“I had a bad day too,” David finally admitted. He got himself a beer from the refrigerator, took a long drink, and then told Angela about his utilization review with Kelley and the CMV man from Burlington.
“That’s outrageous!” Angela said when David was finished. “What nerve to talk to you like that. Especially with the kind of positive response you’ve been getting from your patients.”
“Apparently that’s not a high priority,” David said despondently.
“Are you serious? Everyone knows that doctor-patient relationships are the cornerstone of good medical care.”
“Maybe that’s passe,” David said. “The current reality is determined by people like Charles Kelley. He’s part of a new army of medical bureaucrats being created by government intervention. All of a sudden economics and politics have reached the ascendancy in the medical arena. I’m afraid the major concern is the bottom line on the balance sheet, not patient care.”
Angela shook her head.
“The problem is Washington,” David said. “Every time the government gets seriously involved in medical care they seem to screw things up. They try to please everybody and end up pleasing no one. Look at Medicare and Medicaid; they’re both a mess and both have had a disastrous effect on medicine in general.”
“What are you going to do?” Angela asked.
“I don’t know,” David said. “I’ll try to compromise somehow. I guess I’ll just take it a day at a time and see what happens. What about you?”
“I don’t know either,” Angela said. “I keep hoping that I was wrong, that I’m overreacting.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” David said gently. “After all, this is the first time you’ve felt this way. And all along Wadley’s been a touchy-feely kind of guy. Since you never said anything up to this point, maybe he doesn’t think you mind being touched.”
“What exactly are you implying?” Angela demanded sharply.
“Nothing really,” David said quickly. “I was just responding to what you said.”
“Are you saying I brought this on myself?”
David reached across the table and grasped Angela’s arm. “Hold on!” he said. “Calm down! I’m on your side. I don’t think for a second that you are to blame.”
Angela’s sudden anger abated. She realized that she was overreacting, reflecting her own uncertainties. There was the possibility that she had been unknowingly encouraging Wadley. After all, she’d wanted to please the man as any student might, especially since she felt a debt to him for all the time and effort he’d expended on her behalf.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said. “I’m just stressed out.”
“Me too,” David said. “Let’s go to bed.”