Diagnosis Death Read Free

you over several years. It'll be sort of like an annuity for you."
    Helen was already shaking her head. "No, one part of the deal was that I bring my patients with me. The clinic will hire both my receptionist and nurse, and give them a good package as well. They'll even buy my equipment from me. I've already terminated the office lease. I'm moving out in ninety days."
    Elena forced back the tears she felt forming. "Helen, do you realize what this does to me?"
    "I know. I just—"
    "No." Elena worked to keep her voice level. "You don't know. You don't know how I've struggled to get through my residency after Mark's death. You have no idea what it meant to me to have a practice waiting for me. No need to lease space, to remodel and buy equipment. No waiting to build up a practice. There'd be a guaranteed income and a chance to pay off a mountain of debt."
    "Elena—"
    Elena shook her head. "I finish my residency in less than a month. Thirty days! Now you've pulled the rug out from under me. I have four weeks to find a way to do the only thing I know how to do—practice medicine." She turned her back to Helen, thinking that Helen had done the same thing to her. "No, I realize this is good for you, but I don't think you really know the effect it has on me."
    "Elena, I had to do this. Once you get over the shock, you'll think about it and agree. But listen, I'm not going to leave you hanging."
    Elena turned back to face the woman who'd been her mentor, the friend who was now betraying her. "What do you mean?"
    "The clinic gave me a very short deadline to accept or reject their offer. I only made my final decision this weekend. But the second call I made, after the one to the clinic administrator, was to your chair, Dr. Amy Gross. She and I are both putting out feelers for a place you can practice." Helen reached across the table and patted Elena's shoulder. "We know how hard this past three months have been on you. We worry about you. And believe me, we won't abandon you now. God has something out there for you. Trust Him."
    Elena drained the last of the coffee from her cup. When she set it down, she knocked her fork off the table. The dull clank of silverware on vinyl floor was barely audible over the low hum of voices that filled the cafeteria. "Trust God? I don't think so. I trusted Him when Mark lay there fighting for his life, but it didn't seem to do any good."
    "I know. But He's still in control."
    Elena shook her head, while one more hobgoblin joined those already dancing in her brain.

2
     
     
     
     
     
    E lena hesitated in the doorway. She felt her adrenaline titer rise in response to the most ancient of reflexes: fight or flight. Unfortunately, neither was an option right now. "You wanted to see me?"
    Dr. Amy Gross, chair of the Department of Family Practice at Southwestern Medical Center, sat behind a desk devoid of papers except for a thick file barely contained by a slightly ragged manila cover. To her right, Dr. Bruce Matney, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, adjusted his white lab coat to better cover his gray-green surgical scrubs.
    Dr. Gross waited until Elena settled into the single chair centered in front of the desk. "I appreciate your coming here today."
    As though I had a choice. When the chairwoman's secretary calls residents and asks them to be in her office in an hour, it's pretty much a command performance.
    "We know that the wound from Mark's death is still tender," Gross continued.
    Elena glanced at Dr. Matney and saw the frown that crossed his face. He'd liked Mark, and his inability to save her husband after his intracranial bleeding episode probably still ate at the neurosurgeon.
    Gross tapped the file. "But there's something here we need to discuss with you." She flipped to a spot marked by a yellow Post-It note. "Dr. Matney was in Medical Records yesterday to dictate summaries and sign charts. They'd sent Mark's chart back to him for a signature on something he'd missed, and he noticed