“I find this all very troubling indeed,” Dr. Kumar snapped. “These are all very vague and, as you say, subjective observations. Our department and I have looked into these three cases with close attention to detail and found nothing wrong. If anything, Dr. London handled them very appropriately, if not superbly. Consequently, I can’t help but take your comments as a value judgment of my leadership skills and my competence as an administrator, since I was personally responsible for hiring Dr. London.”
Noah was flabbergasted. Instead of being thankful of his efforts, Dr. Kumar was taking his visit as a personal affront.
“There is only one question about Dr. London’s résumé,” Dr. Kumar said angrily, “and that is that she trained at a new, relatively unknown institution. But because of that, I and the faculty hiring committee went over her application with great care. And something else you might not know: Dr. London scored remarkably well on her anesthesia boards, both written and oral. I spoke to several of the examiners directly. She’s also passed muster with the Massachusetts Board of Medicine.”
“I certainly knew she had passed her anesthesia boards,” Noah said. “And I had heard she had done exceptionally. I am not surprised. She knows the science remarkably well.”
“We wouldn’t have hired her otherwise,” Dr. Kumar said with obvious annoyance. “And let me say this: If you continue to defame Dr. London by talking with others about these unsubstantiated and, frankly, vague impressions, you could be putting yourself and the hospital in a difficult legal situation. Am I making myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear,” Noah said. He stood up. It was painfully obvious that coming to Dr. Kumar had been a big mistake.
“Dr. Mason told me that it was his impression that you and Dr. London were having an affair,” Dr. Kumar added. “Is that now on the rocks, and are you coming to me out of spurned lover’s spite? Honestly, that’s what it sounds like.”
Noah stared at the Anesthesia chief with total disbelief. It was such an outrageous idea that Noah suddenly questioned if Dr. Kumar himself was a spurned lover of Ava’s. And what about Dr. Mason? Could his anger be from spite based on more than just having his advances rebuffed? From the little Noah had told Leslie about Ava, she had classified Ava as a manipulative person with a possible personality disorder. Could Leslie be right? Yet the moment the shocking idea of Ava’s possible promiscuousness occurred to him, Noah immediately dismissed it out of hand, sensing his paranoia was running away with itself. Dr. Kumar was not behaving like a spurned lover in the slightest. He wasn’t putting Ava down but rather the absolute opposite. He was truly convinced of Ava’s competence, as well as his own leadership abilities for having hired her. And it was his leadership that Noah was challenging by voicing his misgivings.
“My only motivation is my ethical duty,” Noah said. The last thing he wanted to do was get into any kind of discussion about his relationship with Ava. “Thank you for your time.”
Noah started to leave, but Dr. Kumar stopped him. “One last piece of advice: In the future, if you have any concerns about people in my department, I advise you to go through channels. You should speak with your chief, Dr. Hernandez, and not to me. Am I making myself clear?”
“You are,” Noah said. “Thank you for seeing me.” He turned and left. As he headed back to the elevators, he mocked himself for previously thinking that he was making progress in the diplomatic arena. It seemed that handling staff egos at the BMH was certainly not his forte. In retrospect, there was no doubt in his mind that it had been a remarkably poor decision to seek out the Anesthesia chief. Worriedly, he wondered if Dr. Kumar would mention their tête-à-tête to Dr. Hernandez. Unfortunately, he thought the chances were better than good.
27
MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2:38 P.M.
Mondays were always difficult for Noah, even though he’d spent the entire weekend at the hospital, searching for things to do to avoid obsessing over Ava’s continued silence. Although he was completely caught up on all his responsibilities, the Monday surgical schedule was particularly heavy as every attending wanted OR time and pressured Noah to provide it. Everyone felt it was far better to get their cases done earlier in the week, the better so that by the end of the week patients could be sent home, which was more pleasant for patients and surgeons alike. To add to his burden, Noah had three of his own cases. Luckily, those had gone well, so he now had time to finish one of the projects he’d started over the weekend.
Changing out of his scrubs, Noah headed to the surgical residency program office. The administration area was in full swing, especially around the hospital president’s massive corner office. As Noah passed the anesthesia office he cringed, thinking of the unpleasant meeting he’d had with Dr. Kumar Friday afternoon. So far there had been no fallout, but Noah was quite certain it would happen, maybe even later that day.
Noah’s goal was to pick up some files from Shirley Berenson, the surgical residency program coordinator, who managed the complicated resident evaluation process upon which the program’s accreditation depended. Every month each resident was evaluated as to his or her progress in a wide variety of arenas, such as surgical skills, patient care, medical knowledge, attendance, timeliness, and a host of other subjective attributes such as professionalism and communication skills. As super chief, it was Noah’s responsibility to get the completed forms from all chief residents evaluating the residents under their tutelage for the month. Noah had done this on Saturday. On Sunday, he had used this material to help him fill out his own evaluations of all fifty-six residents, including all the chief residents, and put all the paperwork in Shirley’s inbox. Since it was Noah’s first attempt at this process, it had taken him longer than he’d expected. And he wasn’t finished.
Shirley had told him that she would collate all the material, fill out the required regulatory forms, make four separate copies of the complete report, and have them all done by noon. At that point it was Noah’s job as super chief to deliver a copy to Drs. Hernandez, Cantor, Mason, and Hiroshi. Why it had to be the super chief to act as delivery boy, Noah didn’t know, but he assumed it was a holdover from days past, when a certain amount of hazing was part of surgical training. The next year, by tradition, Noah was to become a member of the BMH staff, and accordingly he had to be appropriately humbled before he joined the august community.