Free Death Rounds by Peter Clement Page B

please?” Had she survived the night was my real question.
    “One moment, I’ll give you the doctor who just saw her.”
    I braced myself. Normally a nurse would simply give me the report. Passing me on usually meant bad news.
    “Dr. Rossit here,” snapped the unpleasant voice.
    Shit!
    “Uh, it’s Dr. Garnet, Dr. Rossit. I just wanted to have the nurse give me a report—”
    “She’s as good as dead. Garnet. Calling in and wringing your hands over a near corpse isn’t going to make you any less negligent. And it sure isn’t going to make any difference when this case is reviewed. I promise you I’ll take care of that personally!”
    He was practically screaming, his voice crackling through the receiver and sounding ten times as venomous as what I’d endured yesterday. I could even hear him breathing hard over the noise of the rain. Christ! Susanne and Michael had been perfectly right. No matter how bad his reputation was, this was definitely over the top. Nailing me to the wall must be pretty lusty stuff for the little prick. A nasty afterthought flashed through my mind. Maybe his loathsome practice of hunting doctors who’d screwed up was the man’s substitute for sex—the result of small equipment.
    “Rossit, either keep this professional or get off the line and put somebody on who can!” I ordered. I knew that he’d had his own problems with the ethics committee as a result of other witch hunts he’d launched and been reprimanded several times for unprofessional conduct. However he planned to get me, I could at least make sure he was going to have to do it by the book.
    I listened as his breathing slowed down. “Now, Rossit!” I insisted. The light changed. I had trouble concentrating as I picked my way through the traffic. There was still no reply. I was about to hang up in disgust when I finally heard him say, “What do you want to know?”
    I want to know how she is, you asshole, I nearly screamed, but instead I replied coldly, “How are her vitals?”
    “Not much change. Her systolic’s floating around ninety, the central pressure’s still down, and despite the ventilator, she’s increasingly hypoxic with respiratory acidosis. Did I mention her bicarb’s falling by the hour? You can guess the rest—low white count; rising BUN, creatinine, and liver enzymes; decreasing urinary output—like I said, she’s kaput.”
    My anger at his callous description was quickly replaced by a sense of hopelessness. Rossit had described the laboratory findings of unchecked septic shock and circulatory failure. Her immunity was being wiped out, her respiratory function was deteriorating, and she was sliding into complete renal shutdown. I knew it was unlikely she’d ever regain consciousness. “What about a trial of rifampin?” I asked, knowing it would probably be a futile measure. Rifampin was an antibiotic initially used decades ago against TB. Some recent articles had suggested it was effective in nonresponsive cases of Legionella.
    The unguarded suggestion absolutely ended our truce. “Christ! You hand out drugs like candy!” he exploded.
    “What!” I exclaimed.
    “It’s hot dogs like you who are mostly responsible for drug-resistant infections in the first place!” he screamed. “From the beginning of this case you’ve shown a clear tendency to overuse antibiotics, and I intend to order a full chart review of your prescribing competency. Such abuse is the main cause of virulent new strains—”
    I hung up on him.
    * * * *
    I arrived back at St. Paul’s at 8:15. Casualties from a five-car pileup on the expressway inundated ER.
    “We need you in resus!” Susanne said, rushing by me with bags of blood under her arm.
    “Dr. Garnet,” called the clerk from the nursing station, waving a phone at me. “Dr. Carrington wants to know if you need him down here.”
    “Yes!” yelled Susanne, answering for me over her shoulder.
    I was pulling off my wet coat and running to catch up with her.