The drive to Mercy General took me two hours and thirty-eight minutes. I know because I checked the clock each time I ended a call, and I spent nearly the entire drive on the phone. I called Ethan first, more than once, both to keep him from being discharged and to monitor the progression of his symptoms as best I could from eighty miles away. His pain was getting worse. He had trouble sitting upright. He felt feverish and weak. The nausea came in waves. At one point he said, in a voice he was trying and failing to keep steady, “Dad, it feels like something is tearing inside me.” That sentence lodged in my ribcage and stayed there.
Between calls to him, I started calling colleagues. Medicine is a smaller world than outsiders think. Give a doctor a name, a hospital, and fifteen minutes, and he can usually find someone who trained with that physician, worked with him, referred to him, or heard the stories people only tell each other in hallways and conference bars. I made three calls before I got the one that mattered. Dr. I. Simmons had worked with Leonard Vance years earlier and did not sound surprised when I told him why I was asking.
“Garrison,” he said flatly, “Vance is a lazy doctor coasting on credentials. He profiles patients. Makes snap judgments. Doesn’t do the diagnostic work if he thinks he’s already figured them out from across the room. I’ve heard he’s especially bad with young men. Assumes they’re all addicts looking for a fix.”
“Has he ever been disciplined?”
A humorless sound came through the speaker. “Complaints, yes. Consequences, no. Mercy has protected him. Administration settles quietly. Keeps things from becoming official whenever it can.”
“What kind of complaints?”
“Inadequate care. Dismissed symptoms. Delayed diagnoses. The usual pattern.” Simmons lowered his voice slightly, though there was no one else on the line. “If your son is as sick as you think he is, don’t waste time arguing. Get there. Get another physician involved. And document everything.”