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was a young child, two or three years old, his face a dusky blue. He wasn’t breathing.
    “Somebody help me!” she screamed, her eyes wide with fear. “Lord, save my baby!”
    We all jumped up at the same instant. But it was Lori who turned the corner of the nurses’ station first.
    “Let’s go!”

Without Ceasing
    “Now that’s an answer to prayer.” Lori Davidson was smiling, watching the ambulance-entrance doors close behind Darren Whipple.
    She took a deep breath and turned back to the chart on the counter.
    “Darren? An answer to prayer?” Darren Whipple had been one of my partners for more than a dozen years, and I had just relieved him from his overnight shift. What prayer was he an answer to?
    Lori put her pen down and looked over at me.
    “Can’t you tell the difference? Don’t you think he’s—”
    “Easier to get along with.” Virginia Granger interrupted the nurse and walked over beside us. “Yes, he’s easier to get along with,” she repeated.
    “That’s not what I…” Lori faltered. “Yes, he’s easier to get along with, but I meant he seems to be…nicer—different.”
    “Wait a minute.” I turned and faced the two women. “What’s going on here? What are we talking about?”
    “We’re talking about your partner, Darren Whipple.” Virginia peered at me over her bifocals. “Don’t tell me you’ve been unaware of the problems we’ve had of late.”
    “Problems? With Darren again? I thought that was resolved months ago, when I had that long talk with him.”
    Virginia frowned and shook her head. “Apparently your little talk didn’t have the effect you thought it did. Or maybe it just didn’t stick.”
    Darren Whipple was a well-trained and efficient emergency physician. He had joined us right out of his residency and immediately fit in with the ER and medical staff. His “claim to fame,” as he referred to it, was that his great-grandfather had been a famous surgeon and had an intricate abdominal surgical procedure named after him.
    “I have an uncle nicknamed ‘Bones,’ ” Amy Connors had said when she first heard this story. “Does that make me famous?”
    Darren quickly came to understand the secretary’s unusual sense of humor, and the two became good friends. In fact, Darren seemed to be friends with everyone in the department.
    That began to change about a year ago. There was not one particular instance, or individual patient that seemed to trigger things, but Darren gradually became more distant, quieter. “Distracted” was the word Virginia had used.
    Over a few months, all the signs began to declare themselves: physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, doubt about what he was doing and why. Virginia was the first to see and understand. It took me longer. Darren was burning out.

    “Dr. Whipple, here are the labs you requested.” The young lab tech put the slips of paper on the counter next to the chart of the cardiac patient. Darren was standing there, running streams of heart tracings through his fingers, searching for some clue as to why this man was having blackouts.
    The tech had almost made it to the door when Whipple yelled at her.
    “Where are his electrolytes? I need to know his sodium and potassium!”
    She turned, ducked her head, and mumbled, “Dr. Whipple, you didn’t order electrolytes. You only ordered—”
    “I most certainly ordered them! What’s the matter with you? I’m trying to take care of this man and you’re…you’re…Oh, get out of here!”
    The tech backpedaled, broke into tears, and scurried down the hall.
    Darren looked at his wide-eyed patient, grabbed the clipboard, and stomped out of the room and over to the nurses’ station.
    “Here.” He handed the clipboard of cardiac to the doctor working with him. “I need to take a break.” He stalked down the hallway and disappeared into our lounge.
    That was the first of several quickly recurring episodes. Invariably Darren would lose his temper,