On Ethan’s fifth day in the hospital, Jeffrey filed the formal complaint with the state medical board. The complaint laid out the timeline, the inadequate assessment, the absence of appropriate diagnostic testing, the preventable delay, the rupture, the peritonitis, the extended hospitalization, and the emerging pattern of similar conduct. He also filed a notice of intent to sue both Dr. Leonard Vance and Mercy General Hospital for medical negligence. The response from the hospital was immediate and completely predictable. Their legal team called Jeffrey within hours with the tone of people trying to put out a fire before it reached the cameras.
“They want a settlement meeting,” Jeffrey told me. “Fast.”
“For how much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand, contingent on a nondisclosure agreement and withdrawal of the board complaint.”
I looked across Ethan’s room at my son sleeping under hospital blankets with a drain line emerging from his abdomen because a doctor had chosen stereotype over medicine. “No.”
“Garrison, that’s a substantial settlement. It covers all expenses and then some.”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“I know you don’t. Ethan might.”
“He doesn’t know they offered yet.”