Her Russian Billionaire(3)

 

"Begin whenever you're ready," encouraged an older gentleman with grey hair.

"Sixty-three year old male," I began, my voice shaking despite my best efforts. "Suffered a myocardial infarction on July twenty-seventh. After his initial testing, the decision was reached that the best course of action would be a coronary artery bypass. Patient was scheduled for surgery two days later. During the operation, the patient fell into cardiac arrest. The surgical and anesthesia team, led by Dr. Elliott Taylor, did their best and followed all protocols, but the patient could not be resuscitated."

"Thank you, Dr. Carter," the man leading the proceedings replied once I'd finished. "Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Carter?"

A few people asked about how members of the anesthesia team had performed, and there was a request for further clarification on the time of the surgery and the time of death. But, for the most part, the group discussed the case amongst themselves, examining ways in which the response time could have been shortened and what the best protocol when a patient codes on the operating table was. Eventually, the discussion quieted down as the group came to a consensus about how to handle such an event in the future.

"If there are no further questions," said the moderator, "I will excuse Dr. Carter."

I turned to go but was stopped almost immediately.

"Actually," came a deep voice from the back corner of the conference room, "I have a few questions." There was a very slight hint of an accent in that voice that I couldn't yet quite pinpoint.

I tried to find the source. A man I hadn't noticed before was leaning forward in his chair, looking straight at me. He was decidedly younger than most of his colleagues - probably in his early thirties at the oldest. His dark hair looked somewhat wavy and unruly, hinting at irreverence, yet his square jaw was stern and intimidating on his pale face. His hard grey eyes were examining me critically and I couldn't help but feel nervous all over again. Just when I thought I was done with this case.

His thin lips were turned down in a slight frown, giving him an overly severe appearance. Still, the expression did nothing to stop me from thinking that in other circumstances - and with another expression on his face - I might have found him extremely attractive. Right now, however, his critical gaze was only making me extremely uncomfortable.

"What role did you play in this Dr.  … " he flipped through the file in front of him until he came across what I was assuming was the list of today's presenters, "Carter?"

"I was holding the retractors for the first part of the surgery. After the patient coded, I moved aside to allow Dr. Halpert to assist in the resuscitation."

"And you're an intern, correct? This is your first year?" He was still glaring at me, as if I had been personally responsible for what had gone wrong. The way he said the word "intern" (een-tern) would've made me giggle under any other circumstances, but right now, he was just making me anxious.

"Yes, sir," I stammered.

"So you've only been here a month? At the time of the surgery?"

I swallowed. It really did sound like he was trying to place some of the blame of the surgery on my being in the room.

"Yes, sir," I faltered, trying not to reveal how nervous I was.

I have nothing to be nervous about, I reminded myself. Nothing to hide.

"And how many surgeries had you participated in before this case."

"None," I admitted.

"None?" He bore into me with his steely grey eyes, making me shift uncomfortably in my spot. "How is that possible, if you'd been an intern for about a month. What had you been doing prior to this?"

Do not smile at the way he says "intern." Do not smile.

"I'm actually an Emergency Room intern," I confessed, cringing at the way it sounded like an admission of guilt.

"An Emergency Room intern?" The man didn't look truly surprised by this information. I had a sneaky suspicion that he'd already known this and had been leading the discussion here all along.

"Yes. There had been an outbreak of the flu throughout the surgical department, and they were short staffed. I volunteered to fill in."

"So," the man said, leaning back in his chair and speaking to the entire room. "An intern, with approximately a month's worth of experience in the Emergency Room, was part of this patient's surgical team? And no one else seems to think that is a blatant error in patient care?"

The man was glaring around the room now, and I didn't feel compelled to smile at his tiny accent anymore. Other doctors were looking down or away. I couldn't help but wonder why this man, decidedly younger than everyone else, seemed to intimidate everyone around him.   





 

"The case file is clear as to the cause of death," said one woman. "Dr. Carter's actions in no way contributed to the death."

"Perhaps," the stern-looking man replied. "But having someone more experienced in the room could have shortened the response time and aided in the stemming of the cardiac arrest and the resuscitation of this patient."

It felt as if the bottom fell out of my stomach. This jerk was actually suggesting the death was my fault-at least in a roundabout way. I looked around the room to see the nodding of heads.

"You're right," acknowledged the moderator. "Perhaps the way in which interns are shared among departments and utilized in surgery should be discussed. But you're free to go, Dr. Carter. Thank you for your presentation."

There was a murmur of thanks throughout the room, but I was barely able to acknowledge them. What little confidence I'd regained since the incident in the operating room was long gone. Utterly humiliated, I reached for my purse next to Lori before heading out the door. There was no way I could stay for the rest of the conference.





Chapter 4





"Do you have a shift today?" Lori asked, jogging to catch up with me at the elevator.

"No," I replied, staring ahead. It was all I could do to keep from collapsing in a pile of tears. "I actually came in on one of my rare days off for this."

"Then this calls for a drink. Let's head over to the bar next door."

"Don't you have to get back to your daughter?" I asked, trying not to get my hopes up but really not wanting to be alone at the moment.

"Not right now," Lori said with a smile. "She's with her father for another couple of hours, so I have time for a few drinks."

"Okay," I replied, relief flooding my body. I really did need some alcohol.

The restaurant across the street wasn't fancy, but it was a regular hangout for off-duty hospital staff. The last thing I wanted was to see anyone I knew, so I put my head down as I made my way towards the bar. We had barely claimed a few stools before Lori was ordering cocktails.

"And keep them coming," she said, waving her hand in my direction. "This one has had a rough afternoon."

I nodded as I took off my blazer and headed into the restroom. In front of the mirror, I pulled my hair out of the tight bun, shaking it down and running my fingers along the roots, until it sprung back in wiry curls. I looked sort of like Diana Ross, and it made me smile. Always loved that woman. I then unbuttoned a few of the top buttons on my blouse, so that I no longer looked like I was about to present at a conference.

I pinched my cheeks until some color had returned to my sullen face and reapplied gloss to my full pouty lips. When my eyes no longer looked like they were fighting to hold back tears, I headed back to the bar. Thankfully, there was a pomegranate martini sitting on the counter, ready for me, and I took a minute to simply enjoy the drink.

"How're you doing?" she prompted after a few moments of silence.

"Better now," I said, as I finished my first cocktail in record time.

"You know," Lori began after I was handed my second martini. "That presentation wasn't bad."

"Wasn't bad?" I scoffed. "I was practically blamed for the death myself."

"You were not," Lori replied. "They just agreed that the use of sharing interns between departments needs to be discussed more. That isn't a regular practice at most larger hospitals, you know? It's only because Miami General is so super busy that it happens at all. But it's one of the reasons that internships at Miami General are so competitive-people want the experience of working between departments."

I knew that, of course, although it wasn't the primary reason for my choosing this residency program over all the others I could have settled on when I graduated from med school. The large hospital on the coast of Florida was well known across the country fro its breadth of experience and cutting edge research. It was privately owned and boasted the best medical equipment and the latest in technology. The owners also made it a point to only hire the top notch medical staff, which made it a world class facility. The residents that graduated from Miami General program had their pick of jobs a whole year before finishing their respective programs. The Emergency Department, in particular, boasted several attending doctors who were famous in my field. Plus, this was the busiest Level One trauma hospital in Miami, which meant all the toughest ER cases would end up in my department. It was an easy decision for me to make, going with Miami General for my residency over some well known university-based hospitals up north.