“This is not disagreement. This is negligence. Your own chart documents signs of systemic illness, and you did nothing with them.”
He opened his mouth again, but I was already taking out my phone. “I am calling Dr. Andrea Whitmore, chief of emergency medicine. I am requesting an immediate surgical consult for my son. And after that, I am filing a formal complaint with the state medical board about your negligent care.”
When I turned away from him, I heard him say my name, but I did not stop. Back in Ethan’s curtained bay, he was trying to sit upright and failing, his face pinched with pain. “Dad,” he said, “it’s worse.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. We’re getting you help right now.”
Andrea Whitmore answered on the third ring with the sharp alertness of someone who had spent decades being woken by emergencies. She and I knew each other professionally from conferences, joint committee work, and the small fraternity of physicians who still believed hospital administration should fear poor medicine more than bad press.