Natural Causes by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online

physicians, nurses, and technologists who would be battling to save her and her baby.
    And all the while, swirling about that struggle would be the persistent, gnawing question of
why?
    As they backed up to the emergency room’s receiving platform, Sarah could see Eli Blankenship waiting by the ER door. As always, she was struck by the man’s appearance. Had she, without knowing, been challenged to name his vocation, her first guesses might well have included tavern bouncer, stevedore, or heavy machine operator. MCB’s chief of staff was a bull of a man, less than six feet tall but with a massive chest and head that were separated by a token neck. He was bald save for a dark monk’s fringe. But beneath his expansive forehead, his eyebrows were thickets, and his muscular arms were like Esau’s. Even clean shaven at the outset of a day, he seemed to have a persistent five o’clock shadow.
    Of the man’s physical attributes, only his eyes—a pale, penetrating blue—gave hint to his genius. He was board certified in infectious disease and critical care as well as internal medicine. But he was also respected as ahumanist, expert at chess and contract bridge, and well versed in the arts. As a teacher, no one at MCB was more open and respectful of the views and approaches of students and residents, and no one taught them more effectively.
    Blankenship, already gowned and gloved, met the stretcher as the rescue squad pulled it from the ambulance, and immediately took Lisa’s hand and introduced himself to her. From the other side of the litter, where she was keeping pressure on Lisa’s nose, Sarah could see that with that first touch, the medical chief had already begun his examination and assessment.
    By the time they reached Room A, one of three major medical/trauma rooms, Sarah had nearly completed her case presentation. Blankenship had the phlebotomist from the laboratory waiting to draw blood for them as well as an OB nurse with a fetal monitor. With a nod, he motioned them both into action. At that moment, blood began to ooze through the gauze wrap protecting Lisa’s intravenous line. Blankenship noted the development with no change in his expression.
    “Now, Lisa,” he said evenly, “I’m going to ask you to be patient with us and to forgive us if it seems we’re not keeping you abreast of what’s going on. You’ve got several different things going on here at once, involving several different systems of your body. In a few more seconds, you aren’t going to be able to tell all the doctors working on you without a scorecard. The main ones besides me will be Dr. Helen Stoddard, who’s a blood specialist, and Dr. Andrew Truscott, who’s a surgeon. Her job will be to help us stop this bleeding, and his will be to get in another intravenous line and tend to your arm, which right now is not getting enough blood. And of course, we’ll have Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Snyder standing by to deliver your baby as soon as we can get you stabilized.”
    “Is the baby all right?” Lisa asked.
    Blankenship looked over at the OB nurse, who noddedtoward the fetal monitor. The fetal heart rate was higher than optimum, often an early sign of trouble.
    “The baby’s under some stress,” he said. “We’re watching that very closely.”
    At that moment, the hematologist swept into the room. Helen Stoddard, also a full professor, was a department chief at another hospital and a sometime consultant at MCB. Unabashedly from “the old school,” as she liked to say, she had been openly critical of MCB’s coddling up to “fringe players”—her term for practitioners of alternative medicine. During one hospital-sponsored seminar, she had been one of the panelists arguing against incorporating any techniques unproven by scientific methods. Blankenship and Sarah were part of the opposition, advocating the use of certain empirically proven treatments such as acupuncture and chiropractic, and careful scientific evaluation of those