Deathbed Page 13

  Then, being as upset over this decision on how to handle the story as she was, and having grown as familiar with him as she had, it was impossible to hide her distress from him.

  For Cox, it would be simple to add this up and conclude that there was something bigger than met the expectation about this hospital story. At which point he might wander over to the hospital. It would take him no longer than it had her to find the piece that didn’t fit in the puzzle.

  That must not happen. If it did, it would mean that one of them, by virtue of their personal relationship, had taken professional advantage of the other. And if that happened even once, it would spell the end for them.

  So, in this supremely delicate matter of confidentiality, their attitude had to be comparable to the priest’s with regard to the seal of confession. There could be no exceptions. Each absolutely had to respect the other’s confidences.

  Of course, again analogous to the priest’s treatment of the confessional, if either Lennon or Cox were to come into knowledge of something like this from another source, such as a snitch, or while on an unrelated editorial assignment, there would be no violation of the other’s confidence.

  Reflecting on all this, Lennon determined she had little alternative but to include Cox in her decision-making process.

  So she told him what she had discovered in the hospital’s clinic.

  Cox whistled low and sincerely. “Wow! That’s a multi-installment story that could hover around page one for a long time.”

  “I know.”

  “And it’s been awhile since we’ve had the local Catholic Church embroiled in a hot little controversy.”

  “And that makes it all the more sensational.”

  “The only problem I find is that I don’t see your problem. Go with it! Right?”

  “That’s the problem: I’m not sure.”

  “What! It’s a legitimate news story, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “You came upon it honestly. I mean, you didn’t even use any deception in uncovering it.”

  “As a matter of fact, they just showed it to me. It was part of the tour.”

  “Their tough luck, then.”

  “I still don’t know.”

  Cox moved to the couch and sat at her feet. “Look, I’d like to be able to play devil’s advocate. But I’d find that kind of hard. It’s a good story, a legitimate story. The kind of story you’re in this business for. Is it because the hospital’s Catholic, and your background—”

  “No. Well, maybe yes. No, not because it’s Catholic. Maybe because it’s Christian.”

  “Huh?”

  “Broader than Catholic. The little place is there trying to do what Christ would do if he were here. To do that, according to their lights, they have to go against some of the official teachings of the Catholic Church. It’s . . . it’s more Christ-like.”

  “The more you explain, the less I understand.”

  “It would be almost like crucifying Christ again.” She was talking more to herself than to him. “No, I won’t do it. There are some things I cannot compromise, even for a good story.”

  “You’re not going to use it?”

  “And neither are you!” She looked him squarely in the eye.

  “I know our agreement. No, I won’t use it. But, by God, I’m glad I’m not Catholic.”

  “You don’t understand, Joe. It’s got almost nothing to do with being Catholic.”

  “It’s certainly got nothing to do with being a journalist.”

  “It’s what I’ve got to do.”

  Cox shrugged. “That’s what you’ve got to do. There are things we just have to do. And times we have to do them.” Slowly he peeled off one of her stockings. Then the other.

  She smiled. “It’s bedtime, isn’t it?”

  7

  This was one of those days. One of those days you’d rather throw away. But, on the other hand, Sister Eileen did not favor wishing away any of her remaining days. There simply were a number of unpleasant things that needed doing. And she was the only one who could do them.

  Already she had had to address a meeting of the nurses and nurses’ aides relating to some of the slipshod work going on in the hospital. Special mention had to be made regarding breakage. A great deal of that had been going on. The report given Sister Eileen identified the specific aide responsible for most of that, one Ethel Laidlaw. A notation had been added that aide Laidlaw apparently was not willfully careless or guilty of malicious destruction. It seemed to be a case of congenital clumsiness. Nonetheless, the damage was considerable.

  In her lecture, Eileen went out of her way to, on the one hand, inform all present that the identity of the principal offender was known, and, on the other, not to mention her by name. Everyone there, including Ethel, knew exactly who Sister Eileen was talking about.

  To cap the climax, during the session, Ethel managed to tip over the coffee urn. There was an unscheduled fifteen-minute break while the mess was cleaned up.

  Sister Eileen was seated at the desk in her office sorting the mail, separating those matters that demanded immediate attention from those that allowed some procrastination. She also was awaiting the next bit of unpleasantness on today’s agenda.

  Her secretary spoke through the intercom: “Sister, Dr. Kim is here to see you.”

  That was it.

  “Send him in, Dolly.”

  Kim entered and went immediately to the chair at the visitor’s side of Eileen’s desk.

  Trim and tall, Kim was cursed—as far as Sister Eileen was concerned—with more than the average Oriental inscrutability. He had come to Detroit and St. Vincent’s from Chicago, where he had interned at an even poorer hospital than St. Vincent’s. Chicago had been his first step after leaving his native South Korea.

  Chicago had recommended him as having impeccable credentials and as specializing in general surgery. At St. Vincent’s he was expected to soft-pedal his specialty in favor of doing a bit of everything. Interns and residents all were expected to do a bit of everything.

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Dr. Lee Kim had definite plans and a timetable in which to accomplish his objectives.

  One of those objectives most definitely was to not linger overly long at St. Vincent’s. Kim planned to move up and out of Detroit. In which direction, initially, was not of prime importance.

  Kim crossed his legs. He exuded confidence. His performance deserved an award; in reality, he was not all that confident. Inside, he was a nervous wreck. He was well aware of his problem. His enemy was time. He had too little of it.

  By his timetable, he should have been long gone from St. Vincent’s. Every time he walked its ancient halls, he was reminded that this institution had gobbled up any number of doctors in its time. It could too easily happen to him.

  Look what had happened to Fred Scott, Kim’s superior in Emergency. Kim both admired and despised Scott. Scott was the most amazing technician Kim had ever experienced in emergency situations. At the same time, Scott had let his remarkable skills take root at St. Vincent’s. Kim’s greatest fear was that the same thing would happen to him. That years from now, he would be mired in Detroit’s core city in a health-care facility that should have closed its doors decades ago. He would still be patching stab wounds and removing slugs from people who’d been fighting over the final swallow of cheap wine. Still be exposed to their vomit and feces.

  So, he tended to hurry things along. He really couldn’t help himself. It was late. Late in his ball game.

  He hurried things along. Sure he didn’t spend a lot of time with the immediate families of terminal patients. It was, after all, up to them to inform themselves of their options. Surely they’d seen enough movies and television to know what life-support systems were all about. If they wanted their kin to be maintained in a vegetative state, what concern was it of his?

  Same with the whores who were forever getting pregnant. Too dumb to stay on the Pill. Just as likely to pul
l out their IUDs as their tampons. Counseling was a waste of time. Far easier to scrape out their prematurely tired uteruses, and the fetuses in there as well. The dumber ones you could always badger into agreeing to a hysterectomy. And while that could be time-consuming, it was good practice.

  Time was better spent being in the right places, being seen by the right people, talking to the movers and shakers of the local medicine scene, brown-nosing them. The big thing is to get St. Vincent’s behind you. Get into the real world of the Caddies, country clubs, influential patients. And get there yesterday. Time was an enemy.

  The other enemy, perhaps even more threatening than time, was sitting across from him. Sister Eileen Monahan. He knew she had her suspicions. He was also pretty sure that she had no proof. Without proof, she would never bring him up on charges. Which didn’t mean she didn’t want to get him. Only that, for now, she couldn’t.

  But he also knew that the very instant she could, she would get rid of him. And then where would he be? Dismissed from St. Vincent’s! Who would consider him after such degradation?

  That was why he was in such inner turmoil. He had no way of telling what she knew. He would soon find out. Meanwhile, it was crucial that he present a calm and tranquil exterior.

  They sat across from each other for several moments in silence, each measuring the other.

  Eileen opened a file folder and began paging through it. Kim shifted in his chair. It was increasingly difficult to retain an unruffled exterior.

  “Dr. Kim,” she said at length, “is all going well for you here at St. Vincent’s?”

  “As well as can be expected.” He was pleased to use the bromide response traditionally given in hospitals to almost any question.

  Eileen smiled tightly. “And how ‘well’ may we expect that to be?”

  “I have no complaints.” Pause. “Have you?”

  Pause. “Doctor, when you came here from Chicago last year, we had a long talk.”

  “I remember it well.”

  “Good. Then you’ll recall that I spoke at considerable length about the spirit here at St. Vincent’s.”

  He did remember it well. At the time, he had thought her a bit over-age to be a cheerleader. “May I again remind you,” Eileen continued, “that this is only a small health-care facility, in precarious financial balance at best. So much so that, in order to survive, we must work together in a spirit of trust unequaled in most similar institutions. We lack the numerical strength to carve out a niche for ourselves and bury ourselves in some specialty. But, most of all, among the capabilities we lack—and I wish we could afford—is we have no ‘watchdog’ committee to police our operation. So, to a greater extent than most health-care facilities, we must function on an honor system. We must police ourselves.”

  “I remember all of that very well, Sister.”

  “As you complete your first year of residency, Doctor, I thought it would be good to evaluate your position here.”

  “Have there been complaints? Has not my work been satisfactory?”

  “Satisfactory? Technically, yes. Every evaluation of your work has been more than satisfactory. In emergency situations and particularly in the OR, you are reported to be calm under fire and a gifted surgeon.”

  “Then all is well.”

  “Not quite. And this is not merely hearsay. It’s your attitude toward people. Toward patients and their families.”

  “Attitude?”

  “I know that’s difficult to define. For one thing, among our patients, an unusually high percentage of those on life-support systems are yours.”

  “Without the systems, they’d be dead now.”

  “With the systems, they are already dead now, for all practical purposes.”

  “If it is the cost of maintenance—”

  “Of course it isn’t the cost. No more than it would be in any other hospital. If someone’s life can be prolonged for any positive purpose, then of course we must do everything we can. But many of your patients are vegetating. Many have reached a terminal state even as you order procedures to begin.”

  “If the wishes of the family—”

  “I know all about the wishes of the family. And I’ve heard about your routine in getting their consent to put the patients on the machines.”

  “Is there anything medically improper in all this?”

  “Not technically. But one tends to wonder why so high a percentage of the families you talk to decide that we must, in your phrase, ‘do everything.’ One wonders if you are doing this just to save yourself the time it would take to sit down with the families and explain the options available to them.”

  “Sister, do you not think your conclusion is a bit farfetched and rather unsubstantiated?”

  “All by itself, perhaps. But then we have your rather cavalier attitude towards D & Cs.”

  “What do you mean by that?” He knew she was coming close to pay dirt.

  “The word I get—”

  “From whom, may I ask?”

  “We won’t get into that just now. These are not formal charges.”

  He breathed a bit more easily.

  “I’ve heard that you frequently don’t even order a pregnancy test when it is called for, before going right into a D & C,” she continued, “and there are times that you’ve removed a fetus.”

  “That is not unique.”

  “It isn’t unique unless it happens again and again. Then it’s another name for abortion.”

  “Do you not think that is a bit strong, Sister?”

  “No, I don’t. And you well know our policy on abortion at St. Vincent’s.”

  “I see.

  “Is there anything else on your mind, Sister, before I reply to all this?”

  “No. And I am eager to hear your reply.”

  Kim relaxed measurably. She hadn’t mentioned all those unnecessary hysterectomies. Was it possible she hadn’t heard about them? In any case, she wasn’t going to bring them up. So much the better.

  “Since you want to know what I think,” Kim began, “I think it is easy for you as a Caucasian American to apply a racial stereotype to one such as I.”

  “Racial stereotype!”

  “Yes. It is very easy for you Americans to group us Asians into one category and claim that we have no respect for life.”

  “That has nothing to do with this!”

  “Is that so? Do you have any documentation for the charge that I perform a D & C merely in order to abort?”

  “I told you I am not concerned at this time with formal charges or documentation. I can only tell you that I have heard about it from more than one source. Sources, I might add, who are most trustworthy.”

  “I cannot allow my life, my professional conduct, to be affected by innuendo and rumor—and that is what I consider these unsubstantiated charges to be based on.” Kim realized he was moving into dangerous ground, almost challenging Eileen to bring formal charges. He decided to turn the tables. “And, as to the allegations regarding my handling of the terminally ill, does that not argue just the reverse of the first charge—that I have no regard for life? How very unAsian of me to want to prolong someone’s life, do you not think?”

  “Dr. Kim, one look at your patients while they are being mechanically sustained will tell anyone worlds about the quality of life to which they’ve been relegated.

  “Besides, you have twisted and jumbled everything I’ve said with your gratuitous reference to an Asian prejudice. There may be some in our society who feel that Asians prize life less than do we in the West. But I am very definitely not in that number. I am too well aware that we in the United States have less than an enviable record when it comes to racism. So I am conscious of our own failings. But being conscious of racism does not necessarily mean being guilty of it.

  “No, Dr. Kim, I am not dealing in stereotypes. I am talking about one doctor—yourself—who has determined to disregard the cautions I gave when you joined us.” She closed the file folder, indicating the
ir meeting was drawing to a close. “Dr. Kim, my purpose in meeting with you is simply this: I want you to consider this a formal warning. You are perilously close to facing dismissal from the staff of this hospital. If I were forced to the point where I must bring formal charges against you, I have every confidence that I could do so effectively.

  “Doctor, I don’t want to be forced to affect your career adversely. But I may have no choice in the matter. And this may happen very soon. It would be wise for you to prepare yourself for the worst.

  “I’m sorry. That will be all for now.”

  Wordlessly, Kim rose and left the room. His departure was one fluid motion. There was no betrayal of nervousness or embarrassment. There was no show of emotion whatsoever.

  However, after he exited the secretary’s office, Dr. Lee Kim leaned back against the wall and forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly. His emotions, held in such excellent check while with Sister Eileen, were in turmoil.

  In his mind’s eye, he could see the fissures forming in the plan he had laid out for his life. This damned nun held the hammer and chisel that could bring him down. That must not happen. It would mean the end of his dream, the end of the good life he envisioned.

  Earlier, he had known there was trouble—a lot of trouble. He had known, more in the abstract than in the concrete, that something would have to happen—something drastic. Now there was no question. He would have to think this out to the last detail. And then act.

  Sister Eileen shifted papers on her desk without paying them much attention. She felt drained, not completely, but substantially. She could not afford a thorough draining. She had yet at least two more extremely taxing encounters to handle.

  The necessity of scheduling unpleasant meetings was what she most abhorred about any effective leadership role. But such meetings were inescapable. She owed it to poor old St. Vincent’s to do all she could to keep her baby alive and well. But no consideration could keep these meetings from being unpleasant.

  She opened the file folder of the next person on her schedule. She didn’t need to study this person’s background. She knew it almost completely by heart. She closed the file, folded her hands, and lowered her head in prayer. She had just begun to lose herself in meditation when the intercom brought the message that her next visitor was waiting.