Arthur Hailey: The Final Diagnosis

“I don’t think they’ve started, Dr. Grainger. They just went in the board room.” The girl had indicated the double oak-paneled doorway down the hall, and now, as she approached, Lucy could hear a hum of conversation from inside.

As she entered the big room with its pile carpet, long walnut table, and carved chairs, she found herself close to Kent O’Donnell and another younger man she did not recognize. Around them was a babel of talk and the air was thick with tobacco smoke. The monthly mortality conferences were usually looked on as command performances, and already most of the hospital’s forty-odd staff surgeons had arrived, as well as house staff—interns and residents.

“Lucy!” She smiled a greeting at two of the other surgeons, then turned back as O’Donnell called to her. He was maneuvering the other man with him.

“Lucy, I’d like you to meet Dr. Roger Hilton. He’s just joined the staff. You may recall his name came up some time ago.”

“Yes, I do remember.” She smiled at Hilton, her face crinkling.

“This is Dr. Grainger.” O’Donnell was always punctilious about helping new staff members to become known. He added, “Lucy is one of our orthopedic surgeons.”

She offered Hilton her hand and he took it. He had a firm grasp, a boyish smile. She guessed his age at twenty-seven. “If you’re not tired of hearing it,” she said, “welcome!”

“Matter of fact, I’m rather enjoying it.” He looked as if he were.

“Is this your first hospital appointment?”

Hilton nodded. “Yes. I was a surgical resident at Michael Reese.”

Lucy remembered more clearly now. This was a man whom Kent O’Donnell had been very keen to get to Burlington. And undoubtedly that meant Hilton had good qualifications.

“Come over here a minute, Lucy.” Kent O’Donnell had moved back near her and was beckoning.

Excusing herself to Hilton, she followed the chief of surgery to one of the board-room windows, away from the immediate press of people.

“That’s a little better; at least we can make ourselves heard.” O’Donnell smiled. “How have you been, Lucy? I haven’t seen you, except in line of duty, for quite a while.”

She appeared to consider. “Well, my pulse has been normal; temperature around ninety-eight point eight. Haven’t checked blood pressure recently.”

“Why not let me do it?” O’Donnell said. “Over dinner, for example.”

“Do you think it’s wise? You might drop the sphygmomanometer in the soup.”

“Let’s settle for dinner then and forget the rest.”

“I’d love to, Kent,” Lucy said. “But I’ll have to look at my book first.”

“Do that and I’ll phone you. Let’s try to make it next week.” O’Donnell touched her lightly on the shoulder as he turned away. “I’d better get this show opened.”

Watching him ease his way through other groups toward the center table, Lucy thought, not for the first time, how much she admired Kent O’Donnell, both as a colleague and a man. The invitation to dinner was not a new thing. They had had evenings together before, and for a while she had wondered if perhaps they might be drifting into some kind of tacit relationship. Both were unmarried, and Lucy, at thirty-five, was seven years younger than the chief of surgery. But there had been no hint in O’Donnell’s manner that he regarded her as anything more than a pleasant companion.

Lucy herself had a feeling that, if she allowed it, her admiration for Kent O’Donnell could grow to something more deep and personal. But she had made no attempt to force the pace, feeling it better to let things develop if they happened to, and if not—well, nothing was lost. That at least was one advantage of maturity over the first flush of youth. You learned not to hurry, and you discovered that the rainbow’s end was a good deal further than the next city block.

“Shall we get started, gentlemen?” O’Donnell had reached the head of the table and raised his voice across the heads of the others. He too had savored the brief moment with Lucy and found the thought pleasing that he would be meeting her again shortly. Actually he would have called her a good deal sooner, but there had been a reason for hesitation. The truth was that Kent O’Donnell found himself being drawn more and more toward Lucy Grainger, and he was not at all sure this was a good thing for either of them.

By now he had become fairly set in his own mode of life. Living alone and being independent grew on you after a while, and he doubted sometimes if he could adjust to anything else. He suspected, too, that something of the same thing might apply to Lucy, and there might be problems as well about their parallel careers. Nonetheless, he still felt more comfortable in her presence than that of any other woman he had known in a long time. She had a warmth of spirit—he had once described it to himself as a strong kindness—that was at once soothing and restoring. And he knew there were others, particularly Lucy’s patients, on whom she had the same effect.

It was not as if Lucy were unattractive; she had a mature beauty that was very real. As he watched her now—she had stopped to speak with one of the interns—he saw her raise a hand and push back her hair from the side of her face. She wore it short, in soft waves which framed her face, and it was almost golden. He noticed, though, a few graying strands. Well, that was something medicine seemed to do for everyone. But it reminded him that the years were moving on. Was he wrong in not pursuing this more actively? Had he waited long enough? Well, he would see how their dinner went next week.

The hubbub had not died and, this time more loudly, he repeated his injunction that they start.

Bill Rufus called out, “I don’t think Joe Pearson is here yet.” The gaudy necktie which O’Donnell had observed earlier made Rufus stand out from the others around him.

“Isn’t Joe here?” O’Donnell seemed surprised as he scanned the room.

“Has anyone seen Joe Pearson?” he asked. Some of the others shook their heads.

Momentarily O’Donnell’s face revealed annoyance, then he covered up. He moved toward the door. “Can’t have a mortality conference without a pathologist. I’ll see what’s keeping him.” But as he reached the doorway Pearson walked in.

“We were just going to look for you, Joe.” O’Donnell’s greeting was friendly, and Lucy wondered if she had been wrong about the flash of irritation a moment ago.

“Had an autopsy. Took longer than I figured. Then I stopped for a sandwich.” Pearson’s words came out muffled, principally because he was chewing between sentences. Presumably the sandwich, Lucy thought; then she saw he had the rest of it folded in a napkin among the pile of papers and files he was carrying. She smiled; only Joe Pearson could get away with eating lunch at a mortality conference.

O’Donnell was introducing Pearson to Hilton. As they shook hands Pearson dropped one of his files and a sheaf of papers spilled out on the floor. Grinning, Bill Rufus collected them and replaced the file under Pearson’s arm. Pearson nodded his thanks, then said abruptly to Hilton, “A surgeon?”

“That’s right, sir,” Hilton answered pleasantly. A well-brought-up young man, Lucy thought; he shows deference to his elders.

“So we have another recruit for the mechanics,” Pearson said. As he spoke, loudly and sharply, there was a sudden silence in the room. Ordinarily the remark would have passed as banter, but somehow from Pearson it seemed to have an edge, a touch of contempt.

Hilton was laughing. “I guess you could call it that.” But Lucy could see he had been surprised by Pearson’s tone.

“Take no notice of Joe,” O’Donnell was saying good-naturedly. “He has a ‘thing’ about surgeons. Well, shall we begin?”