Rebecca Lang - The Perfect Treatment

“‘Awarded to the student who has the highest academic standing in the senior school for the year…”’ Blake’s voice trailed off as he continued to read, then he turned to look at her. “Abigail Gibson…four years in a row. Well, I certainly have no reason to be overbearing with you, do I!”

Abby flushed. “I wish you could forget I said that,” she muttered.

“I shall probably get a little more mileage out of that, just for fun…Abby. With all these awards—” he nodded toward the wooden shield “—I think I might well need it.”

When he smiled, Abby found herself staring at him, their eyes locked together in a mutual regard that held a new tension in it. This was the first time he had given her his undivided attention in a personal way out of a hospital setting. The effect was devastating.

Rebecca Lang trained to be a state registered nurse in Kent, England, where she was born. Her main focus of interest became operating-theater work, and she gained extensive experience in all types of surgery on both sides of the Atlantic. Now living in Toronto, she is married to a Canadian pathologist, and has three children. When not writing, Rebecca enjoys gardening, reading, theater, exploring new places, and anything to do with the study of people.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

ABBY GIBSON, MD, was late for the general medical rounds at University Hospital, Gresham, Ontario. Her hair was still damp from the shower she had taken about twenty minutes earlier in the hospital medical residence; its dark tendrils clung wetly to her neck.

‘Morning, Dr Gibson. You in a hurry as usual?’ One of the other occupants of the crowded elevator, a male physiotherapist whom she knew reasonably well, grinned at her as they were crushed inelegantly together against a wall of the moving compartment. In the hospital this was one of the general meeting places of quick hellos and goodbyes.

‘Oh…hi, there, Ray!’ Abby said breathlessly. ‘Yeah, you could say that!’ While craning to look at her wristwatch, she dropped two heavy textbooks and a sheaf of papers that she was carrying.

‘More haste, less speed!’ Her companion grinned again as he eased himself down towards the floor gallantly to pick up her lost items.

‘Thanks,’ Abby said, taking the books from him. ‘How are you, Ray?’

‘Chugging along,’ he said. ‘Living from week to week, like everybody else.’

Abby sighed, conscious of the general atmosphere of stress that prevailed in the hospital these days like an almost tangible cloud; it was a cloud of uncertainty about jobs and teaching positions in a time of severe budget cuts.

‘Ray, do you know anything about the new head of the department of internal medicine?’ she asked. ‘It’s his rounds I’m going to be late for.’

‘Dr Contini? Mmm, met him a couple of times. Seems like a nice guy. A little young for the job, I would say…if he gets it. You know what this place is like for rumor. Every job has about two hundred applicants. Even at his level, I should imagine.’

‘I do know, Ray. Even so, I don’t want to be too late for this meeting. First impressions are important, aren’t they, if often wrong?’ She ran a hand through her damp hair. ‘Maybe he won’t notice me in the crowd…or my absence.’

‘Any red-blooded male would notice you in a crowd, Abby. Slept in?’

‘Yes. Crazy week. You’re very gallant this morning, Ray.’

‘I’m always gallant.’

Abby smiled warmly, though she was preoccupied with the meeting ahead. It was always more than a little nerve-racking meeting a new senior colleague who was in a position to judge you, give you professional evaluations. ‘Let’s hope the new guy will be, too,’ she said.

She did not want to give Dr Contini a negative first impression of her, if she could help it, as they were probably destined to spend a fair amount of time together professionally.

The old chief of the internal medicine department was away on an extended professional trip, she knew that. This new guy, Dr Blake Contini, who was taking his place during his absence, was slated to become the new head of the department when the chief retired, according to rumor.

‘See you, Abby. This is where I get off.’

‘Bye, Ray.’

The elevator emptied, leaving her the sole occupant.

As she came out moments later at basement level into the corridor that would take her from the east wing to the west wing of the hospital, she put her attachè case and books on the floor and took out her neatly laundered white lab coat to put on over her blouse and skirt.

She strode along the corridor purposefully, trying to look businesslike even though there was no one else there to see her. Down here, the vista was bleak—utilitarian, empty corridors with garish fluorescent lights.

Up ahead, just where the corridor began a slight incline, Abby could see that someone had dumped a bag of laundry, or something, on the floor. That was part of the problem around here, she thought, not enough maintenance staff now to keep the place clean and tidy, so many laid off.

Coming closer, she could see that the ‘bag of laundry’ was a person in a lab coat and white pants, slumped awkwardly against the wall. ‘Oh, hell!’ she said out loud.

It was a man, a middle-aged man with thinning grey hair and a pale, gaunt face—obviously one of the medical staff. Quickly Abby knelt down on one knee beside the recumbent figure, dumping her books and bag in one quick movement. As she heaved the man over onto his back so that she could see his face more clearly, he looked familiar. The lips had a bluish tinge; the eyes were half open, unseeing.

‘Mo!’ Abby said softly, recognising Dr Will Ryles, the chief of Radiology.

Automatically she felt for the carotid artery at the side of the neck and searched for a pulse, holding her own breath as she did so. Yes, there it was—the faint fluttering of a pulse, rapid, irregular.

‘Thank God,’ she said, shifting her position so that she was kneeling beside Will Ryles. ‘Not a cardiac arrest.’

With steady hands she unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie, then listened to his chest with her stethoscope, working quickly. After hastily dragging the necessary equipment from her bag, she took his blood pressure. The systolic blood pressure was only ninety. There was little doubt that he had suffered a myocardial infarct, a heart attack.

Abby looked around frantically. Where were other people when you really needed them? She had to get him to the emergency department at once before he sustained brain damage from low blood pressure—get him on oxygen, have cardiac enzyme tests done and get him on the life-saving, clot-dissolving drugs.

Compassion filled her as she looked down at the man’s face which was now an unhealthy yellowish colour and cyanosed from lack of oxygen. He looked exhausted. No doubt he was, she speculated. Beside him on the floor was a cellular telephone, plus a few other items which had obviously fallen out of his pockets. Maybe he had been trying to call for help.

Quickly Abby punched in the number of the emergency department triage station, not knowing whether the phone would function here in the basement. Thankfully, she heard it ringing. Most of the nurses knew her there—she had been there frequently as a medical student and had been one of the last young doctors to do a general training internship before the system had finally been abolished in favour of a new system of early specialization.