Read Critical Judgment (1996) for Free Online Page A

shower.”
    “I understand.”
    Abby liked that she heard nothing judgmental in the nurse’s voice. It was human for any physician or nurse to be offended by a person’s smell, or obesity, or age, or even illness. Everyone had an upbringing and a history to deal with. Everyone had sensibilities. But it was not acceptable to her when medical personnel withheld a full measure of care because of their prejudices.
    She took the chart from Bud Perlow and was reading it as she entered the room. Old Man Ives was Samuel Ives. His address was given simply as North Hills, Patience. His age was fifty-one. She wondered if, in just sixteen years, the people of Patience would be calling her Old Lady Dolan.
    She put on a paper gown and rubber gloves and began her assessment before even reaching the bedside. The man’s face had taken a pounding, but it was not as fearsome as she had imagined.
    “Mr. Ives, I’m Dr. Dolan. How’re you doing?”
    “They stole my money.”
    Abby glanced over at the paramedic, who shook his head.
    “Mr. Ives,” he said, with the overemphatic voice that most health-care workers seemed to use toward most patients, “I’ve got your wallet right here.” He slipped a plastic bag under Ives’s hand. “There’s twenty-one dollars in it. Your book and what’s left of your carvings are in the bag beneath your stretcher. They must have taken your groceries. We didn’t see them anyplace.” He turned to Abby. “The police came up to the trail with us. They think they know who did this, but Ives doesn’t want to get involved. Whoever it was stomped on his carvings. There’s not much left of them.”
    “Are you hurting anyplace except your face, sir?” Abby asked.
    Ives shook his head.
    Abby briefly checked his ribs, heart, and abdomen. There was no tenderness.
    “Any problem with your vision?”
    “Nope.”
    “Are you seeing double? Two of anything?”
    “I know what double means. No.”
    “Mr. Ives, I think we should get some X rays of your face and neck.”
    “No. They’re fine. I’ve had broken bones. I know what they feel like. I don’t have any broken bones and I don’t want any radiation.”
    Radiation
. Not the word she would have expected from this man. She peered down at him, trying to look beyond the oil-stained clothes and the gashes and the beard, trying to see through her own prejudices. Samuel Ives’s light-blue eyes were bright and piercing.
So what’s your story?
she wondered.
    She checked his eyes and cheekbones to be sure there were no gross signs of a fracture. Then she loosened his cervical collar and felt along his spine. No tenderness there, either.
    “Okay,” she said, “no X rays. I’ll be back to examine you more thoroughly, then we’ll get your face fixed.”
    Ives looked directly at her for the first time, as if surprised at the ease with which she had given in.
    “Thanks, Doc,” he said.
    “Dr. Dolan,” Bud Perlow called out from the doorway. “Could I see you please?”
    “Hang in there, Mr. Ives,” she said.
    “Dr. Dolan, a woman just brought in her six-year-old girl with a nosebleed. It’s a gusher. I put them in three rather than the pedi room because the table and the light are better.”
    “Perfect.”
    “What do you want to do about him?”
    Abby glanced at the three other patients she had yet to finish. Samuel Ives’s face was going to require several dozen carefully placed sutures. A good hour’s work.
    “Call Dr. Bartholomew and ask him to see Mr. Ives,” she said. “Is the ENT tray in with the child?”
    “On the counter.”
    The girl’s nosebleed, like most such episodes, wasn’t as bad as it looked. The few that
were
as bad as they looked were absolute nightmares, as often as not ending up in intensive care, or the operating room, or both. But though the bleeding point in this child was higher than Abby would have liked, it was reachable. She was in the process of cauterizing it with a touch of silver nitrate when a shouting