Who's Killing the Doctors? II: Sequel

By Alex Swift

Who's Killing the Doctors? II

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Nov 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781922355355

Book preview

LIST OF PRIOR BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

(All published with various pen names. It does not include his scientific articles in the 1980s & 90s, Or his dozen industrial patents)

Non-Fiction:

Predicting Relationships and Marriages That Won’t Work. Vantage Press, New York, 2001

The Less Cuddly Side of Kids (An Unorthodox Compendium of Pediatrics). Vantage Press, New York, 2003

A Neurologist in Search of a Brain(Bilingual). Vantage Press, New York, 2002

Death in the Afternoon and… at Any Time (Bilingual). Vantage Press, New York, 2002

Suppressed Evidence. Friesen Press. Victoria. Canada, 2015

Frankly – The Outrageous Paintings & Controversial Family Trees of Dr. Frank Lee. Tablo Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, 2019

Fiction:

Idoya (or The Basques in the XXI Century). Publish America, Baltimore, 2008

Begoña (or The Basques in the XXI Century - 2). Publish America, Baltimore, 2009

Who’s Killing The Doctors? (I) Tablo Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, 2019

Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!

That Youth’s sweet-scented Manuscript should close!

The Nightingale that in the Branches sang

Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?

(LXXII, the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám)

To my dear wife Kristine lost this past Spring of 2019, 

still sorely missed.

To my children, Gretel, Benjamin and Sidra, 

all loved but living too far.

THANK YOUS

To the Monreal family’s DNA, provided -unknowingly- with some great traits, lucky and successful; others fair and not so great; with the drive to work hard, to study, write, paint, create and to be different, rebellious, event to get hurt at the end…

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

(Characters)

The characters playing in this Sequel to FRANKLY, The Outrageous Paintings & Family Trees of Dr. Frank Lee,are essentially the same -judges and doctors- as those entered in The Prequel to the same book (also titled Who’s Killing the Doctors (I)

An important key addition here is Dr. Frank Martin our real hero in the Sequel. His wife Isabelalso plays a noticeable role. Other than for a changed name, Dr. Martin’s story, in the first half (Parts A & B) is real.

INTRODUCTION

I assume that the readers, you, have already finished my earlier novel "Who’s Killing The Doctors?, (a Prequel to my non fiction "FRANKLY"), or that, at least, you are familiar with its core. The theme remains the same -doctors under siege, doctors and judges against the establishment- and the characters are also largely the same, now with the new figure, crucial, of Dr. Frank Martin. The story, while fictionalized into a novel towards the end, continues largely based on similar, very real events, true history.

Dr. Martin, as Dr. Nora Phillips, is too a child neurologist -as this ghost writer- all three nearly clones of each other. The author will walk you again as in the prequel, through some of Dr. Martin’s unusual, challenging, even amazing neurological cases and how he was pursued by ‘The Establishment’ (OPC) that got him to the top of the heep… only to make him enemies and then to crash, to be killed!…

The family of the St. Dennis -also stung by The Health System, as they appeared in the Prequel- will also get involved soon and play a major role in the fight, spearheading a valiant fictionalized counterattack, a true revolution, to free doctors fallen - and about to be killed- held in bondage by The System, The Wolves. You will see how -at much personal risk, under the radar and quite dangerous- they embark into physical action with a bang, then with imaginative, forceful -yet benign- physical ways to force the system to change itself into a truly fair and kind Health System.

A

Dr. Martin’s Rise but Dangerous Exposure

Becoming An Unwanted Suspect

(Chapters 1 through 22)

CHAPTER 1

A Public, Contentious Case Of Presumed Sexual Assault

There was hardly anything else on TV then, at least hardly anything else worth watching, while Frank Martin and his wife Isabel had supper together that Sunday – unless you liked NFL games, TV shows or Netflix instead of politics-tied-to-sex.  The US Senate, at the recommendation of its Judiciary Committee, had just appointed Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court as its 9th Justice.  The strong objections by Democrats based largely on accusations of a sexual assault of 36 years earlier (while in high school) by a now psychologist Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, came just short of derailing the President’s pick:   ONE vote was all it took in the US Senate, 51 over 49.

There was no way to be truly neutral -impartial?- in the matter, as there is no way for a crowd to be neutral in a contested call by the referee of a football or soccer game;  it all depends on which team you are a fun of, not on the facts.  There is no true evidence, no impartial evidence.  It all depends, in contested cases -in sports OR morality- on where you stand.  In the case of Kavanaugh-Ford case it was the same.  Believing, accepting one or the other was simply partisan.  And the Republicans had the needed numbers, even if barely, and it was all in the numbers, regardless of fame, position, the President’s tilt, the FBI – OR the truth.  But of course we know that in contested Media disputes there is no absolute truth.  Only partisan truth.  

Numbers, we hear, don’t count in sports, just the referee.  Even if later he gets hell… or if a later review costs him his job.  Numbers do count in politics… and in courts with jurors – not in ‘only one judge’ courts!

Isabel, in matters of the impropriety of unwanted sexual behavior between the sexes, I guess physical assault counts always as wrong, everywhere, even in marriage.  Outside marriage, especially in the work place, more subtle things also count as a no-no, like words, gestures, various degrees of touching, whenever unwanted by one party. Of course sexual and flirting matters between the sexes that lead to any employment position/advancement repercussions, positive or negative, all fall in the same category.  Agree?

Yes, Frank.  Why do you ask?

Because I am leading to more subtle things that I have not mentioned like intended portrayed attractiveness, clothing (type of-, length of-, see-through, revealing) and obvious or camouflaged upper or lower ‘flashing’ – not just clear ‘mooning,’ but also thigh/crotch exposure by posture… and also cleavage (when upright or if shown or exaggerated by bending).  Do you agree, Isabel?

That is all very complicated, Frank.  For instance, proper or improper clothing for each situation is very difficult to judge.  Some is addressed in the work place by ‘dress codes’ that specify length (of skirt) and amount of skin exposure -mostly affecting women- that has now been extended at some work places -and in schools- even to the nature of the fabric, not just see-through;  to ban for instance ‘flesh conforming fabrics’ like lycra.  Men have told us that obvious sexual attractiveness by a woman -especially clear cleavage- is not just inviting, but distracting to males, at least in the work place, even if not in a beach or pool side.  I think you guys are right.

"What I am aiming at with this conversation is something about that which did not come up -at least not shown- in the TV aired hearings of Ford/Kavanaugh.  She described his being then -in the so called ‘assault’- in a room with one other boy besides Kavanaugh, his being on top of her -on a bed or cot- and his covering her mouth with his hand so she could not scream, before she wiggled herself out, free and away.  She called that ‘sexual assault,’ but I did not hear his undoing his or her clothes or sneaking his hand to reach for this or that part of her anatomy, which most of us would have indeed accepted as actual intended assault.  Yet none of that was reported by either party -that was aired-.  Was that, if THAT was what happened, true assault?  Couldn’t the boy (drunk?) and his friend have just been horsing around without intending intercourse/rape?  And we were not told about the atmosphere -their attire, their demeanor- before such ‘event’…"

I agree, Frank.  It was, if it happened, just her own ‘perception’ of assault that then she hid for 36 years.  An accusation of that nature against a person not running for public office these days would not be considered ‘sexual assault.’  But I guess, regardless of any political motivations to derail the Kavanaugh nomination, THAT was enough to call it ‘assault’ and inadmissible to become a Supreme Court in the eyes of Democrats – and largely of those in the ‘Me Too’ movement…  But again it would not stand TODAY, against most guys, in most courts, as true ‘assault’

And do you think, Isabel, that at some point in the future, that not just borderline or suspicious ‘horsing around’ but even excessive female exposure -like clear/excessive cleavage at work or in a close social encounter as King Louis XIV’s courtiers did- might be considered actual ‘sexual assault’ just by showing themselves?

"That’s a tough one, Frank.  Perhaps as extenuating factor if it happens just prior to an actual physical assault or rape.  ‘Me Too’ ladies defend ’I can show you what I want and you may get all excited;  but you can’t touch or grab if I don’t want you to.  It will be sexual assault!’  It probably doesn’t sound fair to most men.  Yet I doubt just ‘exposure’ (of one’s cleavage, thighs, or one’s crotch while seated) will ever be considered ‘assault’ like men’s ‘flashing’ or ‘mooning’ (or words!).  Right now, obvious mooning -of one’s rear or front end- in public, gets a guy fired from work, but not if a woman shows just cleavage…  But who knows how the future will see it;   perhaps… if more such cases -even of just ‘horsing-around-later-claimed-unwanted’ and accusations (like Dr. Ford’s)- come to the forefront and get public attention by the Media."

As for me, went on her husband, "Isabel, I have already installed in my office, out in the open for everyone to see, a continuous video recording of all my face-to-face encounters with patients.  I did have a couple of silly reports against me of sexual nature, both of comp cases, infuriated by my report to the insurance company.  Both were dismissed as just likely fabrications.  After the second, I installed the camera.  I have one disc per office day.  I keep all in our basement…  Both patients had seemed, at least initially, quite pleased with me.  Now I can’t trust anybody!…  And I’ll probably stop seeing Comp cases soon… 

……..

The phone rang in Dr. Martin’s home that Sunday as the couple were busy discussing the Ford-Kavanaugh affair, so juicy for the Media when it was news.  It was a call from his friend in the Irwing Hospital ER, Dr. Bob Stein:

Hi Frank!  Sorry for bothering you at this late hour.  I have a young kid here, Eddy Floss, who seems OK now but had a Grand Mal seizure today at home, his first one ever, after a day at the Valley Days Fair.  His labs look all OK and I just talked to his pediatrician on the phone.  He tells me to send him home and have his mother call you in the morning so you can see him at some point later with no rush and do an EEG.  But I did not feel comfortable sending him home now…  What do you think?

I agree with you, Bob.  Keep him there.  I’m not on call but I’ll be there in 20 minutes.  Let me take a look at him myself.

You really don’t have to Frank.  It is late, and Sunday.  I can just admit him to the pediatric floor and keep an eye on him;  you can see him in he morning…  Or perhaps I’ll just send him home as his pediatrician tells me.  The kid is really OK.

It is no bother.  I’ll be right there.  And Dr. Martin hanged up.  He was already in his pajamas, but quickly got dressed and got on he road.

He was in the ER 15 minutes later.

[In retrospect, now that we have this full, real story and outcome some time later, Dr. Martin’s decision to be kind, assiduous, extra-caring and see the boy in the ER at odd hours on a Sunday evening and he was not on call and didn't have to, would eventually cost him!].

He examined the boy -who was sitting up on a stretcher- in front of his mother and grandmother.  All seemed fine except for his noticing that when bending the boy’s head all the way forward, the boy grinned and raised his shoulders a pinch.  Demonstrating  this to his mom and to Dr. Stein, Dr. Martin, as he did it again for them to see,  he told the boy:

Eddy, tell me if your back or your neck hurt when I bend your head again as I just did.

Ouch! the boy said when Dr. Martin brought his chin to his chest with a gentle down push.

He interpreted that as ‘guarding,’ a subtle positive ‘meningeal’ sign.  Dr. Stein believed Dr, Martin’s demonstration and accepted the need for a spinal tap.  The neurologist offered to do it right there himself.

He did the tap easily, with the boy ‘siting up’ at the edge of he stretcher – Dr. Martin’s then and there amid his colleagues and residents, famous trademark in a place where other neurologists always did it with the patient lying down on one side.  And the fluid he obtained (with 51 white blood cells per cubic mm, all lymphocytes) confirmed his suspicion of a mild case of meningitis, probably viral.  The fluid should have had no cells at all or at the most, 2 or 3.  His diagnosis of viral meningitis was correct on all accounts.  Most likely benign.

CHAPTER 2

A Prize For Being So Good

But perhaps it was not that benign…

Such a diagnosis explained the reason for the kid’s seizure.  Dr. Martin thought of admitting him to the pediatric floor, so he called the pediatric resident to obtain a bed.  That fellow, a second year resident still in training, controlled all admissions from the ER at late hours in the day when the daytime guys had gone home.  If Eddy was going to be admitted it had to be cleared by him.  But when Dr. Martin talked to him the resident questioned the real need for an admission on a Sunday evening:

If we bring him upstairs, he won’t be in ICU or close to the nurses’ station, but in a quiet room at the end of he hall…  Viral meningitis, I know, is not a serious condition.  He could be watched by his mother more closely and better at home.  Why don’t you explain that to his mother.  Perhaps she will understand…  And it will save us unnecessary work on the floor at late hours on a weekend.

Dr. Martin got caught by surprise by such a negative reception, was a bit pissed off -that a young guy in training would question him- but he understood.  He passed the resident’s comments to Eddy’s mother and grandmother and these were actually happy to hear that their boy did not have to stay in the hospital overnight.  Mom in fact assured Dr. Martin that she could certainly watch her son at home better than the nurses, especially if he was going to spend the night at the end of a long corridor.  So they took him home.  Dr. Martin gave them not only his office number but even his home phone number as well.  Please call me during the night any time you feel you have to or if there is in him any change you don’t like,  he told them.

Mom was in fact so happy with Dr. Martin’s kindness, flexibility and his having explained everything to them so well, that she even called him at home that very evening as soon as they got home:

Doc, we thank you for your wonderful care, so dedicated of you at odd hours…  I hear that spinal taps are often tough -and that it is often harder to think that a tap is needed- and that they hurt, but little Eddy hardly even felt it…  By he way, as we drove home, my mother and I were talking about what you said about there being often some family history to these brain things.  Well, yes.  I don’t know of any history of epilepsy in any relatives, but two of my mother’s siblings, a brother and a sister, had Polio, that started, if I recall, as a form of meningitis, encephalitis, or something like that.  In fact, her brother died of it…

Thanks for calling me, Mrs. Floss.  I’ll make a note of that piece of information you just gave me…  And how is Eddy doing so far?

Perfect.  Not a complaint.  He is already sleeping.

Please call me back if that changes in any way.  If this viral meningitis or encephalitis is just an ordinary ‘summer one’ as I often see, it should not give him or you any problems.

Dr. Martin was already in his office in the morning by 7 am.  His first scheduled patient would not be in till 9.  So he worked on his papers and started a new folder on Eddy.  At 7:30 Eddy’s mother called him:

Doc, Eddy’s been somewhat restless in he last hour and he just threw up.

Does he have any discomfort or pain?

Not so far.  Just that.

"Put him back in the car and I’ll see you both again in the ER right away.

He got there before Eddy and his mother.   At 8:15, after checking again his neck for ‘guarding’ he was repeating the spinal tap.  It all went easy and fine as the evening before.  And as then, he waited in the ER for the lab to call him back with the results….

Wow!  Now, instead of the white blood cells in the spinal fluid being in the 50s as a few hours earlier, there were 2,030 WBCs, and now not ‘lymphs’ but mostly ‘polys’!!!

Wow! he told the ER attending now present (Dr. Bob Stein was by then off that morning).  It seems this has turned into ‘bacterial,’ no longer viral meningitis.  And probably very serious, judging by the number of WBCs…"

So he called immediately the pediatric floor to talk to the admitting resident.  But they were busy ‘conferencing,’ giving the overnight report to the morning shift.  So Dr. Martin waited for a few minutes with the phone pasted to his ear.  Finally the actual chief resident came to the phone.  He listened to Dr. Martin and told him he would come to he ER in person ‘right away.’  He showed up 20 minutes later.

Eddy’s repeat labs from his blood were also alarming, 15,000 WBCs, 80% of them polys.   The chief resident called immediately ICU for a bed.  Yes, they had one.   He had brought down with him a 1st year resident who started on Eddy an IV with D5W fluid and penicillin and erythromycin.  The two residents talked to mom as they wheeled Eddy down the long corridors to the adjacent hospital -the University Hospital- where the Peds ICU was located.  

Eddy would be from then on in the exclusive hands of the ICU attending, a Bob… something, a guy with a pony tail, but known among equals to be difficult to talk to, yet a guy with a good reputation for smarts, at least among the Peds staff.  He would also be helped by the infectious diseases peds specialist, also a tough guy to talk to (so often both docs critical of their ‘outside colleagues’ for not using the correct antibiotics or in proper doses, or for using them too often/too much).  

[Incidentally, both of these guys were also known for often testifying -‘often for the plaintiff’- as experts in malpractice law suits against colleagues!]

Dr. Martin had then in his office a regular day seeing his usual lot of patients with headaches and school problems plus two follow up teenagers with seizures.  He went to visit Eddy in ICU before going home at 5.  Nothing unusual was reported to him by the resident, by the nurse, by the pony tail boss, OR by his mother.  So he went home for supper.

It turns out that after 6 pm, things began to get hectic in the Peds ICU as Eddy’s blood pressure began to drop and he acted restless…  The pony tail guy tried other things, a third antibiotic, but the boy kept going into shock.  The pony tail guy didn’t bother to inform Dr. Martin or ask him for help….

The next morning, at about 7, before going to his office, Dr. Martin went to see how little Eddy was doing.  At some distance from ICU and close to the elevators, in a lounge, he spotted Eddy’s mother and grandmother.  They had arrived two hours earlier after having been at home just 4 hours:

How is Eddy? he asked them.

He is dead!  They told him in unison…

What happened!!!!!!??  himself shocked.  Was he dead when you got here?

Yea.  They told us that they lost him at 4, when they could not get his blood pressure up and his heart stopped…

But nobody called me!…

Dr. Martin went nearly running to ICU.  Eddy’s body had already been taken down to the morgue once he was pronounced.

Why you guys didn’t call me? he asked the pony tail chief of ICU.

And what would you have done!?

At least you could have made me part of the team…

Yea!…  And you could have admitted him one day earlier! he snickered.

He was then fine, with just 51 WBCs in the LP.  His family were happy taking him home.  I even asked the resident for a bed in Irwing.  But your resident was not happy about admitting him and was reluctant to give me a bed!…

You could have insisted and overruled him!…

Yes, I could have…  But the boy was then fine…

Three weeks later Dr. Martin learned -only through the local newspapers!- that Eddy had died not of bacterial meningitis but of ‘triple EEE’ (Eastern Equine Encephalitis, an infection of the meninges and brain by a potent virus which does not make wrong Dr. Martin’s initial diagnosis of ‘Viral Meningitis,’ since they generally start in the meninges before going deeper to the brain).  This is in humans often a fatal diagnosis and usually the doctor who cares for the patient -whether he made the correct diagnosis or not- is just a sitting duck for hungry lawyers (and for the family trying to get rich out of a natural misfortune that is nobody’s fault or wrong doing).

Needless to say, Eddy’s ‘nice-and-thankful mother’ (ha!) did sue Dr. Martin (along with the Irwing Hospital ER -specifically Dr. Stein- as co-defendants) within two years, ‘for not having admitted little Eddy on the first day!  It is curious -and sadly ironical- that the University Hospital with its residents (who denied Dr. Martin the bed for Eddy when he asked for it the first night) was not named in the suit.  And that neither was the pony tail head of ICU, who was ultimately the one who lost Eddy and did no even bother to call -or at least inform- Dr. Martin when things got out-of-control for Eddy in the middle of he night…  [But of course this guy was friends with the mother’s lawyer!].  

And the fact that Dr. Martin’s diagnosis had been correct did not matter.  Or the fact that, had Eddy been admitted that first night ‘to the end of he hall,’ it would probably have entailed the having had that second, crucial, revealing spinal tap later than when Dr. Martin did it first thing the next morning!

It turns out that Dr. Martin did win such law suit in spite of the mother’s lawyer calling him all sorts of insults in the court room, including making him a villain for having asked Eddy’s mother ‘for family history ‘just to clear himself from responsibility!’   the lawyer told the jurors.  Dr. Martin did hear later from one of the jurors who had acquitted him that such insults from the mother’s lawyer had actually turned them off completely away from the plaintiff and in favor of Dr. Martin!  

[And again, ironically, as of the time of this writing, this writer hears that such S.O.B. losing lawyer, a known ambulance chaser, is now a local state judge!  Wow!]  

Even Dr. Martin’s own lawyer was ticked off when -upon hearing his ‘not guilty’ verdict- the doc had put his head down, covered his face and cried, instead of jumping up and down thanking his lawyer for the win.  The juror told Dr Martin also that they’d voted to clear him even though they thought his lawyer had done a lousy job!…

[Unfortunately, his not having admitted Eddy that contended first night, even if by most accounts Dr. Martin had been correct in his diagnosis and management and he had tried to admit the boy, ended up being costing the doc:  He was reported (by the plaintiff’s lawyer-now-judge?) to the State Health Department Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPC)!  Poor Dr. Martin!