I look over the paperwork I forged, changing the number on the folder. “Yes,” I agree. “That’s mine.”
He takes the paper back and nods. “Right. I got curious as to the line that was crossed off. And then I noticed that the next thing signed by Dr. Adams was the daily sheet which verified each coordinating number with the vial given.” Westin holds the paper for everyone to see.
“Correct, and that’s—” I begin.
He keeps going, cutting me off again. “That’s when I noticed that the correction form was missing.”
“Yes,” I sigh.
There’s no point, he’s out for blood and I’m hemorrhaging right now. Might as well let him save himself. It’s all going to come out eventually.
“Now, I conferred with Dr. Ney and she said she didn’t sign off on anything. The same with Dr. Wells and the other advisors.”
Of course, no one signed off because I fucking did it myself. He knows this. He’s just digging the damn hole deeper and then covering me with the soil. Westin stops, looks at me with a disappointed look, and I want to stab him with a pencil.
“I’m aware of this,” my voice is so detached it doesn’t sound like me.
“I wasn’t sure why this would be missing from a trial run by a doctor who has impeccable organizational skills. So, I started digging further,” Westin continues. “I looked into the other trial patients as well, wondering how many more errors I might find. I was looking for files that were missing the other advisor’s signature or mine. It wasn’t until I opened Lindsay Dunphy’s file, the patient who was dismissed the day the trial began, that I found the unsigned document,” he gives me a pointed stare.
What is he doing? He’s lying because there is no paper that was in a file. I look at him, begging him to stop this before there’s no way out, not wanting to let him get even more tangled in this mess.
Westin continues. “You see, Dr. Adams made a clerical error. The document would’ve been signed had it not have been placed in the wrong patient file. Which is why it’s unsigned,” he says while looking around the room. “While I know following procedure is a priority here, I’m sure we wouldn’t want to crucify a doctor who has always given her patients the best medical care possible over a lost paper. More than that, punishing Dr. Adams would be a great disservice to the patients she’s saved and could save.”
“Dr. Grant,” I interrupt.
His eyes meet mine and I can’t breathe. “There are things that we do that are forgivable when it’s in the best interest of the patient, Dr. Adams. Things that are foolish, but come from a place of caring. That day, you’d suffered the loss of a patient, along with a lot of other things that clearly led to you being out of sorts.”
Every muscle locks, and I don’t want to think he’s found some way to forgive me because if he’s just covering his ass, it’ll decimate me. But Westin is standing in front of the room, commanding it, and eliminating any chance of me telling the truth now. If I do, it’ll make him look like a fool and a liar.
I had a plan. I was going to do this the right way, and maybe a small part of me hoped that Westin would see that and find a way to at least not hate me. Now I don’t know what to do, but my judgment hasn’t been the best in the last few weeks, so I stay quiet.
I’ll follow his lead and hope he’s not leading me into the fire.
Dr. Pascoe clears his throat. “So the paper was filled out, but put in the wrong file, which resulted in it not being signed by the auditing and advising doctors?”
“It appears that it was,” I say, corroborating Westin’s story.
“Well,” he sighs.
“Since the medication wasn’t the cause of Allison Brown’s death, Dr. Adams clearly wasn’t at fault. We’ve read and reviewed the reports along with the surgical notes. Dr. Adams handled things exactly as she should’ve, so I don’t believe that the review board should take any drastic measures.”
Dr. Ney speaks now. “I agree, this was clearly an oversight of a very prestigious doctor.” She gives me a sad smile.
I feel worse than I did thinking I’d lose my job. Westin put his entire career on the line and lied on my behalf. He covered for me when he never should have.
Dr. Pascoe looks around. “But still, we can’t allow doctors not to have major forms signed. If the FDA or NIH were to look at this, the hospital would face serious repercussions. We could lose our research hospital status, making it difficult to run further trials.”
Westin still doesn’t look at me, but he nods slowly, seeming to process what he says. “I would suggest a probationary period of three months, a two-week suspension, and a formal reprimand,” Westin suggests. “It’s a message that these things can’t happen, but we also understand it wasn’t malicious.”
Basically, a slap on the wrist, but it will go on my record. I came in here ready to lose my job and no longer practice medicine, and instead, he’s talking about a much more lenient punishment.
The question remains, why would he defend me? After we spoke, it was clear he couldn’t forgive me, so why now?
“I would agree,” Dr. Pascoe says. “Does the board have any further questions?”
Everyone’s head shakes and then they start to get out of their seats.
In all of my imagined versions of how this would go, never in a million years was this it. I could never have hoped I would still be a doctor here or that Westin would defend me. I’m not sure how to process it.
A part of me wanted to be punished. Punished much more severely than the consequences I’m looking at now.
The guilt was all-consuming, and now there’s a new wave of it.
I stand here, as they file out. Dr. Pascoe walks over. He smiles, touches my shoulder, and squeezes. “This hospital needs you. I think maybe you should take a few weeks and allow Dr. Ney to work on the trial in your absence, okay?”
I’ve never known him to advise doctors to take time off. “Okay?”
His hand drops and he sighs. “When my top doctor needs to take days off after a patient loss, it’s something deeper. Take the time, Serenity. Recharge and then come back to work. The two weeks wasn’t because of the patient, but for you.”
Westin walks over and shakes Dr. Pascoe’s hand. “I’ll be by your office in a few minutes. I just need to handle something,” he explains.
They share a look and Dr. Pascoe nods and leaves.
“Hi,” Wes says after the room is cleared.
I don’t want to exchange pleasantries. I want to know what the hell is wrong with him. “Why?” is all I’m able to get out.
He moves in front of me, resting against the table. “I’m not a hundred percent sure I know why. When you started to go down that route, I couldn’t let you. Everything inside of me was screaming to stop you.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
“Which is why it didn’t,” he says.
Westin is no longer the controlled man from the boardroom. I can see that he’s grappling with what just happened.
“I wish you hadn’t.” I look down at the floor. “I was willing to take the fall and deal with the choice I made.”