Michael Palmer - Flashback

"He what?"

"Effective immediately."

"He can't do that."

"Can and did. He even was kind enough to present me with a set of the corporate laws to prove he can."

He held up the book for her to see. Only then did he realize how totally drained she looked. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes reddened with strain and fatigue. "This is crazy, " she said. "What reason did he give?"

"Actually, according to page seven here, he doesn't need a reason. But just to be fair, he provided a couple, being drunk while on call technically, I was, you see-being a disruptive influence. Hell, I can't even remember everything he said. Listen, you look really wasted. Why don't you find an empty bed and crash for an hour or two? I'll watch Toby. Frank won't even know I'm in the hospital. And even if he finds out, he won't do anything about it. Owen's too panicked about being left alone to allow that. We'll talk later, after we get the child to Boston."

"No, Zack. I'm fine. Really." she said. "But Zack, we can't let him do this,"

"You don't understand. This isn't a hospital the way we were trained to know one. It's a merchandise mart that hires doctors and nurses and technicians. And Frank is the president to that company-at least here in Sterling he is. He hires, and he can fire. Except with someone like Guy Beaulieu. In Guy's case, Frank didn't want the hassle Beaulieu was threatening him with, so be just took the route of destroying the man by rumor and innuendo. He admitted being responsible for all of that." 66 TO you?"

"He had already fired me. What did he have to be afraid of? He was actually boasting when he told me."

Suzanne sank onto the sofa. "Oh, Zack, " was all she could manage.

"Listen, Suze, this is my problem, and I'll work it out."

"No, " she said suddenly' whatt' "No, it,s not your problem-at least not yours alone. It's all of ours. The medical staff, I mean. We're going to fight this."

"Suzanne, I don't want anyone else getting hurt because-"

"No,)isten to me. For years now, at least as long as I've been here, the doctors in this hospital have been acting like… like ostriches.

This isn't the first time there's been a problem between Frank or Don Norman and staff doctors, Zack. It isn't the first time one of us has clashed with the system here and then suddenly found himself out. Don't you remember what Wil Marshfield said that first night? And I've been as much of an ostrich as anyone-so grateful for getting out of the trouble I was in that I've turned my back on any number of company decisions that might not have been in the best interests of our patients. I didn't feel committed enough to any one issue to make waves. But dammit, I feel committed now."

"Suzanne, I don't want you-"

"Please. You had the guts to come back and face the music. And now, dammit, I'm going to see to it that the medical staff gets behind you.

It's time we stood up for this community-time that we stood up for our own… She rose and took his hands. "Zack, hang in here. Please. Do it for all of us. If I can just get us to present a unified front, I'm sure the medical staff can stand up to the coq@oration. And if we can't get Ultramed to listen, then… then we'll just take our case to the community."

"You think you could pull that off? " he asked. "I'm tougher than I look." He touched her cheek. "That's not saying much, you know."

"Well, you just watch. Can you stand the heat? "

"Suzanne, I don't want to leave here. I don't want to leave you."

"Okay, then. It's decided. As soon as I finish with my office appointments, I'm going to start twisting some arms."

"It's not going to be easy."

She kissed him lightly. "It's not going to be as hard as you think.

Listen, I ought to get back in there. What are you going to do right now?"

"I think I'm going to try and get in to see my father.

He refused to see me earlier, but I think it's worth one more try.

I was planning on putting in an appearance at that board meeting later today, but Frank has promised to have the hospital security people ready for me if I do."

"Damn him. Zack, I think your brother and I are about due for a little meeting of the minds."

"You would do that?"

"Would and will. I have too many friends around here, and make too much money for this place for him not to listen to me. You must be strong..

.. God, Zachary, it feels so good to realize that all of a sudden I'm not afraid anymore."

"You were afraid of the corporation?"

"No, " she said, kissing him once again. "Of you."

Brief operative note (full note dictated),… Four-inch gash over T-10, 11, and 12 debrided… hemostasis attained… wound explored…

Jagged five centimeter by three centimeter piece of rusty metal removed without difficulty… dura appears intact… No collection of blood noted… Wound irrigated copiously, and then closed with drain in place … Patient sent to recovery room in stable condition, still unable to move either lower extremity… Tetanus and antibiotic prophylaxis initiated… Preoperative impression, foreign body, low midback, postoperative impression, same, plus paraplegia-etiology uncertain, possibly secondary to spinal cord disruption or circulatory embarrassment… Seated to one side of the nurses' station, Zack read and reread the account of his father's surgery, and confirmed through John Burris's terse progress note and two much more detailed nurse's notes, that there had been little change in the Judge's condition since his surgery. Dura intact… No collection of blood… Zack chewed on the nub of his pen as he stared out the window at the Presidential Range. Something was off. The Judge's symptoms seemed out of proportion to the extent of his injury-way out of proportion. The pieces of this clinical puzzle simply weren't locking together. Sheering forces snapping fibers in the cord, arterial spasm with enough interruption of blood supply to cause nerve damage-there were a number of logical explanations for the Judge's paraplegia, but none of them sat just right. At one end of the Formica counter, a small plastic tray was piled high with pens and pencils, as well as a stethoscope and several other pieces of medical equipment. Zack slipped an opbthalmoseope, reflex hammer, and straight pin into his pocket and headed for his father's room. It wasn't that he was questioning Burris's findings and opinion, he rationalized, it was just that… that a physician was taught never to completely trust anyone's findings or conclusions other than his own, Now, if he could only get the Judge to allow him close enough to do an exam… Cinnie Iverson was seated on a low, hard-backed chair id the hallway outside of her husband's room. She was, as always, dressed immaculately-this day in a plain blue dress, with a white cardigan draped over her shoulders. Lipstick and an ample amount of rouge failed to completely obscure her pallor. Her ever-present lace handleerchief was balled in one fist. "Hello, Mom, " Zack said as he approached, She stood, and allowed him to kiss her on the cheek. Her expression was cool, but not angry, which was to say, as disapproving as Zack had ever known it to be. "How's he doing? " he asked. "The nurse is giving him a bed bath."

"Any change?"

Cinnie Iverson bit at her lower lip and shook her head. "Mom, I… I'm sorry this has happened. You can't know how terrible I feel."

"I'm sure you do, " she said quietly. "We all do. She hesitated, then went on. "Zachary, I'm quite sure that in time I'll see things more charitably, but right now, with the Judge lying in there like that, you'll have to forgive me if-"

"I understand," he said. "All I want you to know is the same thing I came up here to tell him, and that is that I was only trying to do what I thought was right."

"I believe that. I don't think he'll speak with you, though, " she added. "He's very upset-at everybody. And he's very depressed."