A Surgical Affair

  A SURGICAL AFFAIR

  Shirley Summerskill

  Suddenly, Diana’s dream of a career in medicine was not important; Mark Royston now held first place in her heart.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hoping that she wasn’t late, Dr. Diana Field hurried across the forecourt toward Mansion House Hospital. Her head was bent against the cold January wind, which blew her long auburn hair behind her. The huge white building towered above, its windows glittering in the sunshine.

  Arriving at the doorway, Diana thought, “This looks like a wonderful hospital ... bright and cheerful ... I want to work here more than anything in the world.

  She entered the spacious hall, with its clean marble floor and daffodils neatly arranged on the reception desk. A tall fair-haired young man wearing a white coat approached her.

  “Hello! Are you up for Mr. Cole’s house surgeon job?” he asked, smiling.

  Diana nodded. “Yes, I am. What do you do?”

  “I’m Dr. Barker’s house physician now, but I did the job you want for six months. It’s fun, providing you get on the right side of the chief!”

  “He doesn’t look too worn out and haggard,” thought Diana, gazing at him. Aloud, she said “My name is Diana Field. What’s yours?”

  “Tony Spring. Here’s Mr. Cole now.”

  A small nearly bald man of about 50 walked briskly out of a nearby doorway. He was neatly dressed in a dark, pin-striped suit.

  “Ah, here you are!” he shouted. Diana soon realized that Mr. Cole hardly ever talked; he shouted. “Tony, if you’ll wait about five minutes, you can take Dr. Field up to lunch when we’ve finished.”

  Diana followed Mr. Cole into the office he had just left. He sat down at a large desk and she sat opposite him. She felt nervous and hot, wishing she had taken off her overcoat before the interview.

  “I see from your application form that you’re 26. Didn’t you qualify rather late?” he asked sternly.

  Diana had not expected this sudden attack.

  “I was ill, sir,” she replied quietly. “Very ill.” She had not wanted to mention this, but there was no alternative. “Pneumonia. It put me back a year, just before finals.”

  “And did you ever fail any exams?” Mr. Cole was gazing keenly at her all the time.

  “Yes, physics—twice, sir.”

  Diana was feeling extremely uncomfortable. This was terrible. Why didn’t he ask her about the hospital prize she won in pathology, or her lacrosse blue at Oxford?

  “It’s hard work, being a house surgeon,” he said gravely. “You realize that?”

  “Yes, I do, but I’d like to specialize in surgery, eventually.”

  He grunted. “Are there any questions you’d like to ask?”

  Diana had anticipated this. She had always been interested in the treatment of fractures and was ready with her reply.

  “Do you do much orthopedic work here, sir?”

  “A terrific amount! That main road outside supplies us with all the bone and joint surgery we can handle. We do more of it than any other hospital in Hertfordshire. On a holiday weekend, you’ll be rushed off your feet. Everybody going up to London or down to the coast, and they’re all driving too fast!”

  She nodded understandingly. “Aren’t you going to ask about time off? Most of my housemen do!” he barked.

  “I’d be living at the hospital for the six months, sir. My parents are in Wales and my brother is abroad in the army. I don’t know anybody around here—so I’m not worried about time off.”

  “Well, when you are on duty, you’ll be in charge of the women’s surgical ward. It’s a busy place.” Then he smiled. “Go up to lunch with Tony Spring now, and I’ll see you again at the Selection Committee this afternoon—that’s when the hospital board finally decides about the appointment.”

  Diana left her coat in the cloakroom and was glad she had worn her beige dress with the tan-colored belt and shoes. They seemed just right for the occasion.

  Tony Spring led her up some stairs, along two corridors and through a few doors.

  “I’ll never find my way around here,” she thought, as they arrived at the dining room.

  It was a bright, cheerful room with windows along one side overlooking the forecourt and the main road. A buzz of animated conversation came from the four long tables. The consultants all sat together, and white-coated doctors filled the other tables.

  Diana and Tony sat down and he introduced the two men sitting opposite them: Malcolm Smith, small and plump with a thick black mustache, and Bill Evans, a large, red-faced man of about 45, with graying hair. Diana nodded and smiled at them both.

  “Isn’t anyone going to introduce me?” asked an aggrieved voice, but the man sitting next to Bill Evans was smiling at Diana as he spoke.

  He had black hair and the collar of his white coat was turned up. Diana decided that he had an intelligent, kind face, strong but not handsome like the conventional film star; and she liked his quiet, slow way of speaking.

  “That’s Mark Royston,” Tony told her. “He’ll be your registrar if you get the job. He’s an Australian.” More loudly to Mark he replied, “This is Diana Field.”

  “If you land this job,” said Mark, grinning as he spoke, “you’ll have to share a room with one of us for a few days! There are no spare rooms until Phil Buchan leaves. He’s your predecessor. He’s stopped working, but he’s still here.”

  Diana laughed. “I wonder which of you will have the honor!” Then she returned to her grilled cod, thinking that his accent seemed more American than Australian, and that his eyes had a rather sad expression.

  After she had met the Selection Committee, Tony Spring took Diana up to Charity Ward—Mr. Cole’s women’s surgical ward. The two other applicants for the job, both of them men, went to look around the operating rooms.

  Diana met Sister Nancy Baker, “Nan” to her friends. She was a small woman with a kind, good-humored face that must have been very beautiful once. Glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “Sister Baker has run this ward for 14 years; she knows it like the back of her hand,” Tony Spring said. “She’s the only person who has worked in this hospital ever since it was opened.”

  He left Sister’s office to go off to his wards, and Diana sat in the armchair. She watched Sister Baker, who was sitting at her desk busily looking through some temperature charts, and wondered how long it would be before she heard whether or not she had been chosen for the job. The more she saw of the hospital, the more she longed to work there, to be a part of it.

  Sister picked up the telephone. “Switchboard? Could you find me Dr. Royston, please?”

  She looked over to Diana. “All the doctors carry automatic buzzers in their white coats, Dr. Field, so we can find them wherever they are.”

  Then she spoke into the phone. “Dr. Royston? Sister Baker here. Very well, thank you. It’s about Mrs. Phillips. Her temperature and pulse rate have both risen since the ward rounds this morning, and the drip into her arm has nearly blocked up. Five days since you took out her gall bladder. You’ll come? Thank you, Dr. Royston.”

  Sister Baker replaced the receiver and looked seriously at Diana. “The wound hasn’t started to heal, either. Nobody knows what on earth could have gone wrong. Dr. Royston says he did it the same way he’s done hundreds of those gall bladders.”

  The door burst open. “Hello, Nan! It’s not like you to be sitting down. Feeling all right?”

  An elegant, cheerful-looking woman with an armful of files had swept into the office. She was about the same age as Sister Baker.

  “Only feeling old. 45 tomorrow, you know,” replied Sister, smiling. “Have you met Dr. Field? She’s applying for our house surgeon job, now that Dr.
Buchan has finished his six months. Dr. Field, this is Kate Harvey, Mr. Cole’s secretary.”

  Diana shook hands with Miss Harvey, who went on talking quickly. “As long as the house surgeons dictate their letters to me slowly and clearly, I’m happy. As for you, Nan, you’ve told me at least six times in the last week about your birthday tomorrow. But you needn’t worry. No gray hairs, a nice figure. You look ten years younger than you are, doesn’t she, Dr. Field? Not like me! I have to cook for Father, and you know how he eats.”

  “It’s time you came to stay with me again, Kate,” said Sister. “I get lonely at weekends. You always make me feel better.”

  Miss Harvey put a typed notice on the desk. “Here are the operation lists for the next few days. Looks as if you’ll be busy.”

  Sister Baker glanced down at it. “Two gastrectomies, three gall bladders. I suppose Mr. Cole is getting in as much big stuff as he can before going off to Zurich next week.”

  “He doesn’t really like those surgical conferences,” confided Miss Harvey, smiling, “but he’s always in a much better mood when he comes back from them. I’m looking everywhere for him at the moment. I have all these letters for him to sign, and I can see it’s going to be one of those days when I chase him all over the hospital! My poor feet! See you later, Nan!” And Miss Harvey had gone.

  It was late afternoon and the ward was fairly quiet; “The best time of day,” said Sister Baker. She took Diana into the side room where Mrs. Phillips, usually so cheerful and talkative, was now pale and gasping for breath. She was a fat, blonde woman, the proud mother of six sons. Plasma dripped silently into her arm from a bottle above the bed, and a nurse was measuring the blood pressure of the other arm. A shaft of sunlight, coming through the long window, illuminated a photograph of two children, and a pink hyacinth in a bow on the bedside table.

  Mrs. Phillips turned her head slowly. “I’m not going to die, am I, Sister?” she asked softly. There were tears in her eyes.

  Sister Baker was smoothing out the sheet. “Of course you’re not, my dear. We’ll have you well in no time.”

  Diana thought of the hundreds of patients who must have been comforted by those words from Sister Baker.

  Back in the office they found Mark Royston.

  “Hi, Sister!”

  Sister Baker winced. “Another of those horrible expressions you must have picked up in America, Dr. Royston!”

  He was grinning. “Heard the news? They’ve just put up the notice. Dr. Field’s been chosen. We now have a female house surgeon. How d’you like that? Congratulations, Diana!”

  Diana felt herself flush with excitement. She was a house surgeon! Her first job. A real doctor at last. She could hardly believe it.

  Sister Baker was nodding approvingly. “I’m very pleased. I’m sure you’ll be much better than some of the young men we’ve been having recently. They think they know too much.”

  “And thank goodness I don’t have to put up any more drips,” said Mark. “I’m 32. Too old for that sort of thing.”

  A twinkle came into Sister’s eye. “You’ll have to behave yourself now Dr. Royston.”

  “What do you mean?” he protested. “You know I always do!”

  She looked at her watch. “I’ve just enough time for a cup of tea and a short gossip with Sister Burns from men’s medical.”

  Mark leaped forward to hold the door for her. “Allow me, Sister,” he murmured, bowing from the waist. With short, quick steps she left the office, laughing, and he followed her out. Diana heaved a deep sigh of contentment.

  That evening, Diana was happily unpacking. She had a large sitting room at the back of the hospital, on the fifth floor, overlooking the children’s block. There was a comfortable sofa in the middle of the room and a small writing table in one corner. Through a connecting door was the tiny bedroom. Mark had been wrong. The rooms were empty and waiting for her.

  As she carefully arranged her books along the shelves, she was still feeling slightly bewildered by all the new, exciting experiences that had filled the last few days.

  First, there had been the arrival of the telegram, telling her she had qualified as a doctor. Diana’s mother cried with happiness. Her father, who had been a general practitioner until he retired, told her, “You’ve a wonderful life ahead of you now. We’re both very proud of you, Diana.”

  There was the overwhelming relief and sense of achievement; the realization that all those examinations and hours spent alone, surrounded by textbooks, had not been wasted.

  She visited the hospital in London where she had been a student. The consultant surgeons and physicians who taught there had congratulated her, while the junior students looked on enviously.

  And now this hospital already felt like home. It had seemed to smile at her in the sunshine as she came through the gate that morning. Mr. Cole was abrupt but friendly, and she had heard of his high reputation as a surgeon. The other doctors—what was her registrar’s name? Mark somebody—were all very pleasant.

  Then Diana wondered what Richard was doing that evening, and realized, a little guiltily, that it was the first time she had thought of him in the past few days. But she knew why. Richard had been a part of her life in Oxford, and later, when she was a medical student in London. But now things were different. A hospital has an existence of its own, 24 hours a day of activity. There would be little time for their visits to the ballet, for weekends together at her parents’ home, or for those tennis parties. She would have to live and breathe surgery, if she was to fulfil her ambition to be a surgeon.

  Alone in her room, and content to be alone, she walked over to the window and looked up at the star-studded sky. Then she heard the beautiful notes of a Chopin nocturne coming from the room across the corridor, and she smiled contentedly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “We’ll see Mrs. Phillips first, Sister!” shouted Mr. Cole, as soon as he was through the door of Charity Ward.

  So began Diana’s first round of her ward.

  Mr. Lawrence Cole quickly led the way, rattling the keys and money in his pocket, which meant he was in a hurry to get on. Sister Baker followed close behind. When Diana had met her the previous day she knew immediately that they would get on well together. Anybody could see that she was efficient and kind, but Diana was glad of her maturity and sense of humor. Mark sauntered along after Sister, with Diana, feeling rather nervous, at the end of the line.

  They visited 32 beds; 32 women. Young, old; too fat, too thin; beautiful, plain. Some were dying, some waited for an operation, others were recovering from one. Symptoms were discussed, examinations made, treatment reviewed, progress assessed.

  “It’s no good. We’ll have to take Mrs. Phillips to the theater again and close that opening,” declared Mr. Cole, lighting his pipe. “What do you say, Royston?”

  They had all returned to Sister’s office for coffee.

  Mark looked worried. “I guess there’s nothing else for it. The thing’s just not healing.”

  “It’s my feeling that the hole on the outside connects up with another one in the gut, probably made by one of the instruments during the operation.” Seeing Mark frown, Mr. Cole added hastily, “Might happen to anyone.”

  He went on, “I’d better do this repair myself. I’d like to see if my hunch is right.”

  Mark grunted. “I was thinking—my newly acquired degree. Those magic letters F.R.C.S., they didn’t teach me how to avoid this sort of thing. Back in Sydney we used to think they meant a lot; now I’m not so sure. As I get older, I’m coming to the conclusion that a really first-rate surgeon is made in the wards and the theater.”

  Mr. Cole nodded knowingly at his registrar. “And that’s after he gets his Fellowship, not before.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, sir.”

  Diana stood silently sipping her coffee, absorbing every word, savoring every minute. This was a new experience. She was with the surgeons now, a part of their discussions, hearing their decisions; no longer a me
re student, treated as a necessary evil by everyone in the hospital.

  “See you both in the theater this afternoon,” said Mr. Cole as he left the office in a haze of tobacco smoke.

  “Get four bottles of blood ready, Dr. Field,” Mark said sternly. He might have said “please,” she thought. “Organize the anesthetist. We’ll do Mrs. Phillips at the beginning of the afternoon’s list—and tell the theater.”

  Diana hurriedly left the office, followed by Sister, who was saying, “Mr. Cole will want Mrs. Phillips to have a cut-down for the drip in her arm. He’s very keen on this before operating.” Diana felt herself go cold. A cut-down! She’d never done one in her life. The house surgeons always used to do them. Then she remembered that she was the house surgeon now. A feeling of panic swept over her. Had Sister noticed anything wrong?

  “Thank you for telling me that, Sister,” she murmured, and walked quickly out of the ward.

  On the way to the pathology lab she tried to think of all the things to be done before the afternoon’s list—collect the blood, tell the anesthetist, phone the theater, put up Mrs. Phillip’s drip ... and two new patients being admitted to the ward before lunch!

  Diana imagined Mr. Cole saying to Mark Royston, “How are you finding our new house surgeon?” To which the reply would probably be, “I reckon she’ll be all right, when she knows her way around.”

  But at that moment Diana found herself completely lost and arrived at the dispensary by mistake. “I’ll never find my way around here,” she thought, for the second time.

  At last, half an hour later, breathless but with all the jobs done, she arrived back in Charity Ward. She had decided that there was only one thing to do about the cut-down—admit to her registrar that she had never actually done one herself. If he flew into a rage, surely that was better than Mr. Cole flying into one during the operation?

  Sister Baker came out of the ward kitchen and smiled at Diana. It was almost as if she guessed something was wrong. Perhaps she had helped so many house surgeons on their first day. “Everything all right, Dr. Field?”