With her coat taken care of, Denise brushed past Philips, giving his left elbow a furtive squeeze. It was so fast that Philips couldn’t respond. She sat down at the screen, adjusted the viewing controls to her liking, and introduced herself to the students. The technician returned and announced that the contrast material had been given. He prepared the scanner for another run.
Philips leaned over so that he had to support himself on Denise’s shoulder. He pointed to the image on the screen. “Here’s a lesion in the temporal lobe, and at least one, maybe two, in the frontal.” He turned to the medical students. “I noted in the chart that the patient is a heavy smoker. What does all this suggest to you?”
The students stared at the image afraid to make any gesture. For them it was like being at an auction without money; any slight movement could have been interpreted as a bid,
“Let me give you all a hint,” said Philips. “Primary brain tumors are usually solitary, whereas tumors coming from other parts of the body, what we call metastasis, can be single or multiple.”
“Lung cancer,” blurted one of the students as if he were on a TV game show.
“Very good,” said Philips. “At this stage you can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I’d be willing to put money on it.”
“How long does the patient have to live?” asked the student, obviously overwhelmed by the diagnosis.
“Who’s the doctor?” asked Philips.
“He’s on Curt Mannerheim’s neurosurgical service,” said Denise.
“Then he doesn’t have long to live,” said Martin. “Mannerheim will operate on him.”
Denise turned quickly. “A case like this is inoperable.”
“You don’t know Mannerheim. He operates on anything. Especially tumors.” Martin again bent over Denise’s shoulder, smelling the unmistakable aroma of her freshly washed hair. It was as unique to Philips as a fingerprint, and despite the professional setting, he felt a faint stirring of passion. He stood up to break the spell.
“Doctor Sanger, can I speak to you for a moment,” he said suddenly, motioning her over to a corner of the room.
Denise complied willingly, with a bewildered expression.
“It’s my professional opinion …” said Philips in the same to entertain the idea of leaving the Med Center for another hospital where he would have a shot at the top.
Martin turned down the corridor leading to surgery. He passed through the double swinging doors, whose sign warned visitors that they were entering a restricted area, and went through another set of swinging doors, to the patient-holding room. Here stood a swarm of gurneys filled with anxious patients awaiting their turn to be dissected. At the end of this large area was a long built-in white Formica desk guarding the entrance to the thirty operating rooms and to the recovery area. Three nurses in green surgical scrub dresses were busy behind the desk making sure the right patient got into the right room so he’d get the right operation. With almost two hundred operations in any twenty-four-hour period, this was a full-time job.
“Can someone tell me about Mannerheim’s case?” asked Philips as he leaned over the desk.
All three nurses looked up and began to speak at once. Martin, being one of the few eligible doctors, was a welcome visitor to the OR. When the nurses realized what had happened, they laughed and then made an elaborate ceremony of deferring to one another.
“Maybe I should ask someone else,” said Philips, pretending to leave.
“Oh, no,” said the blond nurse.
“We can go back in the linen closet to discuss it,” suggested the brunette. The OR was the one place in the hospital where inhibitions were relaxed. The atmosphere was totally different from any other service. Philips thought that perhaps it had something to do with everyone wearing the same pajama-like clothing, plus the potential for crisis, where sexual innuendos provided a relief valve. Whatever it was, Philips remembered it very well. He’d been a surgical resident for one year before deciding to go into radiology.
“Which one of Mannerheim’s cases are you interested in?” asked the blond nurse. “Marino?”
“That’s right,” said Philips.
“She’s right behind you,” said the blond nurse.