gonna leave him now, not with the cancer and all. Besides Brenda is still there and she’s part of the deal. Knows all his patients. Probably could treat them herself if it were legal. Doc’s plan is to come to the office whenever he can, even if it’s just to sit around.”
“That’ll be interesting.”
“Well, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Probably more than you want to know, but it’s kind of an odd case. You probably thought someone was just going on an African safari or something.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Leslie signaled the waitress for a refill on her coffee.
“So what’s the schedule?”
“Okay, so Doc is doing cases this week and trust me, they’re lining up like there’s no tomorrow. And they know you’ll be following them, taking out their stitches and stuff. He’s going to spend the rest of this week getting you up to speed and then next Monday, he’s having his own surgery in Lubbock.”
“Surely there are guys here in town that can do his surgery.”
“Yea, but Doc doesn’t want anyone here messing with his hind end business.” Terryl nodded his head up and down. “So, then you’re on your own.”
She laughed, thinking about Doc Hawley’s hind end business, but also remembering YOYO, you’re-on-your-own. When
