“He’s in, but he is very busy.” The secretary was annoyed at the intrusion. “Have you an appointment?”
“No. No, I haven’t, but I only want to ask him a quick question. I’m a medical student rotating here at the Memorial.”
“I’ll check with the doctor.”
The secretary stood up, eyeing Susan from head to foot. Even more irritated at Susan’s lissome figure, she entered the inner office to Susan’s right. Susan looked around the outer office for any signs of the hospital charts she wanted.
Almost immediately, the woman returned, sat down at her desk, put a piece of stationery into the typewriter and typed several lines. Only then did she look up.
“You may go in; he says he has a moment for you.”
The secretary resumed her typing before Susan could respond.
Whispering some choice epithets under her breath, Susan opened the door and entered the inner office.
Reminiscent of Dr. Nelson’s office, McLeary’s office was equally messy, with journals and papers in innumerable haphazard stacks. Several of the stacks had tipped over at some previous time and had never been reerected. Dr. McLeary was a thin, intense-looking man with a deep crease that ran down through the middle of each cheek. His sharply angular nose and chin were separated by a small mouth that twitched as he eyed Susan over his glasses and through his bushy eyebrows.
“Susan Wheeler, I presume,” said Dr. McLeary, with no friendliness in his voice.
“Yes.” Susan was surprised that he knew her name. She could not decide if that were propitious or not.
“And you have come concerning these ten charts I have here.” McLeary half-turned in his chair, waving toward a large group of hospital charts in his bookcase.
“Ten? Is that all you have?”
“Isn’t ten enough?” asked McLeary somewhat sarcastically.
“Fine. I just thought that maybe you’d have more. Are those the charts of the coma victims?”
“Possibly. What do you have in mind if they are?”
“I’m not sure. Dr. Stark told me you had the charts, and I thought I’d come by and ask if I could perhaps look at them or help you extract them.”
“Young lady, I’m a neurologist with considerable training. My expertise is neurology, and I am evaluating the extensive neurological evaluations that were done on these patients by our resident staff. I really don’t need any help.”
“I’m not insinuating that you need help, Dr. McLeary, least of all in a professional capacity. I admit that I know next to nothing about neurology. But these patients all have suffered a tragedy akin to death and there is something very strange about the whole affair. I think these cases have to be viewed in terms of some kind of association rather than as random events.”
“And of course you are going to be the one to do that.”
“Well, somebody has to do it.”
McLeary paused and Susan had the uncomfortable feeling that the conversation was rapidly deteriorating.
“Well, let me tell you this,” continued McLeary with a forceful quality to his voice. “This kind of a problem is far broader than your current capabilities. Not only that, but your efforts so far are already responsible for a disproportionate amount of trouble in this hospital.
Rather than a help you are fast becoming a definite handicap. What I want you to do now is sit down.” McLeary pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“I beg your pardon?” Susan had heard but the tone was confusing.
McLeary wasn’t asking; he was ordering.
“I said, sit down!” The anger in his voice now was unmistakable.
Susan sat down in the only chair without a complement of journal articles.
McLeary picked up the phone and dialed. He looked directly at Susan with unblinking, beady eyes. ‘His mouth twitched as he waited for a connection.
“Director’s office, please. ... I’d like to speak to Philip Oren.”
There was a longer pause. McLeary’s expression did not change.
“Mr. Oren, Dr. McLeary here. You were quite right. She is sitting here in front of me. ... The charts? Of course not, you must be joking ... All right ... fine.”
McLeary hung up the phone, still looking directly at Susan. Susan could not detect even an iota of human warmth. She thought that he deserved the secretary he had. After an awkward silence Susan started to get up.
“I have a feeling that I should not ...”
“Sit down!” shouted McLeary even more loudly than before.
Susan sat down quickly, surprised at the sudden outburst.
“What is going on here? I came in here to see if you could use some help in looking into the coma problem, not to be shouted at.”
“I really have nothing more to say to you, young lady. You have overstepped your boundaries here at the Memorial. I was told that you would probably come snooping for these charts. I was also told you obtained unauthorized information from the computer. And on top of that, you managed to alienate Dr. Harris. Anyway, Mr. Oren will be here in a moment and you can talk with him. This is his problem, not mine.”
“Who is Mr. Oren?”
“The director, of the hospital, my young friend. He is the administrator, and personnel problems are in his bailiwick.”
“I’m not personnel. I’m a medical student.”
“True enough. And that actually puts you on somewhat of a lower plane.
You are a guest here ... a guest of the hospital ... and as such, your conduct should be suitable to the hospitality extended to you. Instead you have chosen to be disruptive and to ignore rules and regulations. You medical students of today somehow have gotten your sense of position in the scheme of things reversed. The hospital does not exist for your benefit. The hospital does not owe you an education.”
“This is a teaching hospital and is associated with the medical school.
Teaching is supposed to be one of the major functions of this hospital.”
“Teaching, of course, but that certainly doesn’t mean just medical students. It means the whole medical community.”
“Exactly. Supposedly it is a symbiotic atmosphere for everyone’s benefit: student and professor alike. The hospital doesn’t exist for the benefit of the medical student nor for the benefit of the professor. In fact, it’s supposed to be primarily for the patient.”
“Well, it is indeed easy to understand Harris’s reaction to you, Miss Wheeler. As he said, you lack respect for people as well as institutions.
But it is a reflection of youth in general today. They believe their very existence alone entitles them to all the luxuries of society, education being one of them.”
“Education is more than a luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself.”
“Society undoubtedly has a responsibility to itself but not to individual students, not to youth just because they are youth. Education is a luxury in that it is expensive beyond belief and the major burden, particularly in medicine, falls on the public at large, the workingman. The students themselves pay a small amount of the money needed. Not only does it cost an enormous amount of money to have you here, Miss Wheeler, but your being here means that you are economically unproductive. Hence the cost to society automatically doubles. And besides, your being a woman means that your future per-hour productivity ...”
“Oh save me,” said Susan sarcastically, standing up. “I’ve heard about as much bullshit as I can stand.”
“Stay put, young lady,” shouted McLeary, furious. He too stood up.
Susan tried to look behind the face of the man trembling with anger in front of her. She thought about
