Act of Mercy by John Bishop

Author:John Bishop [Bishop MD, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

23

MOURNING DOVES

Buck lived in a beautiful home on the water in a small gated community with only four houses. He asked us to come over at four in the afternoon so that we could enjoy a boat ride at sunset. He had a spectacular view across Lake LBJ, with two boat docks adjacent to his large patio. He loaded a couple of bottles of wine and some snacks into what I would call a speedboat, and we three took off across the lake, slowly building up speed after we passed through the “No Wake” zone.

Once he reached cruising speed, talking was difficult. So, Mary Louise and I sipped our wine and munched on small smoked-salmon bites on crackers with cream cheese and capers. Once we were out in the middle of the lake, Buck slowed the boat down and steered it off to the east side of the lake and into a cove. There was a large home in the center of the cove, with vacant land on either side. Parked in the dock were two Jet Skis, a speed boat, and a large Duffy electric cruising boat.

“My wife Alicia died twelve years ago of breast cancer. She had been with me since medical school, so it was a great loss to me. I think I mentioned that I started out in family practice, then got lucky in the oil business with some old friends and became a wealthy man. I worked in the oil fields for a while but got bored with it. I wanted to be in some area of medicine but just didn’t want the day-to-day grind. Alicia had this idea that we should build a state-of-the-art hospital, along with satellite clinics for patients’ convenience. She and I had talked about it for years. Once she died, I was paralyzed for a year, couldn’t really do anything. Then, I woke up one morning and decided the hospital would be a great project in her honor.

“I gathered together some of my wealthy friends, here and in the Austin area, and put together a plan. We all put in money to finance construction, then partnered with a large hospital/clinic conglomerate out of Dallas, got our certificate of need from the State of Texas, and went to work. It took two years to build the hospital and clinic buildings and another year to get it staffed. We were not guaranteed any patients, of course, so we worked on the concept from the movie Field of Dreams: if you build it, they will come. And they did. We’ve been up and running for seven years. We pay top dollar for nursing and ancillary staff. The docs all get a generous salary, and the hospital covers their overhead costs, malpractice insurance, and continuing-medical-education expenses, along with a generous vacation package. The dream Alicia and I had years ago had come to fruition. I enjoyed myself immensely for a while, and then got bored again.

“About that time, Madeline O’Rourke got in touch with me.

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