What Happened to those Characters? The Hippocratic Oath (Colin Murphy)…
[This is the sixth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”. Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later. This one is about Colin Murphy from The Midas Bomb, the first book in “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.” A new addition to that series, The Collector, will be released soon. For now, enjoy the present stories…and this short story!]
The Hippocratic Oath
Steven M. Moore
Copyright, 2014
The nurse poured some coffee and watched the ER doctor. He was scribbling on a paper napkin with one of the cheap pens the hospital provided.
“You still trying to be a poet, honey?”
Colin Murphy glanced at the ER nurse and smiled. “You think I’m wasting my time?”
Beatrice Jones thought a moment. “I’m thinking you’re probably a better ER doctor than poet, no offense intended.”
“No offense taken, but you only see me in the one activity. How do you know I can’t write poetry? I’ve won some contests.”
“Do tell? And how drunk were you, old Irishman?”
“I’m going easy on the liquor. It won’t bring Chen back.”
“Who’s Chen?”
“A cop I know from a few years ago. Dao-Ming Chen. We’re still friends.”
“And you thought it was more than that?”
“Maybe she did too. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”
“Tell me about it.”
Murphy knew Jones was in the process of divorcing husband number three. She was forceful and had a strong personality, but he thought she deserved better luck with men.
The red light in the break room started to oscillate.
“Duty calls,” said Beatrice.
Murphy stuffed the napkin into a pants pocket and followed her out.
***
The patient was an older man. The EMTs had resuscitated him twice with the paddles already. Beatrice hooked him up to the monitors. Murphy didn’t like the EKG.
“Call cardiology. This guy’s going into cardiac arrest again!”
They applied the paddles one more time before Andy Gianopoulos, the heart surgeon on call, appeared.
“I’m guessing a bypass is required,” said Murphy.
“No guessing about it,” said Gianopoulos, reading the record and the instruments. “I need an OR,” he said to a nurse. “Right now!”
The old man seemed spry for three a.m. Murphy wondered what he’d be like when he was fifty.
“Where are you going?” Murphy said to Beatrice.
“Accident victims coming in,” she said, tapping her earpiece. “Duty calls.”
“Shit,” said Andy. “Help me get this man into the elevator. The ORs are going to fill up. We need to beat them to the punch. Probably only a bunch of drunk kids anyway.”
The smile didn’t seem to mitigate Andy’s put down of the Hippocratic Oath in Murphy’s mind. Does it matter whether they are drunk?
He did the heavy hauling. They were soon guiding the gurney into an OR.
“Scrub down,” said Andy. “I’m going to need some help.”
“I should call and make sure they don’t need help in the ER,” said Murphy.
“Don’t dawdle. Nurse! Get us an anesthesiologist. Pronto!”
The ER was in good hands, so Murphy joined Gianopoulos in the scrubdown routine.
“First heart surgery?”
“No, but I’m not doing any cutting, right?” said Murphy.
“Clamping and manipulating, that’s all. I’d prefer to do an angioplasty first, but this old man’s probably been living the good life too long.”
“Do you know him?”
“Ha, you live in New York City and don’t know the mobster, Julio Grasso? He’s probably killed more men than you’ll ever save in that stinking ER. Women too, I’ll bet.” Gianopoulos studied the younger man’s face. “I know what you’re thinking: why bother? Yeah, it’s tempting, but we take a Hippocratic Oath, right? This surgery will really stretch it, but there it is. Ready?”
Murphy nodded.
***
The chief OR nurse had put on Andy’s favorite music. Murphy recognized the classic rock of the group Queen. He didn’t mind. He was focused on the job at hand.
About halfway into the surgery, Gianopoulos stopped. His hand was trembling.
“Holy shit!” he said, clutching his chest. He sunk to his knees and then went face down.
“Get a replacement from cardiology and a nurse from ER,” Murphy said to the anesthesiologist.
She shook her head. “Not possible. He was the only one on call present in the hospital. No one will get here in time to finish. You’re going to have to substitute.”
Murphy frowned. Again, why bother? The gangster would die. Bad things happen in the OR.
“I’m not a heart surgeon, for Christ’s sake!”
“I’ll back you up,” she said. “I can clamp and do other things while doing the usual monitoring. We have to try to save this bastard.”
“You know who he is?”
“So what? We treat them all the same here.”
Murphy looked up at the ceiling. What would his murdered sister Maura tell him to do? What would Chen expect? Chen, of all people, might want him to let the mobster die. No, she wouldn’t. She wasn’t like that. Neither was his sister.
He knew he had the theoretical background. He was going to specialize in cardiology before he decided for the ER and had scrubbed into many operations. Theory and practice are two different things, though. All he could do was try.
He had already started and doing well when two ER nurses came for Gianopoulos. Good luck, Andy. You sure left me knee deep in shit.
“I suppose that this old man will sue me if he survives,” said Murphy. “Things are looking good. You can unclamp now.”
“Looks good to me,” said the anesthesiologist, “but what do I know? Dr. Franz is next door. He can help sew him back up. We’ll need staples.”
Murphy nodded. A nurse wiped his brow for the last time. He was tired.
***
The next afternoon Murphy visited two patients. Gianopoulous was on blood thinner and scheduled for an angioplasty.
“Sorry about that,” he said, flashing a gold-toothed smile. “You always tell patients to eat right and get good exercise. I guess I should practice what I preach.”
“Maybe you need to return to a Mediterranean diet,” said Murphy. “How do you feel?”
“Not bad, considering. Looks like I can avoid surgery via the angioplasty. Old age sucks. I knew something wasn’t right when that hand started to tremble. I have the steadiest hands in the OR.”
“You’ll be back there before you know it,” said Murphy. Or maybe not. But his friend and mentor could have a long career away from the OR as an ordinary cardiologist looking after sick patients.
The next visit was with Julio Grasso. The old man reached out to shake Murphy’s hand.
“I heard it was a little busy last night,” said Grasso. “Thanks for saving me. My family thanks you too.”
“Your immediate family or extended family?” said Murphy.
“Both, but not other families,” said Grasso with a wink. “I guess you’ve brushed up on my sordid past. At least, some people think it’s sordid. My nieces and nephews just think of me as Zio Julio.”
“Do you have children?”
“A boy. He’s a bit of a problem. Teenagers, you know. Thinks he should be able to drive the Ferrari at fourteen. As if anyone wants to drive in Manhattan.”
Murphy smiled. In spite of his biases, he was liking the old man. He checked the readouts.
“I’m turning you over to one of our cardiologists as soon as I can,” said Murphy. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. You’re a survivor.”
“In the ambulance, I was thinking of that Dylan Thomas poem. I wasn’t going down without a fight.”
“’Rage, rage, at the dying of the light.’ It saved my ass once too.”
“You’ll have to tell me that story sometime,” said Grasso, “over a good single malt.”
“If it’s Irish whiskey, I’m game. See you around, Mr. Grasso.”
“Ciao,” said the mobster.
