by Barbara Ebel
“I’m glad she didn’t. I’m going to remember Gloria Pratt every time I spot a bottle of hand-sanitizer.”
Annabel laughed. “Me too.”
“You said a few minutes ago that I ‘did it.’ No, Annabel, it was you who ‘did it.’ Thanks to your situational awareness, you helped bring this case to a head.”
Annabel blushed like a gorgeous man had flirted with her. “Thanks, Dustin. I’ll take that as a complement. By the way, what happened with Ben Rogers?”
“Probation and a fine. Our chief pretty much predicted his punishment. Hey, perhaps you can put your goofy social life to the side, and try another diner dinner with me one of these days. I think I owe you.”
“That would be nice.”
“Talk to you later, then.”
“Bye, Officer Lowe.”
-----
Her own nerves didn’t go to sleep with the rest of her body last night, Annabel thought as she took the steps up to the medical ward on Monday morning. There was so much to think about, her nervous system worked overtime. What would it take to clear her brain and only focus on her test? She opened the stairway door and wondered. Some day she should take a meditation retreat to the red rocks of Sedona and learn how to zone out unwanted mental clutter.
As she draped her jacket on a chair in the office, Donn walked in.
“I still have to check on my patients,” Annabel said, “but I have more to tell you since yesterday’s rounds.”
“Tell me. Skip seeing them now and we’ll consider it a joint effort on rounds. Plus, we must find out what’s going on around here. A nurse just told me the police were on this floor yesterday afternoon.”
Bob and the two residents walked in, and Donn let them get situated.
“Yesterday,” Annabel said, “I mentioned that Gloria Pratt was maybe involved with her mother’s death. Well, she was, and the police were here yesterday to take her away. She could have killed May Oliver the way she killed off Bob and Dr. Watts’ patient, Mr. Hogan.”
Donn and Bob stared at Annabel like she’d walked off an alien space craft.
“Dr. Tilson,” Donn said, “why am I confident that you had something to do with figuring this out?”
Annabel shrugged. “I happened to be at the right places at the right times.”
“You spent time going in and out of Darlene Pratt’s room. What was the daughter telling you?”
“By her actions, she obviously took illegal liberties, but she did believe that a patient’s wish about ending care at the end of life should be respected … that we have an obligation to treat patients with compassion and practice medicine with respect for human dignity, their rights, and their desire to die. She believed in physically helping them along with their death if they are terminally ill or if they are mentally incompetent and in a hopeless situation.”
Dr. Schott postponed rounds for an hour. He escorted the team to the cafeteria, bought them all fresh coffee, and listened attentively while Annabel explained the details.
-----
Armed with Annabel’s information, the team began rounds and started with May Oliver first. Dr. Schott wanted Annabel to do most of the talking. The cachectic woman walked alongside them into her room after strolling the hallway one time. She perched herself on the windowsill and Annabel opened the curtains for her.
“I heard rumors around here,” May said, “about what happened yesterday. But one of those policemen told me that you would explain to me what was really going on.”
“Yes, I know Officer Lowe. They have arrested that woman who dispensed medicines. She was not performing her duties in an ethical manner. Please don’t worry because she’s no longer here.”
“That’s too bad she wasn’t performing her job like she should because she was sympathetic to my medical condition. I liked talking to her.”
“May, we’ll stand by your decision to go through more treatments or not. Please, however, never give up on hope. You didn’t give up hope when you served in Afghanistan, did you?”
“No,” she mumbled. “Hope … I can hold on to that with or without medical care.”
“Exactly. Are you willing to go for your radiation treatment this morning?”
“Yes, just this one.”
“Fair enough. Let’s have a heart to heart talk after we judge whether or not the chemo and the radiation is doing you any good or if it’s a waste of time when you could be doing something more meaningful.”
“Okay, Dr. Tilson.” She glanced out the window at the patients down below either coming or going. Either completing their hospitalizations or coming in for admission. She took a big breath, coughed, and leaned towards Annabel’s ear so no one else could hear.
“A heart to heart is a fine description. We’re two women on different sides of a medical conundrum who share similar personal situations. Misty and Dakota, lung cancer and a history of malignant melanoma, and I’m sure there’s something in your dating history similar to my boyfriend taking the easy way out rather than deal with a sick girlfriend.”
Annabel giggled. “I have so many stories about men, they could fill up a comedian’s stand-up routine or be fodder for that women’s dating magazine, whatever it’s called.”
May squeezed Annabel’s hand. Lightly, the only way she could.
As the team went on to their next patient, Donn said, “Dr. Tilson, your rapport with May Oliver is amazing.”
“Thank you.”
“I second that,” Bob said when she fell back and again walked alongside him. “I felt like we were witnessing ideal empathy between a patient and a doctor.”
“Bob, you’re too kind.”
-----
Tuesday morning, the halfway mark of their internal medicine rotation, Annabel, Bob, Jordan, and Stuart took a seat in a classroom along with twelve other students on the mandatory rotation at the same time as them. When the two hands on the circular clock rested on eleven, an attending doctor handed out the paperwork and made himself scarce out the door. A department secretary took the wooden chair at the front desk, opened up a paperback, and gave her audience a cursory glance whenever she remembered.
Annabel penciled in her personal information and read the first question.
“What is PEEP?”
She selected “C.” “The pressure in the lungs above atmospheric pressure that exists at the end of expiration.”
With the second question, she allowed herself to relax. Both the questions she had learned the answers to not so much as from a book, but by learning on the wards.
“What amount of PEEP is most often used in mechanically ventilated patients to mitigate end-expiratory alveolar collapse?”
The selection of answers were:
A. 2 cm H20 B. 4 to 5 cm H2O C. 10 cm H20 D. 25 cm H20
Annabel picked B. She recalled the discussion of the best PEEP to use while she managed her ICU patient with the tricyclic antidepressant overdose. He was the first patient she ever intubated by herself. She smiled to herself and looked up. Bob and Stuart both sat in front of her and Jordan sat across the aisle next to her. She sensed Jordan’s arms were not on the desk and she glanced to the side for a moment.
She stifled a gasp. Jordan glanced down in his lap at a pocket-size student handbook. Cheater, she thought, and couldn’t believe it. She had no knowledge of any med student who cheated … until now.
With five minutes left to go, Annabel answered the last question, which asked for the minimum number of measurements to make for a diagnosis of hypertension. Easy enough: two, Annabel answered. She handed her test in at the front of the room and waited for Bob on a bench downstairs.
Her heart warmed when Bob walked jovially across the ground floor lobby of the downtown department’s office and signaled for her to keep seated. With the test looming over them the last few days, he’d neglected a haircut and his blonde tapered sides were a bit longer than usual. It didn’t matter. He was handsome regardless and, as he smiled at her, she banked on his sense of hu
mor to shine, even after taking a test responsible for a big chunk of their grade.
He turned over her warm hand on her lap and dropped in chocolate blueberries.
“Thanks.” She flashed a smile and popped one in her mouth.
“So how did the medical-student cop do on her exam?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not as well as you. But as I told May Oliver, never give up hope. Maybe we scored as well as Stuart. That would be something.”
“Yes, it would. There are a few things I hope for, so I’ll remember your advice.”
Annabel wondered what he meant but dismissed it as they parted. Relaxed, she drove to the hospital ready to tackle the second half of her internal medicine rotation. Their team was on call for the night.
-End-
FROM THE AUTHOR
If you’d like a release alert for when Barbara Ebel has new books available, sign up here. This is intended only to let you know about new releases as soon as they are out.
Barbara Ebel is a physician and an author. Since she practiced anesthesia, she brings credibility to the medical background of her plots. She lives with her husband and pets in a wildlife corridor in Tennessee but has lived up and down the East Coast.
Visit or contact her at her website: http://barbaraebel.weebly.com
The following books are also written by Dr. Barbara and are available as paperbacks and eBooks:
The Dr. Annabel Tilson Series: (Individual books; books 1-3 also available as a box set).
DEAD STILL: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 1)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2ai7H1T
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2a37GL3
DEADLY DELUSIONS: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 2)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2gE7R3D
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2gXlsGb
DESPERATE TO DIE: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 3)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2ta1GeH
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2tyZEHV
DEATH GRIP: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 4)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2mDfoUu
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2EQqFIz
DOWNRIGHT DEAD: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 5)
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2MkSixv
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2n9ZgKG
DANGEROUS DOCTOR: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Book 6)
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2SFrURS
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2s6PknW
The Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Box Set: Books 1-3
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2MZgJ3q
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2m0zlV4
Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/2zl8sVD
The Dr. Annabel Tilson Novels Box Set: Books 4-6
The Dr. Danny Tilson Series: Available as individual books as well as a Box Set:
The Dr. Danny Tilson Novels Box Set: Books 1-4 (The Dr. Danny Tilson Series)
Find it on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2nDTy3J
Find it on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2DYNwW9
Find it on Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/2nyPLFA
Operation Neurosurgeon: You never know… who’s in the OR (A Dr. Danny Tilson Novel: Book 1).
Buy now on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1fYfPh7
Buy now on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/k4xol9
Silent Fear: a Medical Mystery (A Dr. Danny Tilson Novel: Book 2). Also an Audiobook.
Buy now on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1fTlicS
Buy now on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1lA2DSE
Collateral Circulation: a Medical Mystery (A Dr. Danny Tilson Novel: Book 3). Also an Audiobook.
Buy now on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1BrINiE
Buy now on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1CNTgta
Secondary Impact (A Dr. Danny Tilson Novel: Book 4).
Buy now on Amazon US: amzn.to/1N7iyI2
Buy now on Amazon UK: amzn.to/1P1AnKL
Other Books:
Outcome, A Novel
Buy now on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2mMzZrF
Buy now on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2mw0Wj0
Younger Next Decade: After Fifty, the Transitional Decade, and What You Need to Know
(nonfiction health book).
Buy now on Amazon US: http://amzn.to/sjJeEL
Buy now on Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/19W3D2s
Also written and illustrated by Barbara Ebel: A children’s book series about her loveable therapy dog; illustrated with real pictures:
Chester the Chesapeake Book One
Chester the Chesapeake Book Two: Summertime
Chester the Chesapeake Book Three: Wintertime
Chester the Chesapeake Book Four: My Brother Buck
Chester the Chesapeake Book Five: The Three Dogs of Christmas
