Dead Certain

grabbed the crash cart and was in Mrs. Lapinsky’s room in ten seconds flat. Even so, by the time I arrived, she was unconscious, not breathing, and had no reflexes to speak of.“
    “So what did you do?”
    “I started 100 percent oxygen, gave her two ampules of sodium bicarbonate and five milligrams of intravenous epinephrine, and began mechanical ventilation.”
    “And?”
    “I managed to resuscitate her to the point where she was eventually able to resume breathing on her own.“
    “So is she okay?”
    “Well, there’s okay and there’s okay. It’s too early to tell yet what kind of deficits she might have suffered.“
    “What do you mean by deficits?”
    “Haven’t you heard the joke? ‘Congratulations, doctor, the good news is you saved the patient. The bad news is she’s going to need to be watered twice a day.’ ”
    “I don’t know why they always say that economics is the dismal science when it’s doctors who have such a bleak worldview,” I observed.
    “Do you know the three rules of emergency medicine?” inquired my roommate, proceeding to tick them off on her fingers. “One: all bleeding eventually stops; two: all patients eventually die; and three: if you drop the baby, pick it up.”
    “I rest my case,” I said, pausing to refill our glasses. “I take it you think that what happened to Mrs. Lapinsky is somehow related to what’s been happening on the surgery service?”
    “You mean that our patients are dying for no good reason?” demanded my roommate with a definite edge to her voice. “I guess I’d have to say that what happened to Mrs. Lapinsky definitely fits the trend.”
    “But she didn’t die.”
    “No,” replied Claudia, “but she should have. It was only a fluke that I was still on the floor and therefore able to get to her so fast. I was supposed to be downstairs in the clinic already, but I’d been running behind all day.“
    “It was lucky you were.”
    “I’m not so sure. The whole thing is so bizarre. I mean, finally clearing the surgical waiting list is supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to our patients... not a death sentence.”
    “How many deaths have there been?” I asked softly. “Five, but six respiratory arrests if you count Mrs. Lapinsky.”
    “How many would you expect there to be?”
    “Zero, which is exactly the number the unit had until three weeks ago.”
    “Maybe it’s some kind of virus,” I ventured, “or a faulty piece of equipment. There has to be some kind of common denominator....”
    “There is, but you’re not going to like it.”
    “What?”
    “All the deaths, they’ve all been patients of Gavin McDermott.”
    “You’re kidding,” I said. Gavin McDermott was considered the hospital’s most highly skilled surgeon. He was also a flamboyant character, as famous for riding his Harley to the hospital and his serial trophy wives as he was for his virtuoso performances in the operating room. “How’s he taking all of this?”
    “How do you think?” replied Claudia. “By making the lives of everyone around him completely miserable, starting with mine. You should have heard him this afternoon; you’d think I’d tried to kill Mrs. Lapinsky instead of saving her.” She dropped her head into her hands as if trying to shield herself from the memory.
    “But why are Gavin McDermott’s patients dying? „
    “Nobody knows. Some people are saying that McDermott’s in a slump, that maybe there’s something going on in his life that’s affecting his judgment—you know, marital problems, booze...”
    “Is there?”
    “How would I know? I only see him once a week when he’s on trauma call. But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never seen anything from him in the OR that would indicate that his head is anywhere except where it’s supposed to be. He’s flat-out the best surgeon I’ve ever worked with.”
    “What about his patients at other hospitals? Are they dying, too?”
    “How would I know that? It’s not exactly the sort of thing that anybody’s going to advertise. God knows we’re doing everything we can to keep what’s going on at our hospital a secret.”
    “So what do you think is going on? How do you explain it?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” groaned Claudia, shaking her head in frustration. “But I’m starting to think that either Gavin McDermott or Prescott Memorial is just plain jinxed.”
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    That night after Claudia went to bed, I hauled the box of Prescott