Chaos at Crescent City Medical Center (2 page)

"You’ve got to handle this,
dam
m
it
, Alex.  You do treat Robert Bonnet differently from the other staff physicians.  This is the third complaint we've received against him in less than six months.  Something must be done.  That, as lawyer for this medical center, is
your
responsibility."

Alexandra Lee Destephano sat on the edge of the sofa as she listened to her boss rant and rage.
Don Montgomery was the chief executive officer at Crescent City Medical Center.  Dissociating herself from his tirade, she glanced around the executive office.  The office was stiff, formal, and uncomfortable and the décor mirrored the pretentious nature of Crescent City Medical Center’s haughty CEO.  If fact, there was a likeness between the man and the office.
Don Montgomery was tall and stiff in his Versace suit and Louis Vuitton watch.  His thinning brown hair framed his cold unsmiling, face.

Alex likened her boss to a fish, but she was brought back to reality as he closed the distance between them and entered her personal space.  Alex rose from the sofa and backed away from him. Overlooking the sarcasm in her boss's voice, she prayed for patience and remembered the advice of her maternal grandmother, Kathryn Rosseau Lee of Virginia.  Alex struggled for control and responded, "Why don't we take a few minutes to review these claims and see if we do have anything serious against the hospital?   I am not convinced that we do."  Alex watched the frown flicker across Don's impassive face.

The CEO stood up, walked to his office door, and opened it. “I don’t have time and that is not
my
job.  I’m up to my ass in Obama Care bull shit regulations that are going to cost us millions, absolute millions, and I don’t have time to discuss your ex-husband’s inability to practice safe medicine. If you're going to play ball with the big boys, you'll just have to figure out how or get out.”

Alex could feel anger seeping through her brain and tried hard not to roll her eyes as Don continued his self-aggrandizing, “Don’t forget that
I
run this hospital.  The financial success, image and future of this place are my responsibility.
I
have to second guess our competition and keep our market edge. No one here has any of the skills needed to assist me. Weren't for my
l
eadership, the board of trustees would have voted for that Health Trust merger six months ago."

Alex was sick to death of Don’s proclaimed “Savior Behavior” and wondered if he lived
in a vacuum.  She doubted he realized the efforts of the physicians, staff, and volunteers were part of the success of the world-class and prestigious Crescent City Medical Center.  Don consistently took credit for all accomplishments at CCMC and cast blame on others when things went wrong.  She sighed as the CEO continued eulogizing himself.

"If I didn't have a handle on internal and external sabotage we encounter daily, we'd be history.  Only strong hospitals and medical centers with strong leadership will survive these times, but I can't do it all."  Don paused his sermon for a moment and then shook his finger in her face. 

"Now, take care of this problem immediately, dammit.  I expect a report from you within twenty-four hours about how you're going to handle the malpractice claims against Robert Bonnet."

Alex was angry at the CEO's disrespect and patronizing superiority but held her temper.  "I'll meet with Dr. Bonnet and the staff involved this week." 

As she left the office, her self-
control barely
intact, Alex wondered how many executives she was going to have to train.  Don Montgomery was already the second
CEO
in her two-year tenure as in-house legal counsel for Crescent City Medical Center.  She was beginning to wonder if she'd be able to stand it for another two years.  Alex constantly wondered if she'd made the right decision in moving to New Orleans to practice hospital law.  In all honesty, she wondered did she treat Robert Bonnet, her ex-husband, differently from other CCMC physicians.  Sometimes feelings of uncertainty and guilt clouded her mind; she hoped it didn't cloud her professional judgment as well.  Alex’s thoughts returned to Robert as she left the exec
utive offices and headed toward
her own, continuing to think about Robert along the way.

Robert Henri Bonnet, M.D., was the chief of surgery at CCMC and a favored son of New Orleans. Alex knew that Robert was a skillful physician.  They'd met over ten years ago at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, when Robert was a resident in general surgery, and she was a doctoral student in clinical nursing.  They dated less than a year before they married in a very small but circumspect ceremony at the UVA Chapel on the Lawn.  Their union melded two of the most powerful families in the South -- the aristocratic Bonnets’ of Louisiana and the powerful Lees’ of Virginia.

Her musings led her through the opulent atrium of the world-famous hospital into the Hospital Café where she ordered a Latte and continued to think about her failed marriage. The
marriage to Robert
had been perfect in the early years, and she still wondered when things had gone wrong.  In truth, Alex rarely saw Robert at CCMC and knew little about his personal life.  She was curious about Don’s angst towards Robert.  Her intuition suggested that something was involved but she wasn’t sure what it was.

Alex reflected on her meeting with Don as she slowly sipped her coffee.  Other physicians at CCMC presented greater legal risks than Robert.  For instance, her greatest concern was the hospital's internationally famous vascular surgeon who allowed his physician's assistant to perform complex aspects of cardiac surgery.  Another concern
 
centered on CCMC's nationally known cancer physician whom Alex suspected of practicing active euthanasia.  She considered these physicians much more dangerous than a few complaints about Robert.

Alex had considered her former relationship with Robert prior to accepting employment at CCMC.  Their divorce had been final for four years, and their parting had been amicable.  Much of their difficulty had centered on Alex's decision to go to law school and postpone having children until she established a law practice.  Robert, a product of a traditional home, didn't like the idea of a professional wife who worked outside the home.  Over the duration of their marriage, their individual lives took separate paths -- Robert's in medicine and Alex's in law.   The decision to end the marriage was mutual although Alex believed two miscarriages, during her third year of law school, were the major reason Robert divorced her.  Robert had wanted her to quit school at the onset of the second pregnancy, but Alex had refused, noting that she was healthy and too close to graduation.  Robert had become extremely depressed at the loss of the second child and declared they’d grown too far apart to continue their marriage.  He had moved out
of their home shortly afterward and
filed for divorce.

She'd been hurt by the separation and divorce but knew it would
have been
difficult to build a life with Robert.  After the divorce and her graduation from UVA law school, she'd accepted an offer from a chain of Catholic hospitals in Houston.

Alex's tenure with the Catholic hospital group had provided her with experience and practice.  Her nursing background added considerable depth to her ability to determine high risk and analyze potential malpractice cases.

Alex continued to mull over Don's curious request as she looked around the glass atrium.  Why did Montgomery want her to fix Robert?  Her intuition nagged at her and suggested there was more than was apparent in the CEO's behavior.  She made a mental note to call Robert and
speak with him soon.

As Alex entered her office suite
, she noted that her
secretary was
late.  Just as
she finished checking email, her striking blonde-headed bomb shell Cajun secretary, Bridgett, almost six feet tall in red spiked heels, knocked on her door and came in.

"Happy Monday, Alex," Bridgett sang.  "We've got a new unbelievable complaint for
the book
.  You’re gonna love it."

Alex looked up and smiled as she waited patiently waited for Bridgett to continue her story.

Bridgett combed her long blonde hair back with her fingers and grinned. "Well, patient's probably a nut bunny, but then what’s new??  Anyway, for the purposes of our book, she's got a great story." 

Bridgett was dancing with excitement, dying to tell Alex about the new patient complaint.  Her blue eyes sparked with the anticipation of her newest adventure in the legal advisor's office.  Bridge
tt
loved her job, and she was good at it.  She could sell ice to Eskimos in December and had prevented many lawsuits at CCMC simply by listening and being supportive of families in crises. 

Alex laughed.  "Is it
better than the guy who came in for the penile enlargement but refused to wear his weights?"

Bridgett burst into renewed laughter again. "Unbelievable. Yeah, that thing never did work
, did it?
  The surgery would've worked if he'd worn his weights, right?  I mean, you gotta pull that old thing up and out to make it larger, right?"  Bridge dissolved once again into laughter.

Alex shrugged her shoulders and grinned, "Who knows?  To be honest, I don’t know much about penile implants, don’t really want to but I do believe that obeying laws of physics would have made the surgery successful.” 

Bridgett, still laughing, thumbed through the book as she contemplated her answer.  The Crescent City Medical Center book of
The Craziest Patients Ever
was a compilation of the most colorful, unusual and creative patient complaints known to the medical center.  The addition of a new entry to the coveted notebook was a spectacular event made
known
only to a few individuals.  Favori
te entries to date included
complaints from the penis man, another man who'd forgotten he'd agreed to have his foot amputated and complained later when he found it
was missing, and the woman who had committed her husband to The Pavilion, CCMC's psychiatric facility, and later sued the hospital for negligence after she signed him out against medical advice.  And of course, there was the New Orleans
Voodoo
Queen who swore that the hospital had “taken” her magical powers after surgery.  The suit had still not been dismissed and was
being handled
in the city court.

Bridgett continued to string Alex along, not telling her the new story until Alex erupted into a fix of impatience.  "Tell me.  Don't keep me waiting." 

Bridgett hesitated a few more seconds.  Finally she began,

”Well this one is straight out of the Emergency Department…” 

“Yeah
and….hurry up!
You
never know when we’re gonna be interrupted around here,” Alex said, as she scanned the outer office furtively.

“Well,” Bridgett continued, “This man came into the ED and told the admitting clerk that he had to see a doctor right away because he couldn’t talk…”

“Who was taking for him?”

“He was talking for himself.”

Alex stared at Bridgett uncomprehending.  “I don’t get this.  What am I missing?  How could he not talk if he was talking?”

“That’s probably a good question.  Well, I guess the clerk di
dn’t even pick up on it and sent
him back him to see a doctor.  Then they called in a throat specialist.”

“Terrific,” Alex said sarcastically, shaking her head and smiling.  “We really have a bunch of rocket scientist clerks over there, don’t we?
"

“Yep,” Bridgett replied, “but there is no new news there.”

Alex nodded agreement, “Then what?”

“He saw a doctor, some new guy to the CCMC ED who kept insisting to the patient that he
could talk
until the patient just sort of went bonkers, screaming and yelling and holding his head.”

“And then..?”

"
The doctor left him alone and went out front, raging at the ED admitting clerks and then went to order a psych consult.  About that time, the new throat surgeon came in and not knowing, saw the patient.  Then a short time later the nurses heard a bunch of screaming and the sounds of stuff
breaking coming from the guy’s room.  When they went to check, the patient
had broken all the IV bottles and equipment he could find, pulled all of the equipment out of the wall and jumped up on the wall-mounted TV and swung back and forth on the TV while it was still on the wall. 
The Price is Right
was on.”

Alex looked at Bridgett, dumbfounded at the new story and at people in general.  "What'd did the nurses do?" 

"Called security but before they could get there, the man jumped down from swinging on the TV and ran out of the ED into the lobby where he turned all of the green plants over on the new oriental carpeting.  If that wasn’t enough, he turned the water fountain machine upside down on the carpet making an enormous mud slide.”