The Homecoming: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross

Author:Joann Ross [Ross, Joann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literature & Fiction, United States, Romance, Contemporary, Historical, Romantic Suspense, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense
ISBN: 0451230671
Amazon: B003QMLC2O
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2010-07-05T22:00:00+00:00

26

Faith was tired. Not just the usual long-day-topped-off-by-emergency-surgery tired. But fatigued with a weariness that went all the way to the bone.

She’d been feeling this way for months, even before Ben had been killed, which was why she couldn’t merely blame her depression on having been widowed.

Realizing that the old adage about a lawyer representing himself was applicable to doctors, as well, she’d also had a full physical with her own internist, who’d ruled out clinical depression, and any physical reasons for what she could only describe as malaise.

And, although she hated to admit it, dammit, boredom.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her work. She did. And just when cutting open a brain might seem to have become routine, she’d catch a rare case like Danny Sullivan’s, and that old adrenaline burst she’d first experienced as an intern on neurological rotation would kick in.

But like all adrenaline bursts, while exciting at the time, it only left her feeling even more drained.

She’d also discovered that she disliked the paperwork involved with serving as the hospital’s administrator. Soon after Shelter Bay Memorial Hospital had been bought by a health provider with several other medical facilities under its corporate umbrella, she’d been surprised to be offered the job by the company’s CEO.

She had, of course, gone home and discussed the offer with Ben. Although, until his dying day, he continued to believe he’d done the right thing for his family by moving from Portland to the slower-paced existence of Shelter Bay, and while she hadn’t hesitated when he’d suggested the idea, there’d been times over the years when he’d expressed regrets about the professional sacrifice she’d been forced to make.

Despite having always assured him, whenever the subject came up, that she was perfectly happy with how her life had turned out, Faith secretly missed the excitement working in a city hospital provided. So she’d accepted the job, hoping that it would provide a career challenge she’d been missing.

Instead, she’d found herself drowning in meetings and reports, many of which seemed unnecessary, others downright trivial.

Not that her job was trivial. Just the opposite. After all, the majority of U.S. health care was provided by small community hospitals like Shelter Bay’s, rather than large, academically affiliated tertiary-care centers such as OHSU.

But while all medical care facilities faced the same difficulties with financial pressures, increasing regulation, public reporting, and increasingly complicated health care for an aging population, the impact of those problems was magnified in smaller hospitals. The same way waves were more likely to capsize rowboats than ocean freighters.

She’d gone into medicine to fix people. To make them better. Which she liked to believe she’d done way more often than not. And those times when a patient would show up with brain cancer or an inoperable tumor, she liked to believe she’d helped make their inevitable passing a little easier.

Although she’d never adopted the God complex so many of her peers seemed to wear like a second skin, having worked with a range of administrators

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