Hospital from Hell

By Norman Preston

Undoubtedly, many readers have seen what goes at hospitals, and know of the struggles that patients have getting care and battling with the insurance companies. This book reveals what goes on behind the scenes where no one can see, except the few that experience it and have the personal fortitude to tell the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665558600

Norman Preston

Norman Preston graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Bowling Green State University. Since graduating, he’s held various positions in the healthcare field. He brings his experiences to life in his writing. He lives in the Fort Worth area with his wife, son, two dogs, and two cats.

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© 2022 Norman Preston. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/27/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5859-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5861-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5860-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022908239

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1Background

Chapter 2Week 1: Monday

Chapter 3Week 1: Tuesday

Chapter 4Week 1: Wednesday am

Chapter 5Week 1: Wednesday Afternoon

Chapter 6Week 1: Wednesday Evening

Chapter 7Week 1: Thursday

Chapter 8Week 1: Friday

Chapter 9Week 1: Weekend

Chapter 10Week 2: Monday

Chapter 11Week 2: Tuesday

Chapter 12Week 2: Wednesday

Chapter 13Week 2: Thursday

Chapter 14Week 2: Friday

Chapter 15Week 2: Friday Evening

Chapter 16Week 2: Weekend

Chapter 17Week 3: Monday

Chapter 18Week 3: Tuesday

Chapter 19Week 3: Wednesday

Chapter 20Week 3: Thursday

Chapter 21Week 3: Friday

Chapter 22Week 3: Weekend

Chapter 23Week 4: Monday

Chapter 24Aftermath

This book is

dedicated to my loving wife Lisa who put

up with me during these 20 plus years of marriage.

INTRODUCTION

As many of you readers know, the American health care system has deteriorated to the point of embarrassment. Other industries, such as technology and retailers, can even do health care better than the vast majority of health care companies. It’s so bad that many people are shying away from being doctors and nurses. As a result, you might be surprised to learn that doctors and nurses make up the vast minority of health care workers!

Briefly, the health care system in America consists of four major players. The first, and the one that is mostly demonized, are the pharmaceutical companies. These are the people who develop, test and market drugs. The chief complaint about these companies are their drugs cost too much, followed by the drugs don’t work, and (my personal favorite) they test these on animals.

The second player are the patients. Much work has been done in the industry to try to treat a patient like a consumer, which more or less means that the patient is asked to fill out countless satisfaction questionnaires. Of course, these just get compiled, tallied, and are used as a basis to fire hospital staff should the right time come about.

The third player are the insurance companies. They’re usually called the payers. They’ll come off as being on the patient’s side since they are looking after the financial well-being of the patient by making sure only the most necessary procedures and medications are being administered. The basic complaint against the insurance companies are just that - if they would actually look out for the patient, all would be well. Instead, they usually just focus on ways in which they could shave some expenses off of a visit to the doctor or hospital.

The fourth player are the hospitals. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are now referred to as providers as in they provide the actual care at the direction of the insurance company using the products that are created by the pharmaceutical companies in the hopes that the patient gets better and has a fantastic time during treatment.

This book is about the hospitals and my own experiences in trying to fix what I perceive to be a flawed system.

CHAPTER 1

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BACKGROUND

Prior to being employed by the Hospital from Hell (referred to as the Hospital for the rest of the book), I had worked for all of the other major players in healthcare. I thought I was doing some great career management by gaining experience from all the players, and then I could get that one really good job. So, when my work at the insurance company got boring, I decided to start talking to recruiters to see what was going on.

By trade, I’m a data scientist, which means that I study data and try to find patterns that can be used to improve patient care. These patterns might be anything from understanding what type of patient might better respond to a particular treatment to seeing which patients might decide to use the emergency room as their own personal physician (as opposed to making an appointment).

At that time, many companies were starting large data science teams to better understand what the customer wants so the company can sell more products. I had no interest in working at these companies because I felt that health care was in the greatest need of data scientists. So, I stuck to waiting for the right opportunity in a hospital to come along.

Most of the recruiters had no positions at all for almost 2 years. Then, one day, a recruiter called me with this fantastic job at the Hospital. It had good pay and benefits and was no more than a half of mile from where I was working now. So, I sent in my resume and had the usual round of interviews the following week.

Evidently they were really eager to hire someone. They had been looking for a director of data science and analytics for almost a year. I had more than the qualifications they needed and from the time of my first interview with the hiring manager to the offer letter was two weeks. It was by far the fastest I’ve ever been hired to do anything. It was a hot job market, and I could’ve gotten a job anywhere, except I was looking for something very specific.

During the interview, it was stressed to me that my major focus was to build the data science department at the hospital from the ground up. I would have a lot of autonomy in deciding how big the team would need to be, what sort of projects would need to be done, and who I would need to hire to get the projects done.

I remember thinking to myself that this might be that one big job that I was looking for. They seemed to have the money and desire to support a data science team so I wouldn’t have to try to convince the senior leaders that they needed data science in their organization. So, I quit my job at the insurance company and went to work for the Hospital.

The Hospital, on the surface, was like any other office job, and seemed to be very typical of other hospitals. Most hospitals are actually part of a system of loosely connected hospitals. These hospitals would band together in order to increase their leverage when negotiating prices for drugs and medical supplies as well as negotiating reimbursements from insurance companies. The Hospital was a system of around 20 hospitals and I would be working at the corporate office.

What intrigued me about the Hospital was that it was funded and managed by several congregations of the Catholic Church. This meant that these congregations would donate money to the Hospital, who was charged with wisely using that money to heal people in the name of Jesus Christ, Mary, and Saint Damian (a patron saint of physicians).

So, going into my first day at work had me feeling very good about the Hospital. I was out to improve patient care using data science, and the Hospital wanted to heal people. What could go wrong?

CHAPTER 2

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WEEK 1: MONDAY

Normally, the first day of any job is spent with the good people in Human Resources. These so-called orientation meetings generally range from the mundane tasks of signing up for benefits such as medical and dental insurance to full-blown brainwashing as to why whatever company is the best around. The Hospital’s orientation was closer to the latter. In this case, the Hospital saw itself as Jesus’ hospital and the Hospital was doing Jesus’ work. The rest of the time was just commentary.

The two-hour morning session was spent going over scripture verses and quotes from prominent Catholic leaders, the history of the Catholic Church with a concentration on health care throughout the centuries, and a 1-hour visit from the CEO to let us all know how important our future work will be.

After the morning session, we are supposed to be picked up by our respective supervisor. My new supervisor didn’t show up. Instead, I was picked up by an assistant who told me that Callie was too busy to come get me, so she was sent instead. She led me to Callie’s office. Callie invited me in to talk, and talk she did. For a full two hours (from ten o’clock until noon), she did nothing but talk. Unfortunately, the things she said made me instantly regret leaving the comforts of the insurance company.

Her name was Callie, and she told me she had a 20-year career doing analytics, but it was time for her to move on in her career. She hired me to do the analytics work that she had put behind her. She told me all about how her and her wife decided to move to a place that was more friendly toward her. Callie explained that it was hard for her to make friends or to relate to people, and that many people find her almost impossible to work with. But, she was confident that I could figure out a way to work with her.

During her four-hour monologue, I had the chance to examine her features and idiosyncrasies. She was heavy, weighing in at about one hundred seventy pounds. She hid it well with a loose fitting shirt that was covered by an even looser fitting business jacket. However, she complimented the loose top with a very tight skirt. As she talked, she liked to adjust her skirt by standing up and hiking it high and then letting it fall back down. She would give a little smile and then sit down. I tried to get out of there, but Callie wanted to keep on talking. I could tell she needed someone to talk to, and being her subordinate, I didn’t have much of an option in the matter.

So, during the first 4 hours of my new job, I had nothing but a condensed version of Callie’s sad life story that ended with a dire warning. Because she was trying to lose weight, Callie didn’t eat breakfast which caused her to be completely famished by lunch time. She invited me to the cafeteria to eat lunch.

She walked into the cafeteria as if she was a movie star. She stopped after about 2 steps and raised her hands and shouted Happy Tuesday, everybody! She received muted responses like Hi, Callie, Happy Tuesday to you, too, etcetera - all in very subdued tones. The looks on their faces was a combination of figuring out how they could escape without talking to her directly and pure disgust.

I figured that everybody in the cafeteria had something against Callie, and I was determined to find out what it was. Callie and I waited in line, and she talked incessantly about how she spent an entire year laying down the framework for the data science department and now all she needed was workers.

I was shocked to hear all this since I thought I was hired to build the department from scratch. I decided to open my mouth and try to talk, not knowing if I would be allowed to get a word in edgewise. Callie, it was my understanding that I would be leading the data science efforts. Has something changed since the interview last week?

Callie looked at me with total disdain before responding. I am in charge of data science, and I will tell you what you will do. I am the boss, after all. Now shut up and order your food. We’ll take the food upstairs and eat it in the break room. I looked around to see what people were looking at, hoping that they didn’t hear her rebuke. Most people looked at me sympathetically.

I ordered a sandwich and Callie ordered a large salad, triple hamburger, fries, and a 32 ounce coke. Is that all you’re getting?, she snorted. I had a big breakfast, I explained. Callie obviously felt that compared to me, she was drastically overeating and that would not look good to the people in the cafeteria. I would have been more understanding except that it was obvious that the people in the cafeteria already had very little respect for her.

We got our food and took it upstairs and ate it in the break room. She couldn’t perform her usual entrance with all that food in her hands, so she quickly spotted a seat at a table and sat down. This was rather awkward since there wasn’t any other seat available at the table. She quickly started eating and talking with the others at the table, completely ignoring me.

I looked around and found another seat at another table. It was far enough away from Callie that I couldn’t hear her talking, which was a welcome break. The other person at the table eyed me suspiciously, and finally said Nobody likes your boss. The chief medical officer likes her, and that’s why she has the job she has now. Don’t believe a word she says.

I stared blankly at my new lunch friend, not knowing how to reply. I finally said I get that she’s not well liked. But what is anybody doing about it?

My lunch friend, who didn’t introduce himself and whose badge wasn’t visible when he sat down so I couldn’t read is name, quipped, We can’t do anything about it. If anybody complains, then they disappear.

I leaned in and asked You mean like that ‘Twilight Zone’ episode with Billy Mumy in it? He nodded in response. I looked behind me and saw Callie headed my way. Our little chat was officially over.

Callie came by and said, I’m through with my lunch. Let’s go back to my office so I can talk to you some more.

I collected the rest of my lunch and threw it in the trash. I asked Callie how her lunch was. She replied that it would be just enough to hold her over until dinner. By that time, we reached her office. We entered and sat down. She glared at me and in the most demanding tone she could muster asked me What were you and John talking about?

Taken aback, I asked Who’s John? Although, I figured that was the name of my table mate. Callie confirmed it with a snippy You ate lunch with him and you didn’t even think to ask his name? Now, what did you talk about?

I knew this wasn’t going to get any better soon. I decided to lie and told her we just talked about what it was like to work at the Hospital. And what did he tell you? Callie demanded. I responded with He loves working here and thinks I should as well.

This response seemed to please Callie as her tone softened a little. She was still upset, however and commanded Just to be on the safe side, I don’t want you talking to anybody else without my being there. I was shocked and my jaw dropped. Thoughts of despotic countries went through my head as I tried to think of which one was closest to Callie’s leadership style.

Callie changed the subject back to her, which seemed to be her favorite topic. For the rest of the afternoon, she talked about her favorite foods, how she gained 40 pounds, why she dresses like she does (she always wore shockingly bright clothes, and always wore a miniskirt and high heel shoes), and her favorite places to eat around work.

Five o’clock came and she got up from her desk and said it was time to go home. She packed her things up and left. At the end of my first full day at work, I had no computer, no desk, and no motivation or interest to return the following day.

I went home wondering what to tell my wife. It was a long drive home, and my wife knew that something was wrong as soon as I came through the door. I told her some of the things that happened during the day. Her face turned white and her job dropped. The only thing she could say was I am so sorry. We ate dinner and went to bed.

CHAPTER 3

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WEEK 1: TUESDAY

The alarm clock went off, and I turned it off immediately. I didn’t get out of bed right away. Instead, I stared up at the ceiling wondering what to do about the situation. After awhile, I decided that I needed to look at this situation as a recovering alcoholic looks at his problem - one day at a time. I started working on a plan for my exodus, and slowly started getting ready for work.

The drive to work was very emotional. As I got closer to work, a flood of emotions came upon me. I was enraged that I started working at the Hospital. My new boss, Callie, was the primary reason for this rage. I was careful not to hate her since that would make things even worse. I found myself at the Hospital much sooner than I realized - anger and rage must make time go by faster.

I went to go find Callie, hoping that she’d at least have a desk and maybe even a computer for me. I found her in her office, and she motioned for me to come in. She had a broad smile on her face. Her smile made me feel uncomfortable, for it was a smile that someone wears when they’ve won something or had something on someone. I was afraid that I was the thing that she won or had something on.

Callie informed me that we would have a series of meetings together today. My morale sunk even lower, which surprised me since I figured it couldn’t go any lower. Unfortunately, it looked like the first meeting would be an hour away, which gave her plenty of time to talk - and talk she did. In an hour, she talked unceasingly about her hair, her rings, her achievements, her thoughts on various political topics and her views on some current events.

The way Callie talked herself in this monologue had the effect that I began to think that I