Catch Me If You Can Page 0,35

I was a darling kook and appreciated the fact that I never tried to corner them in an unoccupied room. The interns were proud to be on my shift. We'd developed a real camaraderie, and the young doctors respected me. They thought I was wacky, but competent. "You don't treat us like the other staff doctors, Dr. Williams," Carter confided. "When they walk in while we're treating a patient, they say 'Move aside/ and just take over. You don't. You let us go ahead and handle the case. You let us be real doctors."

I sure as hell did. I didn't know a damned thing about medicine. Those young doctors didn't know it until years later, but they were the sole reason I was able to keep up my medical masquerade. When things got tough-at least tough for me, and a headache was too stout for my medical knowledge- I'd leave it to the interns and flee to my linen closet on the seventh floor.

Fortunately, during my tenure at Smithers, I was never faced with a life-or-death situation, but there were ticklish positions where only my antic's mien saved me. Early one morning, for instance, an obstetrics team nurse sought me out. "Dr. Williams, we just delivered a baby, and Dr. Martin was called across the hall to do a Caesarian section while we were still tying the cord. He asks if you'd be kind enough to make a routine examination of the child."

I couldn't very well refuse. I was chatting with two nurses on my shift at the time the request was made. "I'll help you, Dr. Williams," volunteered the one, Jana Stern, a dedicated RN who was attending medical school herself and hoped to be a pediatrician specializing in newborns.

She led the way to the nursery and I reluctantly followed. I had sometimes paused outside the plate-glass window of the nursery to look at the tiny, wrinkled newborns in their incubators or box-like bassinets, but I'd never gone inside. They reminded me of so many mewling kittens, and I've always been slightly leery of cats, even little ones.

I started to shove open the door of the nursery and Nurse Stern grabbed my arm. "Doctor!" she gasped.

"Whaf s wrong?" I asked, looking around desperately for one of my trusty interns.

"You can't go in like that!" she scolded me. "You have to scrub up and put on a smock and mask. You know that!" She handed me a green jacket and a sterile mask.

I grimaced. "Help me on with these damned things," I growled. "Why do we need a mask? I'm only gonna look at the kid, not stick him up." I realized why I needed a mask. I was trying to cover. And I did. She clucked. "Honest, Doctor, you're too much at times," she said in exasperated tones.

It was a baby boy, still glistening redly from his rough passage through the narrow channel of life. He regarded me with a lugubrious expression. "Okay, kid, take a deep breath and milk it back," I commanded in mock military tone, starting to apply my stethoscope to the baby's chest.

Nurse Stern grabbed my arm again, laughing. "Doctor! You can't use that stethoscope on a newborn! You use a pediatrics stethoscope." She busted out and returned with a smaller version of the one I held. I hadn't known they came in sizes. "Will you quit fooling around, please? We've got a lot of work to do."

I stepped back and waved at the baby. "Tell you what, Dr. Stern. You examine the boy. I'd like to check your style."

She rose to the bait. "Well, I can do it," she said, as if I'd insulted her, but still visibly pleased. She applied the stethoscope, then draped it around her neck and proceeded to manipulate the baby's arms, legs and hips, peered into his eyes, ears, mouth and anus and ran her hands over his head and body. She stepped back and stared at me challengingly. "Well?"

I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, Doctor, you've saved my only son," I said with mock tearfulness.

The baby had lost his doleful look. No one is really certain if newborn infants have thoughts or are aware of what is going on around them. No one but me, that is. That kid knew I was a phony. I could see it in his face.

I examined several newborns after that. I never knew what I was doing, of course, but, thanks to Nurse Stern, I knew how