Chapter 27

“Ah, Mr. Russell,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s good to see you up and recovered. How are you feeling?”

I looked at his hand, but knew I’d never met this man. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

“No, I suppose not directly. My name is Dr. Collins. I treated you when you were brought in a few weeks ago,” he said with a smile. “You gave us quite a scare, but it looks like you’re out of the woods.”

I fished in my pocket and took out my phone, turning away and snapping a picture of myself and him, making him blink. “I was told about you after I woke up, Dr. Collins. My mother and our lawyer will be most interested in knowing that you stopped to speak to me and how interested you were in finding out about my condition. My understanding was that you were to have no contact with myself, my charts or my family. I’m sure you only meant to be friendly and make conversation, but you know how lawyers are.”

I turned and walked outside, dialing the house number right away. “Hi, Mom. Dr. Collins just stopped me in the hospital and tried to pry into how I was recovering. You want to come pick me up? I took a picture with my phone. I figured the lawyer will want it for our case.”

“I’ll pick you up right away and we’ll go see him,” she said angrily and hung up.

I don’t think it was even five minutes before she was pulling up to the hospital entrance, making the wheels chirp as she braked. I was about to get in when she stopped me and got out. She’d spotted who she wanted and she had me follow her up the steps. “Dr. Cromwell!” she called and I could tell she had a full tank of gas on her temper and the engine was primed.

A man at the top of the stairs saw her and visibly blanched, but to his credit, he stood and waited for us with a slightly uncomfortable smile on his face. He should have abandoned dignity and run.

She stopped in front of him and I just waited for it. These were far more entertaining when I wasn’t on the receiving end. “Dr. Cromwell, I just received a distraught phone call from my son. He said that Dr. Collins stopped him on his way out of the hospital to try to get information from him on his current condition and recovery. I THOUGHT I had been clear that he was to have no contact with my son or my family. My son is continuing to see Dr. Spencer as his primary caregiver currently and her office is here in the hospital. When we spoke before, I took you at your word that our sensibilities in regard to Dr. Collins would be respected and yet, my son was accosted by the man the very next time he was in the hospital unescorted. Do I have to hire a security detail to keep my son safe from the man?”

Whoever Dr. Cromwell was, he was trying to make sense of what was going on. I gave him credit. He weathered the storm and waited for her to give him the opening. “I assure you that won’t be necessary,” he said quickly while she took a breath and tried to put out the fire. “I’ll ensure that he understands that what he did was inappropriate. I’ll have to look through the security footage to make sure it was actually him, in the interest of fairness, you understand.”

“No need,” I piped up helpfully with a smile. “When he told me his name, I took this,” I brought up the picture and showed him. He visibly wilted when he saw it. I was clearly wearing the same clothes, the picture would be time-stamped and I had a couple of small scars on my face that were still fading. They’d clearly indicate when the picture was taken. It was also clearly inside the hospital. If they hadn’t dragged their heels on settling with us, they might have avoided this embarrassment.

“We’re on our way to our lawyer to make sure he knows the details of today’s encounter. By the time we get there, I want to hear that the hospital administration has faxed over a document guaranteeing my son’s safety in this hospital. Walking up to my son and attempting to start an examination in the middle of the hall is harassment, plain and simple.”

“Examination?” Dr. Cromwell burst out. “I don’t recall you saying it was an examination.

“Dr. Collins tried to take my hand and started asking me medical questions. A trained doctor can feel a pulse in the middle of a handshake and asking questions even in a casual manner can give a doctor plenty of information while seeming innocuous,” I said dryly. “How often do you ask a patient if they know their name and address as a cognitive evaluation? Dr. Collins was hoping to find out as much information about my recovery as possible for the purposes of fighting the lawsuit we’re pursuing against him. I would have thought that given the severity of his mishandling of my case, he would have been suspended. I DID require surgery as a direct result of his mistreatment. I also woke up in so much pain, I thought I was dying and I wished it would hurry up so the pain would stop. AM I safe to see Dr. Spencer here, sir? I don’t feel like it.”

Strictly speaking, that wasn’t true, but I didn’t feel like telling him that. Dr. Spencer would be able to tell him what my emotional state was, but given the state of how things were, I thought she might come down on my side a little more firmly than the hospital.

While he assured us both that he was going to meet with the board right away to discuss how best to assure my safety in the hospital, I took a chance and called Dr. Spencer’s line.

“Hello,” she answered curiously. “Did you forget something while you were here Matt?”

“Sorry to call you back so soon after our session, but I was stopped on the way out of the hospital by Dr. Collins, trying to find out what he could about my recovery. Mom’s talking to a Dr. Cromwell right now. They’re discussing whether I’ll be safe to come back here or whether Dr. Collins will continue to harass me if we hold our sessions here. I thought I should call and let you know. You told me that if anything upset me, I should contact you right away.”

She was silent for a moment and I could hear her headache from here. I felt bad about bringing her into this, but she did need to know and better to be in the loop than find out when hospital administrators came looking for answers. “Are we on speaker-phone?” she asked finally.

“No, but we could be if you want,” I offered.

“Please.”

I put the call on speaker. Dr. Cromwell was looking back and forth between us and looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Dr. Spencer, you’re on speaker with my mother and Dr. Cromwell.”

“Bob, I thought we had an understanding about Collins,” she said sharply. “Mr. Russell is MY patient and he is CONTINUING to need care at least partly because of the trauma he received at the hands of that man. You assured his mother and I both that he would be adequately reprimanded for the incident and it would be impressed on him that he was NOT to speak to, contact or access any information on ANY of the Russell family or the Powers family who are extended family. Why am I hearing that my patient is being harassed and put into further need of care?”

“I’m just hearing about this incident myself. I haven’t had a chance to ask him why he would walk up and introduce himself to the boy. I’m just as furious over it as you are.”

“I sincerely doubt that, Bob. If Mr. Russell isn’t able to come and go from our appointments without fear of harassment, then I’m afraid I’ll have little choice but to insist that the hospital begin proceedings to revoke his license to practice medicine in the state of Massachusetts. It should have been done the day we had to put that poor boy in surgery.”

“Now, Victoria, you know that I can’t make that kind of promise without the rest of the board,” he began before Hurricane Mom took over.

“The same board, you swore you’d be meeting right away to discuss whether my son was safe in your hospital? Let’s go! I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

The poor man looked like he’d just swallowed his tongue and we were attracting notice. He seemed to realize that and led us back into the hospital.

“Matt,” Dr. Spencer said. “You can take me off speaker now. I want a moment to talk to you before I hang up. I’ll be meeting you in administration for this.”

I took her off speaker and told her it was just us. She chuckled and sounded amused. “‘You told me that if anything upset me, I should contact you right away’?” she repeated with a laugh. “Well done. I suppose special mention goes to Jake Collins for wrapping the noose around his neck. He had a fair chance at sweeping this under the rug if he hadn’t stopped to talk to you. Just keep your mouth shut and let me and your mother do the talking unless they ask you a direct question. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

The three of us went to the elevators and went up to the eighth floor where hospital administration was located. Dr. Spencer joined us when we got off the elevator and gave me a wink when Dr. Cromwell was talking to the receptionist.

“There are eight board members, so it may take a few minutes to wrangle them, but you’ve managed to nab one. That’s a start,” she explained.

We turned and listened to Dr. Cromwell, who was visibly upset. “I don’t care if he’s in a meeting. We’re facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit from the family of someone who was treated here and the cost of that suit is going up while he’s bragging about his golf game. Tell him it’s an emergency and mention lawsuit. That’ll get him out the door in a hurry.”

He didn’t wait for her to make whatever calls he’d ordered, just motioned for us to follow him. We were halfway down the hall when he turned to shout. “And get Jake Collins up here. I don’t care if you have to get security to escort him. Tell them not to be gentle!”

He led us into a large conference room and seated us at one end of the table before leaving the room to find the rest of the board. We waited about 15 minutes before the board filed in with a secretary and a tape recorder, most of them looking extremely disgruntled about the interruption of their day.

“What’s this all about, Bob?” one of them asked testily, eyeing the three of us.

“Collins,” Dr. Cromwell answered curtly. That changed the tone in the room some. “I don’t believe any of you have met Mrs. Russell or her son, Matthew, but I know you’re acquainted with their lawsuit as a result of Dr. Collins’ treatment of Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell had to have emergency surgery after he was further injured as a result of his botched treatment.” A few of the members looked uncomfortable with the culpability that ‘botched treatment’ suggested. He rounded on one of them who was about to speak. “Yes, he botched it. The boy suffered a broken rib and the emergency surgery had to be put off for over 8 hours because of the over-sedation that he administered.”

“Okay, Bob. No one’s arguing that it was a total mess, but it’s hardly grounds for an emergency meeting,” another of the members pointed out.

“No, that’s not,” he allowed. “Mr. Russell is continuing to see Dr. Spencer for treatment of the trauma he suffered here. He was leaving an appointment when Dr. Collins walked up and tried to question him about his condition, recovery and Mr. Russell suggested he was trying to get a read on his pulse by attempting to shake his hand. I’m not inclined to disagree.”

There was a round of swearing and some colorful name-calling before Dr. Cromwell continued.

“He immediately contacted his guardian and Dr. Spencer who wasted no time calling for his removal. She’s asked us to put him in front of the Board of Registration.”

“You want his license, Victoria?” the only woman on the board asked sharply.

“Stuffed, mounted and hung in my trophy room,” she replied. “I’ll explain. You’re all familiar with the circumstances surrounding Mr. Russell’s mistreatment here. He’ll carry scars both physical and psychological as a result of what he endured here. Dr. Collins was reprimanded and this step was being considered by the board, but hadn’t been carried forward, at least partly because the lawsuit was being considered. The Russells’ lawyer has subpoenaed Dr. Collins disciplinary records, so his past blunders have been laid bare to them through the suit. Today, he tried to gain insight into my patient’s condition even going so far as to try to conduct a shoe-shine examination. He put my patient into further anxiety about his recovery and jeopardized the progress we’ve made together. He was specifically told by the boy’s legal guardian to have no contact with him and was told the same by this board. He doesn’t consider himself answerable to the ethical guidelines of our profession, the authority of this board, the wishes of the family or tenets of basic human decency. He shouldn’t be allowed to treat a houseplant, let alone a patient capable of feeling pain if he should decide to spin the wheel and see what treatment seems exciting today.”

“Okay, are we sure it was actually him or just someone saying they were him?” one of the older members asked.

“Mr. Russell had the presence of mind to take a picture of the two of them standing together. It’s him,” Dr. Cromwell said sourly.

I took my phone out, brought up the picture and showed it to Dr. Spencer. She took my phone and slid it across the table. “He doesn’t CARE!” she said angrily. “If we’d left Mr. Russell in Jake Collins’ care, he’d be dead right now, drowned in blood from a punctured lung that HE caused and hadn’t even bothered to examine the boy afterwards. I got the description of what happened in that room and I immediately knew we needed to get him into X-Ray. He filled a fourteen year old boy full of enough morphine to make a quarterback with two broken legs play all four quarters of the Superbowl and just left him there. He should be working on cars, not people.”

“Harsh criticism,” one of the members observed, but didn’t argue with her.

True to my word, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t have anything to add. Everything had been said.

There was a knock on the door and the receptionist stuck her head into the room. “Dr. Collins is here,” she said.

“Show him in,” Dr. Cromwell growled.

A moment later, the door opened and Dr. Collins came in looking boredly curious until he saw us. Then he paled considerably and took a seat away from us.

I leaned back in my chair and looked distinctly uncomfortable. Dr. Spencer took my hand and gave it a pat and a squeeze. We were both playing our parts well, but I tried not to over-play it.

“I thought you wanted me to stay away from the boy,” he said coolly.

“That didn’t seem to bother you an hour ago,” Dr. Cromwell said, showing him the picture before returning my phone.

He grimaced. “I merely tried to say hello,” he said lightly. “I was walking by and saw him up and about and I wanted to see how he was getting along.”