Sidney Sheldon - Nothing lasts forever

“Well, I have a treat for you. Have you heard of Dr. Barker?”

Paige looked at him in surprise. “Dr. Lawrence Barker?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

Everyone had heard of Lawrence Barker. He was one of the most famous cardiovascular surgeons in the world.

“Well, he returned last week from Saudi Arabia, where he operated on the king. Dr. Barker's an old friend of mine, and he's agreed to give us three days a Week here. Pro bono.”

“That's fantastic!” Paige exclaimed.

“I'm putting you on his team.”

For a moment, Paige was speechless. “I …I don't know what to say. I'm very grateful.”

“It's a wonderful opportunity for you. You can learn a lot from him.”

“I'm sure I can. Thank you, George. I really appreciate this.”

“You'll start your rounds with him tomorrow morning at six o'clock.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

“Looking forward to it” was an understatement. It had been Paige's dream to work with someone like Dr. Lawrence Barker. What do I mean, “someone like Dr. Lawrence Barker”? There's only one Dr. Lawrence Barker.

She had never seen a photograph of him, but she could visualize what he looked like. He would be tall and handsome, with silver-gray hair, and slender, sensitive hands. A warm and gentle man. We'll be working closely together, Paige thought, and I'm going to make myself absolutely indispensable. I wonder if he's married?

That night, Paige had an erotic dream about Dr. Barker. They were performing an operation in the nude. In the middle of it, Dr. Barker said, “I want you.” A nurse moved the patient off the operating table and Dr. Barker picked Paige up and put her on the table, and made love to her.

When Paige woke up, she was falling off the bed.

At six o'clock the following morning, Paige was nervously waiting in the second-floor corridor with Joel Philips, the senior resident, and five other residents, when a short, sour-faced man stormed toward them. He leaned forward as he walked, as though battling a stiff wind.

He approached the group. “What the hell are you all standing around for? Let's go!”

It took Paige a moment to regain her composure. She hurried along to catch up with the rest of the group. As they moved along the corridor, Dr. Barker snapped, “You'll have between thirty and thirty-five patients to care for every day. I'll expect you to make detailed notes on each one of them. Clear?”

There were murmurs of “Yes, sir.”

They had reached the first ward. Dr. Barker walked over to the bed of a patient, a man in his forties. Barker's gruff and forbidding manner went through an instant change. He touched the patient gently on the shoulder and smiled. “Good morning. I'm Dr. Barker.”

“Good morning, doctor.”

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“My chest hurts.”

Dr. Barker studied the chart at the foot of the bed, then turned to Dr. Philips. “What do his X-rays show?”

“No change. He's healing nicely.”

“Let's do another CBC.”

Dr. Philips made a note.

Dr. Barker patted the young man on the arm and smiled. “It's looking good. We'll have you out of here in a week.” He turned to the residents and snapped, “Move it! We have a lot of patients to see.”

My God! Paige thought. Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

The next patient was an obese woman who had had apacemakerputin. Dr. Barker studied her chart. “Good morning, Mrs. Shelby.” His voice was soothing. “I'm Dr. Barker.”

“How long are you going to keep me in this place?”

“Well, you're so charming, I'd like to keep you here forever, but I have a wife.”

Mrs. Shelby giggled. “She's a lucky woman.”

Barker was examining her chart again. “I'd say you're just about ready to go home.”

“Wonderful.”

“I'll stop by to see you this afternoon.”

Lawrence Barker turned to the residents. “Move on.”

They obediently trailed behind the doctor to a semi-private room where a young Guatemalan boy lay in bed, surrounded by his anxious family.

“Good morning,” Dr. Barker said warmly. He scanned the patient's chart. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“I am feeling good, doctor.”

Dr. Barker turned to Philips. “Any change in the electrolytes?”

“No, doctor.”

“That's good news.” He patted the boy's arm. “You hang in there, Juan.”

The mother asked anxiously, “Is my son going to be all right?”

Dr. Barker smiled. “We're going to do everything we can for him.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

Dr. Barker stepped out into the corridor, the others trailing behind him. He stopped. “The patient has myocardiopathy, irregular fever tremors, headaches, and localized edema. Can any of you geniuses tell me what the most common cause of it is?”

There was a silence. Paige said hesitantly, “I believe it's congenital … hereditary.”

Dr. Barker looked at her and nodded encouragingly.

Pleased, Paige went on. “It skips … wait …”

She was struggling to remember. “It skips a generation and is passed along by the genes of the mother.” She stopped, flushed, proud of herself.

Dr. Barker stared at her a moment. “Horseshit! It's Chagas' disease. It affects people from Latin American countries.” He looked at Paige with disgust. “Jesus! Who told you you were a doctor?”

Paige's face was flaming red.

The rest of the rounds was a blur to her. They saw twenty-four patients and it seemed to Paige that Dr. Barker spent the morning trying to humiliate her. She was always the one Barker addressed his questions to, testing, probing. When she was right, he never complimented her. When she was wrong, he yelled at her. At one point, when Paige made a mistake, Barker roared, “I wouldn't let you operate on my dog!”

When the rounds were finally over, Dr. Philips, the senior resident, said, “We'll start rounds again at two o'clock. Get your scut books, make notes on each patient, and don't leave anything out.”

He looked at Paige pityingly, started to say something, then turned away to join Dr. Barker. Paige thought, I never want to see that bastard again.

The following night, Paige was on call. She ran from one crisis to the next, frantically trying to stem the tide of disasters that flooded the emergency rooms.

At 1:00 A.M., she finally fell asleep. She did not hear the sound of a siren screaming out its warning as an ambulance roared to a stop in front of the emergency entrance of the hospital. Two paramedics swung open the ambulance door, transferred the unconscious patient from his stretcher to a gurney, and ran it through the entrance doors of ER One.

The staff had been alerted by radiophone. A nurse ran alongside the patient, while a second nurse waited at the top of the ramp. Sixty seconds later, the patient was transferred from the gurney to the examination table.

He was a young man, and he was covered with so much blood that it was difficult to tell what he looked like.

A nurse went to work, cutting his torn clothes off with large shears.

“It looks like everything's broken.”

“He's bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“I'm not getting a pulse.”

“Who's on call?”

“Dr. Taylor.”

“Get her. If she hurries, he may still be alive.”

Paige was awakened by the ringing of the telephone.

“H'lo …”

“We have an emergency in ER One, doctor. I don't think he's going to make it.”

Paige sat up on the cot. “Right. I'm coming.”

She looked at her wristwatch. 1:30 A.M. She stumbled out of bed and made her way to the elevator.

A minute later, she was walking into ER One. In the middle of the room, on the examining table, was the blood-covered patient.