Kate Wilhelm - Clear And Convincing Proof

Erica sat in the clinic kitchen with Stephanie one afternoon sipping coffee while Stephanie kept an eye on her prep cooks and the two volunteers.

“So what’s with this Dr. McIvey?” Erica asked. “Every time his name comes up it’s as if a cold front has passed through.”

“That’s good,” Stephanie said. “That’s what it feels like, all right. I’ll give you a couple of examples why he’s loved by all. A few years ago, five or six maybe, this kid comes in with McIvey’s referral for hydrotherapy. She was on the basketball team at the U of O and began having terrible leg pains. Diagnosis—stress fractures, shin splints. Hydrotherapy ordered. And if that didn’t work, McIvey was going to operate on her back, a disk problem or something. Anyway, that isn’t how it works here. Darren and Greg examine every new patient, take a history, do a complete workup, and if they decide therapy is needed, they decide what kind, schedule it, everything. If they decide they can’t help a prospective patient, they say so. Darren said no for that girl. Her mother protested, and he advised her to get a second opinion. Well, McIvey hit the ceiling. He said Greg was a medical hack who couldn’t make it in private practice, a know-nothing who should be turned out to pasture, God alone knows what all. And he called Darren a voodoo doctor, a shaman, an ignorant, superstitious laying-on-of-hands fraud who should practice in a tent at revivals or something.”

Her face was flushed at the memory, and her eyes were flashing with anger. “The mother took her kid up to Portland, to the Health and Science University Hospital, and got another opinion. It turned out the girl had a tumor that was causing pressure on her spine. A doc up there operated, and a few months later she was playing basketball again. McIvey knew it was Darren’s call. He’s the one who knows what will or won’t work. Greg backs him up every time, but it’s Darren’s call.”

“Wow,” Erica said. “McIvey made a bad diagnosis and got mad because they knew it? I thought people got second opinions pretty often.”

Stephanie nodded. “I guess he didn’t make the original diagnosis. First the coach said shin splints and sidelined the kid. A GP said shin splints and got some X rays and tests to confirm it. McIvey just went along with the diagnosis, didn’t bother to order more tests or look further. Darren said she’d had shin splints, but being out of action for six weeks or longer had let them heal. They weren’t causing pain anymore. And neither was a disk problem. No physical therapy would help her. Most doctors welcome a second opinion, but God doesn’t. And McIvey thinks he’s God.”

“You said a couple of examples. What else?”

“It isn’t quite as dramatic, I guess, but telling. After that, a few months maybe, McIvey came over one day and wanted to go through the personnel records. Naomi said no. She called Greg and he said no and called Dr. Kelso. Dr. Kelso came right over and told McIvey that the records were not open to the public, that only the directors had the right to examine them. McIvey said the only records he wanted were Darren’s, that he didn’t believe he was qualified to treat patients, and he wanted to check his background, his training and references, before he referred another patient to the clinic. Dr. Kelso made him stay out in the waiting room while he and Naomi collected some of the file and took it to him. McIvey said he wanted the whole file and Dr. Kelso said he had given him all he was entitled to see. Of course, Darren’s education, training, all of it is impeccable. He’s recognized as the best physical therapist in the Northwest, maybe on the whole West Coast. They say he has magic in his hands. They can tell him more than a dozen X rays. Anyway, McIvey was furious. See, he was out to get Darren. Still is, I suspect. The day he gets control here, Greg, Naomi and Darren will all be out before the sun goes down.”

Erica finished her coffee, then said, “But he still sends patients here, doesn’t he?”

“Sure. He knows this is the best facility for hundreds of miles, maybe all the way to Los Angeles.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Erica said. “Why would he try to drive out the best therapist and get control? Be second-rate or something.”

“That’s the stickler,” Stephanie said, nodding. “No one here understands it. But that’s how she blows. I’ve got to get back to work.”

It was a glorious late summer, Erica thought when she left Stephanie to walk for a few minutes in the garden. Dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, chrysanthemums…too many flowers to name were riotous, defying the calendar. Back in Cleveland there would have been a frost by then, but here in Eugene, it was a golden time of color everywhere. Working in her own yard one day, she had asked Darren when to expect the first frost. He had laughed and said Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or maybe not at all this year. Of course, she had thought he was kidding, but it was the end of September and flowers were still in bloom.

She had made friends with Darren’s son, Todd, who had been shy and silent at first, but she had known hundreds of boys his age over the years and had known not to push. Still more child than adolescent, with sun-bleached hair and high color on his cheeks, he had the grace and directness of a child, but responded like a serious young adult to a serious adult who treated him with respect. She was very respectful with him.

When he offered to show her his collection, she had rejoiced. His collection had turned out to be an assortment of posters. He had painted his room forest green with cream trim, and on the walls he had mounted his posters: lava fields, high mountain lakes, totem poles. She had been puzzled until he said, “We collect things, Dad and me. This year it was totem poles. I take pictures and we get them made into posters. Last year it was volcanoes. I think we’ll do trees next summer. You know, the biggest, the oldest, like that. I’m supposed to do the research.”

She had decided his Christmas present from her would be a bonsai tree.

Walking in the garden that golden afternoon, she thought briefly about Dr. McIvey, but decided he could not cast a very long shadow. He would be crazy to get rid of his best therapist and the two people who made the clinic work. He was too busy with his own practice to meddle. Then it was time to go to the upper lounge and read to her patients. She smiled as she realized what her phrasing had been: her patients.

“Bernie, what’s going on around here?” Erica and Bernie were having coffee in the staff lounge. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing. Greg looks ill and Naomi is snapping like a turtle. What’s up?”

“I wish to God I knew,” Bernie said after a brief hesitation. She helped herself to leftover Halloween candy. “Something is. All at once Annie’s a shareholder and Dr. McIvey is spending time going through the personnel files while Naomi stews and paces. Teri—you know Teri Crusak in the office?—she said that McIvey demanded the keys to the locked files, all the personnel records, and Naomi said to give them to him.”

“I didn’t even know there were locked files,” Erica said.

“Yeah, there are. Confidential stuff about the staff. Not me. I’ve got no secrets. But others.” She shook her head. “Anyway, whatever’s in there, he’s got now.” She lowered her voice. “Stephanie said she wishes he’d eat something here. She’d season it with arsenic.”

Erica remembered something else Stephanie had said, that McIvey was out to get Darren, that he had tried to get his personnel records a few years back and had not been allowed access. Now he had them, or could easily get them.

Keeping her voice as low as Bernie’s, she said, “Stephanie thinks he’s targeted Darren. Do you?”