Code Blues (15 page)

A flicker of distaste passed over Dr.
Callendar's face. Perhaps one of my schools offended him. He turned
to Tori with his biggest smile to date. "Dr. Yamamoto?"

Her low voice to was a bit difficult to
hear. I bent toward her as she said, "My name is Tori Yamamoto. I
studied biology at the University of Alberta, and went to McGill
for medical school."

Dr. Callendar nodded approvingly. At what?
Her quiet voice? Her Alberta-ness? Her sojourn at McGill? Her
simple white T-shirt and khaki cargo pants?

If I kept trying to second-guess Dr. Evil, I
would go mad. I took some deep breaths. Happy thoughts. My mind
turned to Alex, who'd said he was a soccer player. I'd never been
into jocks, but it was a mild turn-on. Instead of a bulky football
player, I'd found a lean guy with good legs and stamina to burn.
Intriguing.

Dr. Callendar launched into an orientation
speech. It was really an excuse to lecture us about patient care,
confidentiality, home care, following obstetrics patients even
during our other rotations, blah blah blah. He seemed to scan me
for a slip-ups (spinach in my teeth, less-than-alert expression),
and it bothered me until I noticed he looked at the guys the same
way. Maybe with a shade less animosity. The big
compare-and-contrast was when he turned to Tori. His thin lips
always stretched into a smile.

Clearly, he made a pet out of every group in
order to divide and conquer. I'd met people like that before. I was
more interested in how Tori was taking it. I can't stand pets who
preen and strive ever-harder to please the massa.

Tori watched him, expressionless. A good
omen.

Dr. Callendar managed to drone through the
entire introduction hour. "Normally, this time would be reserved
for teaching and reviewing home care and obstetric patients. You
will be expected to prepare presentations regularly." Another
poisonous glance at me. "If you have any questions, you can page me
through locating. Of course, I will see you every Tuesday morning.
Now go see your patients."

What a difference from Dr. "I'm your man,
24/7" Radshaw. Maybe it showed in my face, because Dr. Callendar
shoved a piece of paper at me in dismissal. "Your schedule, Dr.
Sze."

I felt like sticking my tongue out at him.
Like Red Green said, you can't stay young, but you can stay
immature. Instead, I peered at my schedule. I'd already done two
emerg shifts as a resident, but I was worried I'd enter the room
and have no idea what to do. Luckily, I had only two patients in
the next two hours. That should give me enough time to figure out
each one.

My first was an elderly woman who took a lot
of medications and needed prescription renewals. Straightforward,
right? Except I'd never met her before and I had little idea what
half her medications were. At Western, we were encouraged to learn
the generic names of medications instead of the catchy
pharmaceutical brand name, which was probably a good idea to
minimize branding in our head, but it meant that I was frantically
flipping through my pharmacopoeia, trying to figure out what was
what. After all, my signature was going on the prescription.

In the ER, I'd rarely made new decisions on
my own. If the patient was admitted, I continued whatever they were
on before, adding or subtracting as needed and as directed. I added
antibiotics for a pneumonia, or a raft of heart medications for a
new cardiac patient, plus Tylenol, Gravol, and Ativan so we
wouldn't get called for the average headache, nausea, or insomnia.
For one dehydrated patient, I forgot to stop her diuretic, but the
nurse caught it, and Dr. Dupuis just laughed. I could also handle
the walk-in patient who came in for a single, relatively
straightforward problem, like my woman with the UTI.

This patient was different. She was supposed
to be mine for the next two years. Plus she'd be using these meds
until her next appointment with me. I wanted to get it right.

Not to mention that if I could avoid another
Dr. Callendar roast-me moment, it would be a big bonus. Luckily, a
patient summary was the first page of the chart. Phew. Then I took
a closer look. Her problem list hadn't been updated since 2005. On
the next few pages, some of the handwriting was execrable.
Eventually, I excused myself. It looked unprofessional to squint
and frown at the chart and my pharmacopoeia when I was supposed to
know what I was doing.

I was in the conference room, trying to
decipher the family history, when Dr. Callendar bore down on me.
"Well?"

I launched right in, more comfortable
presenting patients after two emerg shifts under my belt. "I have a
77-year-old woman with diabetes, asthma, COPD, gout,
osteoarthritis, peptic ulcer disease, and an MI in '02. She says
she's here for a prescription renewal."

"Let me see that." He grabbed the chart and
read it, then threw it back at me. It flopped shut on impact. "So?
No complaints?"

"No."

He bared his teeth in a grin. "Did you ask
her about chest pain? Shortness of breath? Orthopnea and PND?
Peripheral vascular symptoms? Abdominal pain? Pain in her joints?
Tophi?"

I shook my head. "I asked her if she had any
complaints."

"And you took her at face value? You did not
do a complete review of systems?"

I shook my head.

"You know, Hope"—a faint, scornful emphasis
on my name—"you may want to be the kind of family doctor who just
pushes prescriptions, but that's not what we're training you for
here. How can you figure out what medications she needs, and how
you need to adjust her prescriptions, if you don't even ask
her?"

My skin did toughen up during medical
school. But all the same, I felt a burning at the back of my eyes.
I had to figure out what all the drugs did before I could decide if
she needed them or not.

"Family medicine is patient-centred. That
means we focus on the patient." He jabbed a hand toward my clinic
room. "Not on the chart, or on drugs, or your own ego."

My ego. What did that have to do with
anything? It was about the size of a dust mote right now.

He had a point. I had an hour with this
patient. I could have talked to her more. But he didn't have to be
such a dick about it. I took a few deep breaths, willing the tears
away. Dr. Dave Dupuis had taught me without relying on
mortification.

"Dr. Callendar?" Tori called from across the
room. She had silently pulled up a chair at the opposite end of the
table. "I wonder if you could help me with Mrs. Abramovitch. She
has a lot of questions this time."

"Just a minute, Tori." Dr. Callendar slapped
my patient's chart, avoiding my eyes. "Think about it." He hastened
over to Tori's side. "I know Mrs. Abramovitch very well. Has she
been on the Internet again?" He chuckled and shook his head.

In the hall, I took a few breaths while I
was still out of earshot and eyesight of my patient. I didn't want
to cry all over her. Maybe I should hit the bathroom for a few
minutes of privacy. I looked around, but all I saw was the men's.
Then I remembered that women's was in opposite wing, on the other
side of the U. Another reason to curse the FMC.

A fake wood door opened in front of me. I
reared back, clutching the chart to my chest.

It was only Stan. He shut the door behind
him at the sight of my face. "Hope. What's up?" His loud voice
echoed down the hall.

I turned away. "Nothing."

"Bullshit." Stan gestured for me to come
with him. I hesitated before following him down the hall, past the
conference room, into an unmarked room on the left.

It was someone's office. Charts spilled over
the desk, photos were propped by the phone, and textbooks lined the
wall. The last thing I needed was to get busted for trespassing,
but before the door closed behind us, Stan asked, "Dr. Callendar
raking you over the coals?"

I nodded without meeting his eyes.

"Look. Don't worry about it. He did the
exact same thing to me when I was an R1. He's just happy to have
someone new to yell at. He probably has a small penis. His problem.
Okay?"

I half-snorted a laugh. Stan's brown eyes
were bright and interested. His features were too coarse to be
good-looking, but his energy and confidence were appealing. I
started to cheer up. "Doesn't he get to you?"

Stan laughed. "He used to. When I was a
medical student. When I found out I was going to be on his team
this year, I said, 'God, no, not the demon team leader!' But I have
him figured him out. He likes having someone to pick on. You should
see him making fun of Omar's accent."

"What?" My blood began to boil. It felt
better than weepiness. "That's just wrong."

"Yeah, he's a dickhead. But if you can
handle the attitude, he can teach you a few things. He's worse than
usual today, probably mad that he had to be a team leader. They
brought him in because of Kurt." Stan's face dimmed. "They had to
switch all the teams around."

Kurt had left so many holes to fill. We
found his body on Saturday morning. In the past few days, not only
were people mourning, but they must have scrambled to find a new
team leader and someone to take his patients.

Dr. Callendar had stepped in. I still didn't
like him, but at least he did that much.

Stan cast a quick glance at the desk. "It's
hard to believe Kurt's gone."

I gulped. "Is this his office?"

"It was. I guess it'll be Dr. Callendar's
now. But he hasn't changed anything yet." He cheered up a little.
"St. Joe's probably can't afford a cleaning crew. It'll stay like
this a while. Man, I don't envy whoever has to go through all the
papers. Kurt was always beavering away on something. Last I heard,
it was spousal abuse. He wanted to set up a resource centre at St.
Joe's. Even a hotline! I told him, who wants to run that?"

I was still a few thoughts back. A cleaning
crew would clean away any evidence. I stepped toward the desk.

Stan sounded alarmed. "What are you
doing?"

"I'm just curious about his pictures.
Everyone talks about him, but I never really knew him." I peeked at
the framed photos on his desk. One of them was a picture of Dr.
Radshaw, sans moustache, wearing a ragged red-and-white football
jersey. He was hugging a girl with a dark bob. She pressed to her
face to his chest, but I could tell it was the woman in purple
scrubs, Vicki.

I scanned the other photos: a
black-and-white picture of a family, probably historical, and one
of a mutt pressing its muzzle toward the lens. My heart twisted. I
wondered who was taking care of the dog. I glanced at the wall,
under the bookshelf, he'd hung his McGill medical degrees, which
were written in Latin.

"Uh, Hope. We should get back."

"I know." I smiled at him. "Thanks."

He was already turning the doorknob when I
noticed McGill class photos hung alongside and over the doorway.
The one by the light switch was for the class of 2011.

I hesitated and pointed.

"Yeah. He likes—liked—to keep the class
photos from when he started teaching. Come on. Callendar's going to
lynch us."

"I'll cover for you."

He didn't look reassured. We crept into the
hallway. All the doors were still closed. No one had noticed our
absence. Stan whispered, "Just think about how small his dick must
be. Miniature. Okay?"

"Okay."

He pushed open the door to the conference
room. I headed down the hall to my patient, but with every step, I
recalled the class photo. Right by the light switch, where Dr.
Radshaw would have seen it every day, Mireille's face smiled out
from the middle of the pack.

Chapter 10

If Dr. Radshaw had hung up class pictures
for years, it would have been strange for him to stop just because
his ex-girlfriend was in one. In fact, they might have still been
dating while he displayed it. I kind of liked that Dr. Radshaw had
kept her around post-breakup.

Still, he must have looked at it every
day.

When Ryan and I broke up, I didn't destroy
our stuff, but I put it in a locked box in my parents' cold
storage. I burned a playlist of "our" songs on to a DVD and deleted
them from my computer and iPod. Slowly, painfully, I got over Ryan.
Still, when I found dried rose petals I'd forgotten, pressed
between the pages of my dictionary, I cried.

Maybe Dr. Radshaw was less sentimental than
I was. Heck, Mireille was a resident at his hospital. He'd see her
in person all the time, never mind her picture.

But the more I got to know about Dr.
Radshaw, the more curious I got. I'd agreed to ask questions,
partly for Alex, but now I wanted to know the answers, too.

After I saw my second patient, I had to wait
to review her with Dr. Callendar because he was too busy lashing
Omar. "You don't understand. In Canada, we do things differently."
He even exaggerated his pronunciation, as if Omar was retarded or
hearing-impaired.

Omar nodded. "Yes. Of course. Yes!"

Dr. Callendar might have stepped into the
breach, but he was still an asshole, same as Saturday morning.

My eyes narrowed. Saturday morning. He
worked the night shift on Friday—the same night Dr. Radshaw died in
the men's change room. I'm not saying it was Callendar's fault, but
maybe he accepted the team leader position out of guilt.

Dr. Callendar stabbed a knobby finger
against Omar's note. "I can't read your handwriting.
Medico-legally, your writing has to be legible. It doesn't matter
what you say it says, someone independent has to be able to read it
if you go to court. You'd better practice. Do you understand
me?"

I snorted under my breath. This from a guy
who squiggles so bad that he uses a stamp on his ER notes, and you
still can't read them. He was born to belittle.

Could he love it so much, he'd have killed
Kurt to have free reign in humiliating residents?