“Understood.”
He was looking forward to this. Like Seymour Wilson, Ted Allison despised incompetent doctors. In addition, he had a strong conviction that if women wanted to be in the medical profession, they should be nurses. If it was good enough for Florence Nightingale, it was good enough for the rest of them.
At six o’clock the following morning, the residents gathered in the corridor to begin their rounds. The group consisted of Dr. Allison, Tom Benson, who was his chief assistant, and five residents, including Honey Taft.
Now, as Allison looked at Honey, he thought, Okay, sister, let’s see what you’ve got. He turned to the group. “Let’s go.”
The first patient in Ward One was a teenage girl lying in bed, covered with heavy blankets. She was asleep when the group approached her.
“All right,” Dr. Allison said. “I want you all to take a look at her chart.”
The residents began to study the patient’s chart. Dr. Allison turned to Honey. “This patient has fever, chills, general malaise, and anorexia. She has a temperature, a cough, and pneumonia. What’s your diagnosis, Dr. Taft?”
Honey stood there, frowning, silent.
“Well?”
“Well,” Honey said thoughtfully, “I would say she probably has psittacosis—parrot fever.”
Dr. Allison was looking at her in surprise. “What…what makes you say that?”
“Her symptoms are typical of psittacosis, and I noticed that she works part-time as a clerk in a pet shop. Psittacosis is transmitted by infected parrots.”
Allison nodded slowly. “That’s…that’s very good. Do you know what the treatment is?”
“Yes. Tetracycline for ten days, strict bed rest, and plenty of fluids.”
Dr. Allison turned to the group, “Did you all hear that? Dr. Taft is absolutely right.”
They moved on to the next patient.
Dr. Allison said, “If you’ll examine his chart, you’ll find that he has mesothelial tumors, bloody effusion, and fatigue. What’s the diagnosis?”
One of the residents said, hopefully, “It sounds like some form of pneumonia.”
A second resident spoke up. “It could be cancer.”
Dr. Allison turned to Honey. “What is your diagnosis, doctor?”
Honey looked thoughtful. “Offhand, I’d say it was fibrous pneumoconiosis, a form of asbestos poisoning. His chart shows that he works in a carpet mill.”
Ted Allison could not conceal his admiration. “Excellent! Excellent! Do you happen to know what the therapy is?”
“Unfortunately, no specific therapy is available yet.”
It became even more impressive. In the next two hours, Honey diagnosed a rare case of Reiter’s syndrome, osteitis deformans polycythemia, and malaria.
When the rounds were over, Dr. Allison shook Honey’s hand. “I’m not easily impressed, doctor, but I want to tell you that you have a tremendous future!”
Honey blushed. “Thank you, Dr. Allison.”
“And I intend to tell Ben Wallace so,” he said as he walked away.
Tom Benson, Allison’s senior assistant, looked at Honey and smiled. “I’ll meet you in half an hour, baby.”
Paige tried to stay out of the way of Dr. Arthur Kane—007. But at every opportunity, Kane asked for Paige to assist him with operations. And each time, he would become more offensive.
“What do you mean, you won’t go out with me? You must be getting it from someone else.”
And, “I may be short, honey, but not everywhere. You know what I mean?”
She came to dread the occasions she had to work with him. Time after time, Paige watched Kane perform unnecessary surgery and take out organs that were healthy.
One day, as Paige and Kane were walking toward the operating room, Paige asked, “What are we going to operate on, doctor?”
“His wallet!” He saw the look on Paige’s face. “Just kidding, honey.”
“He should be working in a butcher shop,” Paige later said angrily to Kat. “He has no right to be operating on people.”
After a particularly inept liver operation, Dr. Kane turned to Paige and shook his head. “Too bad. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
It was all Paige could do to contain her anger. She decided to have a talk with Tom Chang.
“Someone should report Dr. Kane,” Paige said. “He’s murdering his patients!”
“Take it easy.”
“I can’t! It’s not right that they let a man like that operate. It’s criminal. He should be brought up before the credentials committee.”