Free Public Anatomy by Pearson A. Scott

scratch. Let’s focus on this case, shall we?” He glanced at Downing. Then he said, “Please, Dr. French, continue.”
    “I had removed the uterus and was about to start closing. My assistants began removing the instruments from the patient’s abdomen.”
    Liza stopped.
    They waited.
    “All of a sudden, there was blood everywhere.”
    “Blood, everywhere?” Downing repeated. “Can you be a bit more specific, Dr. French?”
    “We had not yet removed the camera from the patient’s abdomen. I saw a flash of blood. Then, the entire screen was red.”
    “Where were you at that moment?”
    “I was in the OR, of course.”
    “What I meant was,” Downing clarified, “where in the operating room?”
    “I was at the robotic console, monitoring the procedure. What are you getting at?”
    “Is monitoring the same thing as supervising?”
    Irritated with his questions,” Liza asked, “What?”
    “Were you in control of the operation, Dr. French?”
    “Yes, I was.”
    Downing hesitated a moment. “What else was going on in the room?”
    “The nurses had begun to count the instruments, usual proceedings for the close of an operation.”
    Until now, the president of the University of the Mid-South had not spoken a word. “Were personnel from SurgCast still present?”
    Liza immediately knew the focus of his concern. A hospital-related death was one thing. A worldwide Internet preview of the death, boasting the university’s seal, was leagues above the concern of one individual or one family.
    “Yes, sir,” Liza answered, “they were filming the procedure.”
    President Daffner closed his eyes, pressed his fingers together so tightly beneath his chin that the skin turned white.
    Downing struck again. “Why did you not supervise removing the trocars?”
    “That is a routine part of the procedure. I allow the surgical resident to remove the instruments.”
    “Doesn’t sound routine to me, Dr. French. Isn’t this when the patient died?”
    Liza had already answered this question before. Or thought she had.
    “Describe to us how this could happen, please.”
    “I don’t really know.”
    “You don’t know? You’re the attending surgeon. Your patient dies on the table, and you don’t know what happened?”
    Liza was hesitant to speculate. After the death, she had drilled Thomas Greenway, her chief resident, with these same questions. Cate, the medical student, was still too traumatized to give any detail.
    “The autopsy should define the injury,” Liza added.
    Largo leaned forward. “Humor us, Liza. What do you
think
happened?”
    “One of the trocars must have injured an artery. It hardly seems possible because the trocars were being withdrawn, not plunged deeper into the abdomen.”
    “What were you doing at the exact time the instruments were removed?” Largo asked.
    Since Downing had already posed that same question, he gave Largo a what-the-hell kind of look.
    But Liza gave a very different answer to Largo.
    “I was answering an e-mail question from a prospective patient.”
    Largo leaned forward, looked as though he might throw up. “An e-mail?”
    “Yes.” By the looks on their faces, the men did not know that e-mailed questions were allowed during operations webcast by SurgCast. “We had time for one more question. I was answering it when the problem occurred.”
    Downing dropped his pen on the legal pad. “We might as well write the check. Pay them whatever they ask for.”
    They wanted him to explain.
    He did.
    “We can’t defend this. Our surgeon is playing talk-show host while a trainee finishes the operation? And I mean finishes it.”
    He glanced at Largo, then the president. “Hope you have millions in malpractice reserve. That’s what it’s going to take.”
    Liza wasn’t ready to concede. “I believe the surgical instrument contributed to the death.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “This had to be a malfunction of the robotic equipment.”
    “Dr. French, I reviewed your statements