Taylor …” The senior resident was staring at her.
Paige came to with a start. The others were already halfway down the corridor.
“Coming,” she said hastily.
The first stop was at a large, rectangular ward, with rows of beds on both sides of the room, with a small stand next to each bed. Paige had expected to see curtains separating the beds, but here there was no privacy.
The first patient was an elderly man with a sallow complexion. He was sound asleep, breathing heavily. Dr. Radnor walked over to the foot of the bed, studied the chart there, then went to the patient’s side and gently touched his shoulder. “Mr. Potter?”
The patient opened his eyes. “Huh?”
“Good morning. I’m Dr. Radnor. I’m just checking to see how you’re doing. Did you have a comfortable night?”
“It was okay.”
“Do you have any pain?”
“Yeah. My chest hurts.”
“Let me take a look at it.”
When he finished the examination, he said, “You’re doing fine. I’ll have the nurse give you something for the pain.”
“Thanks, doctor.”
“We’ll be back to see you this afternoon.”
They moved away from the bed. Dr. Radnor turned to the residents. “Always try to ask questions that have a yes or no answer so the patient doesn’t tire himself out. And reassure him about his progress. I want you to study his chart and make notes. We’ll come back here this afternoon to see how he’s doing. Keep a running record of every patient’s chief complaint, present illness, past illnesses, family history, and social history. Does he drink, smoke, etc.? When we make the rounds again, I’ll expect a report on the progress of each patient.”
They moved on to the bed of the next patient, a man in his forties.
“Good morning, Mr. Rawlings.”
“Good morning, doctor.”
“Are you feeling better this morning?”
“Not so good. I was up a lot last night. My stomach’s hurting.”
Dr. Radnor turned to the senior resident. “What did the proctoscopy show?”
“No sign of any problem.”
“Give him a barium enema and an upper GI, stat.”
The senior resident made a note.
The resident standing next to Paige whispered in her ear, “I guess you know what stat stands for. ‘Shake that ass, tootsie!’ ”
Dr. Radnor heard. “ ‘Stat’ comes from the Latin, statim. Immediately.”
In the years ahead, Paige was to hear it often.
The next patient was an elderly woman who had had a bypass operation.
“Good morning, Mrs. Turkel.”
“How long are you going to keep me in here?”
“Not very long. The procedure was a success. You’ll be going home soon.”
And they moved on to the next patient.
The routine was repeated over and over, and the morning went by swiftly. They saw thirty patients. After each patient, the residents frantically scribbled notes, praying that they would be able to decipher them later.
One patient was a puzzle to Paige. She seemed to be in perfect health.
When they had moved away from her, Paige asked, “What’s her problem, doctor?”
Dr. Radnor sighed. “She has no problem. She’s a gomer. And for those of you who forgot what you were taught in medical school, gomer is an acronym for ‘Get out of my emergency room!’ Gomers are people who enjoy poor health. That’s their hobby. I’ve admitted her six times in the last year.”
They moved on to the last patient, an old woman on a respirator, who was in a coma.
“She’s had a massive heart attack,” Dr. Radnor explained to the residents. “She’s been in a coma for six weeks. Her vital signs are failing. There’s nothing more we can do for her. We’ll pull the plug this afternoon.”
Paige looked at him in shock. “Pull the plug?”
Dr. Radnor said gently, “The hospital ethics committee made the decision this morning. She’s a vegetable. She’s eighty-seven years old, and she’s brain-dead. It’s cruel to keep her alive, and it’s breaking her family financially. I’ll see you all at rounds this afternoon.”
They watched him walk away. Paige turned to look at the patient again. She was alive. In a few hours she will be dead. We’ll pull the plug this afternoon.
That’s murder! Paige thought.
That afternoon, when the rounds were finished, the new residents gathered in the small upstairs lounge. The room held eight tables, an ancient black-and-white television set, and two vending machines that dispensed stale sandwiches and bitter coffee.
The conversations at each table were almost identical.
One of the residents said, “Take a look at my throat, will you? Does it look raw to you?”
“I think I have a fever. I feel lousy.”
“My abdomen is swollen and tender. I know I have appendicitis.”
“I’ve got this crushing pain in my chest. I hope to God I’m not having a heart attack!”
Kat sat down at a table with Paige and Honey. “How did it go?” she asked.
Honey said, “I think it went all right.”
They both looked at Paige. “I was tense, but I was relaxed. I was nervous, but I stayed calm.” She sighed. “It’s been a long day. I’ll be glad to get out of here and have some fun tonight.”
“Me, too,” Kat agreed. “Why don’t we have dinner and then go see a movie?”
“Sounds great.”
An orderly approached their table. “Dr. Taylor?”
Paige looked up. “I’m Dr. Taylor.”
“Dr. Wallace would like to see you in his office.”
The hospital administrator!
