Coma

A smile crept over his face as he imagined himself kissing Susan impulsively. It made him remember those awkward adolescent moments in his early youth when he would continue some banal conversation with his pimpled date right up to her doorstep. Then without warning he would kiss the girl, hard and sloppy. Then he’d step back to see what happened, hoping for acceptance but fearing rejection. It had never ceased to amaze him when he found acceptance, because in many ways he didn’t know why he was kissing the girl in the first place.

The concept of seeing Susan socially reminded Bellows of those early years of dating because he felt an inner urge for physical contact yet did not expect it. Susan was obviously palpable and luscious, yet she was going to be a doctor, as he was. Hence she would have little appreciation for the trump card Bellows always felt in a social situation—most everyone was impressed when he said he was a doctor, a surgeon! It didn’t matter that Bellows himself knew that being a doctor did hot assure any special attributes, contrary to popular mythology. In fact, if he used many of the attending surgeons at the Memorial as examples, the effect of admitting such an association should have been a handicap.

But what really bothered Bellows was the knowledge that a penis would hold little fascination for Susan; in all probability she had dissected one.

Bellows did not reduce his own sexual urges and fantasies to anatomical and physiological realities, but what about Susan? She looked so normal with her smile, her soft skin, the hint of her breast gently rising with her breathing. But she had studied the parasympathetic reflexes, and the endocrine alterations that make sex possible, even enjoyable. Maybe she had studied too much, too much of the wrong thing. Maybe even if the occasion was auspicious, Bellows would find his penis limp, impotent.

The thought made Bellows doubtful about seeing Susan. After all, once away from the hospital, Bellows wanted to escape, and mindless sex was a superb method. With Susan, if it happened at all, it wasn’t going to be mindless. It couldn’t be. Finally there was the sticky question about the wisdom of dating a student currently under his supervision on the surgery rotation. Bellows was undoubtedly going to be called upon to evaluate Susan’s performance as a student. Dating her represented a ridiculous conflict of interest.

The elevator door opened on the OR floor and Bellows quickly crossed to the main OR desk. The clerk was preparing the OR schedule of the following day.

“What room is my case in? It’s a Mr. Barron, a hemorrhoid.”

The clerk looked up to see who it was, then down at the current schedule.

“You’re Dr. Bellows?”

“None other.”

“Well, you have been taken off that case.”

“Taken off? By whom?” Bellows was perplexed.

“By Dr. Chandler, and he left word for you to meet him in his office when you appeared.”

To be taken off one of his own cases was very strange for Bellows.

Certainly it was within George Chandler’s prerogative since he was the chief resident. But it was highly irregular. Occasionally Bellows had been removed from a scrub on which he was to assist, usually to help on some other case, and usually for purely logistic reasons. But to be removed from one of his own cases where the patient had been assigned to Beard 5 was a totally new experience.

Bellows thanked the OR clerk without bothering to hide his surprise and irritation. He turned and headed for George Chandler’s office.

The chief resident’s office was a windowless cubicle on 2. From this tiny area came the tactical edicts that ran the surgical department from day to day. Chandler was in charge of all the schedules for all the residents, including the on-call and weekend duty assignments. Chandler was also in charge of the operating room schedule, assigning the staff and clinic cases as well as the assists for the attending surgeons who asked for them.

Bellows knocked on the closed door, entering after hearing a muffled

“Come in.” George Chandler was sitting at his desk, which nearly filled the tiny room. The desk faced the door, and Chandler had to squeeze past to gain access to the seat. Behind him was a file cabinet. In front of the desk was a single wooden chair. The room was bare; only a bulletin board adorned the walls. Blank but neat, the room was somewhat like Chandler himself.