A few minutes later Mitt stumbled into the surgical lounge in a kind of exhausted daze, feeling shell-shocked. He couldn’t believe it. His first two surgical cases as a resident had resulted in death. Although he hardly felt directly responsible, he did feel complicit. It wasn’t a good feeling.
“Dr. Fuller,” a voice called out. Mitt turned around to see Dr. Rodriguez coming directly toward him. With his surgical mask dangling below his chin, Mitt got a good look at his full face with its three- or four-day beard. He was a heavyset man with full, round facial features. “Hearing about your night with the Benito Suárez debacle, you must be drained. Is that a fair assumption?”
“Pretty close,” Mitt responded, worried he was going to be asked to do something menial.
“As you know, the Roberto Silva pancreatectomy will be in the same OR we’ve been in for Thompson’s valve replacement. Obviously, there’s going to be a delay with what’s happened and the need to involve the medical examiner’s office. Why don’t you beat it back to the on-call room and get a little shut-eye? I’ll give you a shout when Silva’s case is about to start, and you can pop back here and join in. What do you say?”
“I’d say that was a great idea,” Mitt admitted. He was taken aback by the fourth-year resident’s solicitude. It was unexpected but certainly appreciated. “To be truthful, I am really wrung out.”
“I’m not surprised. Go get some rest!”
Chapter 11
Tuesday, July 2, 2:55 p.m.
Contrary to what Mitt had hoped, almost three hours of sleep didn’t make him feel markedly better. Quite the contrary, at least when his phone rang to wake him up and for about fifteen minutes thereafter. But after splashing a bit of cold water on his face and stretching his arms and back muscles, he started to rally. By the time he got out to the elevator lobby, Mitt felt almost human.
Unfortunately, feeling almost human had its downside. As he boarded the elevator, he relived the despair he’d felt when it was determined that Ella Thompson’s heart wasn’t going to restart and there was nothing to be done. In retrospect the episode ultimately freaked him out almost as badly as when Benito Suárez’s aorta blew.
Mitt had rather innocently allowed himself to be talked into studying medicine as a way to help people by making them well, certainly not to cause their deaths. What was bothering him was the nagging realization that if Ella Thompson had refused to get her mitral valve fixed or if he hadn’t cleared her for surgery with his admitting history and physical, she’d be alive at that moment, probably home and interacting with her great-grandchildren instead of being stretched out on a slab at the medical examiner’s office, where he guessed she was at the moment.
And as if those thoughts weren’t bad enough, as he rode in the elevator, he started thinking about his renowned medical forebearers and the surprising revelation that although they’d been highly skilled and respected, ultimately they all had been on the wrong side of history. Could that really have been the case? He didn’t know, but he vowed to look into it, especially since Dr. Harington was so certain. He thought he’d start by asking his father, who’d always prided himself on being the family historian. Mitt decided to raise the question that night when he called his parents. He didn’t know what he’d learn, but at least he could count on sympathy, especially from his mom.
Arriving at the eleventh floor and heading into the OR suite, he made a beeline toward the surgical lounge and the locker room. Mitt wanted to be sure to dutifully change into a clean pair of scrubs, even if his current scrubs would be covered by the sterile surgical gown. He didn’t know if it was required, but it seemed to him to be a good idea. Contrary to his famous relative Otto Fuller, he believed wholeheartedly in the “germ theory.”
But as he was traversing the surgical lounge he stopped. Unexpectedly he spotted Dr. Harington talking with someone over at the communal coffeepot. She was in civvies and a long white coat while her companion was in scrubs with a stethoscope slung around his neck and a tourniquet looped around his pants’ tie. Making a sudden change of plans, Mitt veered in their direction and approached the pair. He didn’t have much time, as Dr. Rodriguez had admitted that he’d waited until the last minute to call and the patient was already in the operating room.
The man Dr. Harington was conversing with was the first to see Mitt approach, and he interrupted Dr. Harington and gestured in Mitt’s direction.
“Ah, Dr. Fuller,” Dr. Harington said, her face brightening when she caught sight of him. “What a pleasant coincidence. I was just talking about you. Meet Dr. Winthrop, our head of Anesthesia, and, Dan, meet one of our brand-new first-year surgical residents.”
Mitt shook hands with the Anesthesia chief but immediately turned to Dr. Harington. “Sorry, I only have a minute since I’m late for my case, but I wanted to ask you for a favor. I’m interested in that unpublished article by Robert Pendleton. Do you think you could email it to me or send a link? To be honest, what you said about my medical ancestors was a surprise, and I’d like to look into it.”
“Most certainly,” Dr. Harington said. “I’ll be happy to do so. Does Communications have your email address?”
“They do,” Mitt said.
“Consider it done,” Dr. Harington said. “Meanwhile, I have to tell you that Dr. Winthrop is almost as much a Bellevue history devotee as I.”
“Yes, indeed,” Dr. Winthrop said, jumping into the conversation. “Pamela has told me you are a direct descendant of four of our illustrious Bellevue doctors. I think that is terrific. More than terrific. It’s an honor to have a member of such a well-known professional family again among us. Welcome aboard!”
“Thank you,” Mitt said, unsure of what else to say. “But after what Dr. Harington told me about their stances on some important issues, I’m not so sure how well it speaks for me.”
“Nonsense,” Dr. Harington said, breaking into the conversation. “We can’t judge our professional forebearers in hindsight. No way! They were all great in their own time, and all made significant contributions to Bellevue and medicine in general.”
“Maybe so,” Mitt said. He wasn’t going to get into an argument over the issue, especially not until he learned more about the reliability of the source. “I have to get to my case, but it was nice to meet you, Dr. Winthrop.”
“The pleasure’s mine,” Dr. Winthrop said.
“I’m sorry our case this morning didn’t have a better outcome,” Dr. Harington said. “I hope you scrub in with me again in the near future.”
“I do, too,” Mitt said, and meant it. Even though he was still upset over how matter-of-factly she’d terminated the case with Ella Thompson, he did appreciate the general atmosphere of her OR in contrast to that of Dr. Washington.
After his minor detour to talk with Dr. Harington, Mitt dashed urgently into the locker room, bursting through the swinging doors. Once inside, he slipped out of his doctor’s coat and pulled off his scrub top before grabbing a new scrub set, all on the fly. The coat went into his locker, the clean scrubs on his body, and the soiled scrubs in the appropriate bin before he ran back out of the locker room, across the lounge, and into the inner portion of the OR suite.