Next Noah turned specifically to the Brazos University Department of Anesthesiology, learning that it had recruited professors from a good number of the topflight medical centers around the country. The chief of Anesthesia had been brought in from Johns Hopkins, one of the USA’s top academic medical centers, which impressed Noah considerably. He ascertained that all aspects of anesthesia were quickly integrated into the residency program, including sophisticated cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, and transplantation medicine. He also learned that twenty residents were admitted each year, and all residents were required to have performed at least twenty thousand cases during their training.
Noah rocked back from leaning over his laptop. As he stretched, he stared up at the ceiling. He no longer had any doubt that Ava had trained at a fully accredited institution with probably more than adequate supervision, especially considering that the Brazos University Medical Center handled more than twenty thousand major surgeries per year, which was about the same as the BMH. Brazos University might not be Ivy League, but from Noah’s perspective, he thought it sounded perfectly adequate.
Noah wasn’t completely satisfied, however, thinking it wasn’t enough to learn she had been in an okay program. He craved more personal information, like exactly how many cases she had handled personally, what was the breakdown of the types of anesthesia, and if there had been any problems. After all, wanting to find out her residency case load had been his misguided motivation for going on her computer. Of course, he did recognize that her being hired by the BMH suggested she had done extraordinarily well, and Dr. Kumar had bragged that she had passed her anesthesia boards with flying colors. Yet Noah found himself motivated to find out more for three reasons. First, he was bored silly from being locked out of the hospital; second, he was infatuated with her and maybe even in love and eager to find out anything he could; and third, he was lonely, frustrated, and, most important, seriously pissed off at her for the way she was treating him despite his effusive and sincere apologies and his willingness to throw pride to the wind by ringing her doorbell. Whether she had anything to do with the thesis issue he tried not to even think about.
Rocking forward again, Noah suddenly had in mind to check what kind of firewall Brazos University had, if they had one, and if they did, whether it had ever been upgraded. It had been Noah’s experience that young, rapidly growing institutions like Brazos U often lagged in cyber-security, often relegating it to a low level of priority with a constant demand for funds elsewhere. Although Noah guessed that the hospital most likely had up-to-date digital security to satisfy HIPAA regulations, he thought the rest of the institution might be a relative pushover.
With his natural computer aptitude, Noah had engaged in some innocent hacking in his teenage years, purely for fun. Now he had the opportunity to apply these skills. What he was hoping to find were details of Ava’s medical school and residency records, which he imagined were going to be stellar. Having just finished the resident evaluations for the BMH crew, he knew what kind of information was potentially available.
Going back to the websites of Brazos University School of Medicine and the Department of Anesthesia, he had it in mind to request application forms be emailed to him from both. Once that was done he planned to use the email headers to see if he could get into their systems. But as he waited for the first website to come up on his screen, alarm bells went off in his brain, reminding him that what he was about to attempt was illegal and certainly not ethical. If there was good security, there was a slight chance he could be discovered. With his upcoming Surgical Residency Advisory Board meeting, being caught committing a cyber-felony was hardly advisable. In fact, it was downright stupid.
Suddenly, Noah had an idea. He knew he could not risk hacking into the Brazos University computer system, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t possibly get the same information in another, legal fashion. Noah had never thought of hiring a private detective. He’d never even met one and only knew of their existence from watching crime movies, where they seemed to play an oversized role. But here was a situation where a local private investigator would probably be able to get a significant amount of information and do it entirely aboveboard. The idea was, under the circumstances, decidedly appealing on a multitude of levels.
Having no idea what to expect, Noah googled Private Investigators in Lubbock, Texas. An instant later he was astounded at the selection of both PI firms and PI individuals. He looked at a few websites of the firms and decided they were too imposing and probably not sufficiently private for his comfort zone. If Noah was going to employ someone, which he hadn’t completely decided, he wanted just an individual, not an entire organization, and one who worked out of the home and didn’t even have a secretary. Although Noah knew what he was proposing was legal, he didn’t want it to get back to Ava. As mad as she had been about his talking with Dr. Kumar, he certainly didn’t want her finding out he’d hired a private investigator to look into her training. Yet he was progressively warming to the idea. He didn’t see any other way to get answers without putting himself in jeopardy.
After looking over the websites of a dozen individuals, Noah found one that seemed promising. Her name was Roberta Hinkle. Part of her attraction was that she advertised she had gone to Brazos University where she had obtained a degree in Criminal Justice. Another plus was that she listed “background check” as one of her specialties, which was essentially what Noah wanted. He also appreciated that she listed her hourly rate, whereas most of the other people did not. Although Noah initially thought $60 per hour was high, it was less than most of the other sites that did list their fee. Impulsively, he decided to find out more.
Roberta Hinkle’s website invited either phone or email contact for more information. Since it was after 11:00, Noah opted to use email. To make it easy there was an online form to be filled out with his name, email address, and the kind of investigation desired. Along with his name he included his title of M.D. In the investigation section to make it sound like a group effort, he wrote: “We are interested in a strictly confidential, full background check on an anesthesiologist on our staff by the name of Dr. Ava London. We need to know more details of her professional training and her earlier schooling. All information made available will be appreciated including psychosocial factors. Dr. London grew up in Lubbock, attended Brazos University School of Medicine and trained at the Brazos University Hospital but now works in Boston, Massachusetts.”