The Vulture and the Phoenix by Carl Douglass

Author:Carl Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594333620
Publisher: Publication Consultants

CHAPTER

Twenty-Two

Interest in the malpractice suit diminished in inverse proportion to the amount of news let out to fuel the excitement. People forgot about Garven, the defendant, and once again looked on him as the peerless researcher, professor, and clinician. At the end of academic year 1971, Kent Ashcroft, now a second year resident, came to see Garven in his office.

“Dr. Wilsonhulme, I just learned that the hospital can’t defend me. They say there’s a conflict of interest or something. Anyway I have to get a new lawyer. It looks to me like they are going to get the OR nurses to testify against me. I wish I could have gotten out of it like you did, but I guess they look at me as the surgeon responsible. They say we’re going to trial in three or four months if we don’t settle. What do you think I ought to do?”

Garven took a sober interest.

“Kent, I think you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Candidly, I doubt if you can win this case; and you will spend a fortune defending yourself. I have given this thing a lot of thought. Here’s what I would do. I would settle now before you incur any more costs. It doesn’t really matter what the amount of the settlement is, you don’t have that kind of money. I know this is tough to swallow, but I would simply file for bankruptcy once the settlement is reached. You don’t make anything as a resident, and you have three more years to go. You might even add a sabbatical. I can arrange that, and that will add another year.”

Kent sighed.

“Just what I wanted to hear, another year of beating my brains out, and be completely broke to boot.”

“It’s crappy, but it’s not forever. You get to keep your means of transportation, your residence, and one gun under California’s Homestead provisions. That’s something. I have another suggestion in addition to the idea of the sabbatical. You would probably be better off to finish your residency outside California. That would put you more out of sight and out of mind.”

Kent hung his head. He knew he had to capitulate.

“Anywhere in mind for the sabbatical and for the change of residencies?” he asked, and Garven knew, with that question, that his own problems with the Powers malpractice suit would vanish.

He had a small pang of guilt about it, but he did not let it get in the way of what he had to do.

“I think you could profitably spend the year in France with Professor Guiot. If you want, I will contact him. The University of Miami program is getting underway. I can get you in there as a third year when you get back from France. What do you think of that?”

“Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I suppose,” said Kent.

With the options open to him, he could see no better possibility. At least he would be able to finish his residency and get into practice.

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