Chapter 37: He Loved His Fellow Man

July 10, 1990, McKinley, Ohio

"Hi, Mike," Father Clifton said when Mary brought him to me late on Tuesday afternoon.

"Hi, Father. Mrs. Kass is lightly sedated because she became hysterical when we took her to see Charlie. Her girls are in the lounge with a female medical student."

"Has anyone contacted her husband?"

"Not that I'm aware. I can check with Leah Silver from Psych — she administered the sedative — but nobody in the ED has made any calls on her behalf."

"Is she asleep?"

"In layman's terms, 'resting comfortably', but from personal experience, I doubt there is anything comfortable about her current situation."

"Do the girls know?"

I shook my head, "They were with Doctor Mary when we informed Mrs. Kass that we couldn't revive Charlie. Rather than call Family Services, I asked one of our female medical students to sit with the girls."

"I think my best course of action is to go see Bert. He's a mechanic at the Dodge dealer. Can you keep Charlie here, rather than take him to the morgue?"

"For about an hour, barring some event that causes us to need all the rooms. We can move him to an exam room. I'll have the nurses undo the shroud so his face is visible, though he'll have an endotracheal tube."

"I understand. Thanks, Mike. I'll be back within the hour. Actually, if I could use the phone, I'll call Mrs. Temple to come get the girls."

"The consultation room is free. When you come back, ask for me, and if I'm not free, Doctor Wernher was the Attending who pronounced Charlie."

"I'll do that. One more thing — congratulations of the birth of your daughter. Father Nicholas let me know when we had lunch last week."

"Thanks!"

He went to the consultation room, and I went to the lounge to speak to Meredith, the female Second Year I had tasked with watching the Kass girls. The three of them were sitting at a table with coloring books we'd appropriated from Pediatrics. I made eye contact with Meredith, and she got up and came over, standing close so we could converse quietly.

"Their priest is here," I said. "He's calling a woman from the church to come take the girls, then he's going to inform their dad and bring him here. Sorry about pressing you into service this way, but I'll need you to watch them for another thirty to sixty minutes."

"I'll do anything you need, Doctor Mike!" she exclaimed quietly.

She put just enough emphasis on 'anything' that combined with her facial expression and her body language, it was clear she was flirting with intent. It was subtle enough that I could simply ignore it, which was what I would do unless she persisted in flirting or made it overt even a single time.

"Thanks," I replied. "How are the girls?"

"They think he's being treated and that their mom is with him."

"Good. Come find me if there are any concerns."

I left the lounge and checked with Mary about walk-ins. With our new PGY1s, we were managing to keep up, so there was nobody waiting.

"How are the girls?"

"Meredith is still with them," I said.

"The one with the obvious crush on you?"

"Setting aside the obvious concern, can you even say that a twenty-four-year-old woman has a 'crush' on someone? Isn't that like a pre-teen thing?"

"Sure, but it's the same effect for med students and doctors, or nursing students and doctors."

"From that standpoint, sure. She did flirt lightly when I just spoke to her, but you know my take on that."

"Obviously, otherwise you'd have had a string of affairs from Shelly to Kellie to me!"

"Interesting revelation, Miss Anderson!"

"I've heard you and Shelly and you and Kellie admit mutual attraction. It's safe to admit it because I know for a fact you won't violate your vows, and there is no way I'm going to be the 'other woman', even if it's as work wife!"

"Clarissa might have a bone to pick with you on that claim!"

"We work more closely together, and that is one of the usual criteria! Not to mention Clarissa's orientation, which causes some people to reject that appellation for her!"

"Some people have WAY too much time to gossip!" I said, shaking my head.

"I'll inform Miss Hot Pants that she needs to take a cold shower because it is never happening. It'll sound better coming from me, and she won't resent you."

"I appreciate that."

"How is the mom?"

"Sedated," I replied. "Leah Silver will admit her if necessary, but hopefully when she wakes up and her husband and priest are here, she'll be calm enough to go home."

"Can I ask you about how you reacted?"

"I collapsed, and I can't even tell you what I said or did. I vaguely recall someone saying they were going to give me a sedative, which they did. I looked at my chart later, and I had a serious bout of tachycardia and near syncope. When I woke up, I felt completely helpless and lost. I was, in effect, forced to find a way to cope immediately because of Rachel. Elizaveta's mom had it far worse, in the end."

"They do say losing a child hollows you out and is the worst loss anyone can have."

"Because it's just not supposed to happen. We all know, even if we don't think about it, that one day we'll bury our grandparents and parents. As we grow older, we know, even if we don't acknowledge it, that one spouse will bury the other. We generally don't think about our own mortality until late in life, and even then it's ephemeral. What we never think about, and what we can never be prepared for, is the death of one of our children."

Mary nodded, "I think you're right about that. I mean, intellectually, I know I'll die some day, but it's not real. Heck, it's not real with regard to my parents."

I nodded, "Exactly. My grandfather died, though it was after he had already had one heart attack. That first heart attack was the real shocker, given he was literally the poster boy for 'clean living' — he never smoked, he never drank, he walked daily, he ate a relatively balanced diet, and he lived to a very high personal moral standard."

Mary smirked, "I believe we both failed in that regard."

I chuckled, "Many times over for me."

"My number is high enough I'd get serious grief from quite a large segment of the population."

I smirked, "Fuck 'em!"

Mary laughed, "I think that would exacerbate the problem! But, seriously, I don't have a negative self-image."

"That would usually be a strong indication for rejection from medical school — a negative self-image, that is."

"If screwing were a disqualification, there wouldn't be any doctors!" Mary exclaimed.

"Doctor Osler had other ideas! The entire point of his initial Residency program was to have the fledgling doctors live like monastics."

"All men, too, right?"

"I honestly don't know, but I suspect that was the case, given everything I've read. There's an interesting connection between William Osler and Elizabeth Blackwell. Do you know what it is?"

"Not off the top of my head."

"He was born the same year she received the first ever medical degree issued to a woman in the United States."

"Can I ask you something about him?"

"Sure. What?"

"How do you deal with the fact that he was a racist and was, in some ways, a proponent of euthanasia of the elderly?"

"All, and I mean all, of our heroes have feet of clay. If we demand perfection in our heroes, we will find them all wanting and all lacking, and it makes no sense to discard their great achievements for what amounts to personal flaws. As far as I'm aware, Doctor Osler never practiced euthanasia, or even truly advocated for it, but even if he advocated for it, that is far different from doing it."

"What would it take for you to reject someone's achievements?"

"That's a very good question. If their work is sound, that is, if it's borne out by the scientific method, you don't reject the work, or even deny credit for it, though you can reject the person. Now, that said, there are lines which cannot be crossed. We do not, in any way, make use of the experiments performed by German medical school graduates during Nazi rule in Germany. I won't dignify them with a title they do not deserve.

"Let me draw what is a truly trivial example when compared to the likes of Josef Mengele — Pete Rose. Nothing he did in his personal life, even if he bet against the Reds, which I do not believe he did, invalidates all the records he set as a player. He could be an axe murderer, and it wouldn't change the record books. Fundamentally, if he didn't cheat as a player, then the records are valid, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame. And yes, he was a hero of mine who obviously has feet of clay."

"I suppose that makes sense."

"Let me ask you this — would the world be a better place or a worse place without Doctor Osler?"

"Probably worse, given he's basically the father of modern medical education and he bucked the establishment to create the system we use now. He insisted that his medical students see patients early in their training, and, as is done here, Third Years were taking histories, performing physicals, and running lab tests. We do all that; well, minus living in dorms at the hospital."