Catch Me If You Can Page 0,33

into the white garment. "When Colter said he'd assign you to this shift, I thought he was kidding. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

She flashed an impish look. "He didn't assign me," she said. "I asked the head nurse to put me on this shift for the duration-your duration."

I promptly donned the earpieces of the stethoscope and reached inside her blouse to apply the disk to her left breast. "I always knew your heart was in the right place, Nurse Strong," I said. "What's the first order of business tonight?"

"Not that," she said, pulling my hand away. "I suggest you make a floor check before you start thinking about a bed check."

The pediatrics ward took in the entire sixth floor of the hospital. It included the nursery, with about a dozen newborn babies, and three wings for children convalescing from illness, injury or surgery, or children admitted for diagnosis or treatment. There were about twenty children, ranging in age from two to twelve, in my charge. Fortunately, they weren't technically under my care, since each was in the care of his or her own pediatrician who prescribed all treatment and medication.

Mine was strictly a supervisor's or observer's role, although I was expected to be the medical doctor available for any emergencies. I hoped there wouldn't be any emergencies, but I had a plan for such a contingency. I spent the first night cultivating the interns, who were actually the guardians of the patients. All of them wanted to be pediatricians, and the sixth floor was an excellent proving ground. They seemed to me, after several hours of watching them, to be as competent and capable as some of the staff doctors, but I wasn't really in a position to pass judgment. It would have been akin to an illiterate certifying Einstein's theory of relativity.

But I sensed before morning that the interns, to a man, liked me as a supervisor and weren't likely to cause a flap.

The first shift was lazy, pleasant and uneventful until about 7 a.m., when the nurse in charge of the sixth-floor station contacted me. "Doctor, don't forget before you go off duty that you need to write charts for me," she said.

"Uh, yeah, okay, get them ready for me," I said. I went up to the station and looked over the stack of charts she had ready for me. There was one for each patient, noting medication given, times, the names of the nurses and interns involved and instructions from the attending physician. "That's your space," said the nurse, pointing to a blank area on the chart opposite the heading supervising

RESIDENT'S COMMENTS.

I noticed the other doctors involved had written in Latin. Or Greek. Or maybe it was just their normal handwriting. I sure couldn't read it.

I sure as hell didn't want anyone reading what I wrote, either. So I scribbled some hieroglyphics all over each chart and signed my name in the same indecipherable manner in each instance.

"There you go, Miss Murphy," I said, handing back the charts. "You'll note I gave you an A."

She laughed. I got a lot of laughs during the following shifts with my wisecracking manner, seeming irreverence for serious subjects and zany actions. For example, an obstetrician came in early one morning with one of his patients, a woman in the last throes of labor. "You want to scrub up and look in on this? I think it's going to be triplets," he asked.

"No, but I'll see you have plenty of boiling water and lots of clean rags," I quipped. Even he thought it was hilarious.

But I knew I was treading on thin ice, and about 2:30 a.m. at the end of my first week, the ice started cracking. "Dr. Williams! To Emergency, please. Dr. Williams! To Emergency, please."

I had so far avoided the emergency ward, and it was my understanding with Colter that I wouldn't have to handle emergency cases. There was supposed to be a staff doctor manning the emergency ward. I presumed there was. I hate the sight of blood. I can't stand the sight of blood. Even a little blood makes me ill. I once passed near the emergency ward and saw them bringing in an accident victim. He was all bloody and moaning, and I hurried to the nearest toilet and vomited.

Now here I was being summoned to the emergency room. I knew I couldn't say I hadn't heard the announcement-two nurses were talking to me when the loudspeaker blared the message-but I dawdled as much as