The Queen of Hearts(36)

“Ethan? What are the OB guys saying? Any changes?”

“Um . . . they are . . . continuing tocolysis?”

“For Chrissake, Speedy, wake the fuck up. You might be a future flea, but you still have a day left on this service. Now is not the time to drop the ball. Did you read their note?”

Ethan, an orderly and methodical guy who would indeed be well suited to the cerebral world of internal medicine, fidgeted. X had nicknamed him Speedy because of his deliberate, thoughtful speech patterns and his habit of producing beautifully written, meticulous H&Ps. Despite the fodder he provided for the action-oriented surgeons in their highly macho environment, and his total lack of interest in pursuing surgery as a career, he was well regarded on the rotation; it was impossible not to like him.

“I’m sorry, Dr. X,” he apologized now, rubbing his little round wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m sort of fuzzy-headed today.”

“Okay. Read their note and get back to me immediately, if not sooner. I’m going to meet with Edict’s family, and we need to know what the endgame is here. Does OB want us to keep her in the trauma unit until they can deliver, or move her there once she’s stable? The last I heard from neurology, Edict’s brain scan looked unfavorable yesterday, but it’s early.”

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Ethan said.

X continued. “On to the floor patients. We’ll run the list and then you guys can go with Allison into the rooms. Clancy, you’ve got room 1016. How’s she doing?”

“LGFD,” Clancy answered. Ethan and I dutifully wrote this down.

“Clancy,” X said, irritated, “did you actually examine her?”

“What’s LGFD?” Ethan asked.

“Looks Good from Door,” Clancy said, abashed. “Uh, I’ll check again during rounds. Or,” he added hastily, registering a lethal glare from X, “maybe I’ll go right now.” He darted off.

“Don’t emulate Dr. Ellington, young doctors-in-training,” Dr. Kalena advised us. “He’s got issues.”

“We won’t, Dr. Kalena,” said Ethan.

“You can call me Allison. It’s fine,” she told us.

We looked at Dr. X.

“You can call me Dr. X,” he said. I waited until no one was looking and stuck my tongue out at him.

“Right,” he continued. “Moving on. Ethan, you’re up again. Did you get the drain pulled from room 1018?”

Room 1018, Mrs. Andreozzi, was an old lady who’d been beaten by a couple of trolls she surprised in the act of burgling her apartment. Rather than attempting to flee like any sensible senior citizen, she had leapt out at them with a Tarzan yell, striking one of them square in the face with a teakettle. Every time I looked at her, with her swollen eyes and her casted arms and her vivid purplish yellow bruised abdomen, I felt a strong urge to find those guys and take up the teakettle myself.

Ethan hung his head and groaned a little. “I’m sorry—again—but she won’t let me do anything. Every time I go in there, she tries to order breakfast from me. She refuses to believe I’m not from the cafeteria.”

“Speedy, that’s ridiculous. Just tell her you are the medical student. Or hell, say ‘doctor’ if that makes her feel better.”

Ethan looked even more miserable. “I’ve tried, Dr. X. I brought her some coffee the first day she was on the floor, and now she recognizes my voice and refuses to accept that I’m not food services. I don’t think she can see anything.”

“Ethan, Ethan. You have officially crashed and burned this morning,” X groused. “All right. We’ll all march in there and reassure Mrs. A that you’re legit.”

We plodded en masse down the brightly lit hallway connecting the TICU to the regular hospital floor, picking up speed as we passed the nurses’ station. The floor was laid out in an open-ended loop anchored by the family waiting room so that if you didn’t project a harried and intimidating air as you went by, you were likely to be besieged by hordes of anxious relatives.

It was true that Mrs. Andreozzi might have limited vision, as her eyelids were gargantuan, swollen to probably ten times their normal size. Still, she perked up at the sounds of footsteps, casting a delighted smile in our general direction.

“Hello, Mrs. A. It’s Ethan,” said Ethan cheerfully. “I’ve brought some doctors in to see you.”

“Well, hello yourself, sonny boy,” she chirped back. “Did you get those scrambled eggs done yet?”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t get those for you, because I am the medical student. This is Dr. Xenokostas,” he said, gesturing. “He’s going to talk to you about removing your drain.”

“Why, it is so nice to meet you, Dr. Xenokostas,” said Mrs. Andreozzi, turning and addressing the floor nurse, who had wandered in behind us.

“I’m actually over here, ma’am,” said Dr. X. “Would it be all right if Ethan took this pesky drain out of your belly?”

“My goodness, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Andreozzi, flustered. “Do you think he should be doing a thing like that?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Andreozzi, he is very, um, qualified. He does this a lot.”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I think I’d feel a teeny bit better if one of the medical folks could do it.” She lowered her voice and said in a confiding tone, “He’s not even a very good cook.”