CHAPTER FOUR: MAYNARD’S MEANDERINGS

(TUESDAY MAY 1^ST)

Now in order to get a clear picture in your mind of what I was hoping for, you need to know a bit about what Dr Maynard Beadle is really like.

Maynard is actually a very nice guy, as everyone at St Helen’s agrees, but his main problem is that he never finishes his sentences. He isn’t stupid. Far from it. In fact, he’s a really bright man, but he has so many thoughts coming into his mind at one time, that he never finishes explaining the first idea (or instruction) before going on to the second. Listening to him is the aural equivalent of watching three fat men trying to get through a narrow doorway at the same time.

To help you realize what it was like meeting Maynard for the first time, I need to give you a bit of context. I was introduced to him on my first day at St. Helen’s while I was being given the “Grand Introductory Tour” of the E.R. conducted by Maureen The Amazing Receptionist.

Every successful hospital unit has got the equivalent of Maureen The Amazing Receptionist. I’ve now worked in about six hospitals and got to know maybe two dozen units such as the E.R., the O.R. (Operating Room), the I.C.U. (Intensive Care Unit) etc. and every single one of them that works really well has a figure like Maureen at the wheel (whether or not they are truly acknowledged as the helmsman).

So I felt very good and secure as Maureen walked me round the E.R. for my orientation tour. She showed me the layout of the place, and how the patients were brought in from the ambulance bay into cubicles or, for serious cases, into the Rapid Response Area (a.k.a the crash room) and how, when there was a serious case on the way, the ambulance crew could alert the hospital in advance so that red warning lights would flash all over the department. Apparently, when that happens, everyone automatically becomes very military in their behaviour and they all say “Incoming!” loudly and strut around purposefully, getting ready for action.

Maureen also showed me where all the prescriptions and consultation forms etc are kept and then (a very important bit) how to log on to the hospital computer system and use my new I.D. number and password. Then, as the final stop on the tour, she led me over to an imposing bit of the central desk station where Dr Beadle was busy communicating with the computer.

As well as having a major problem with finishing his sentences, Maynard Beadle also has the disconcerting habit of punctuating his monologue with what he clearly hopes will be a reassuring and winning smile. It is neither. Because he never parts his lips when he smiles, and he only smiles with the bottom part of his face, the facial expression which he hopes will be a reassuring grin comes over as an uncontrollable and bizarre tic, like a mild and intermittent case of strychnine poisoning.

Let me try and give you a rough impression of what Maynard said to me when Maureen introduced us to each other on that first day:

Maureen: Dr Beadle, this is Dr Ferguson – he’s filling in for two months instead of Dr Atkins.

Maynard: (looking up from computer work Station): Ah!..Yes… Ferguson. Right….(realizes that this is a first meeting, so stands up and does the half-smile) So, you’re the new….Good. (Puts his hand forward as for a handshake, then changes his mind and claps both hands together in what he clearly thinks is an encouraging and motivating gesture) Right, then…(peculiar half-smile) Well, as Maureen has probably shown you…(points vaguely round the whole E.R.) And for cardiac arrests… So if there’s ever…(looks towards the cardiac resuscitation area) OK? And the flashing red light (indicates the ‘incoming alert’ signal light)… yes. And the bells. The bells… (Sounding a bit like a poetry reading now) Yes, the bells. Right…. And if you ever need…(puts left hand with fingers spread to left ear imitating a phone, then another half-smile) And I really mean any time….So! (Another half-smile) Right! You’d better start by… (waves vaguely towards the cubicles awaiting the patients) But don’t forget to…(mimics writing by signing the air) And also, never….Yes. Right... And one other thing…If it ever happens that… so always make sure you…so they can’t say you didn’t…that’s most important. And also….hmmm…ummm…you….yes… you can take your lunch break at 12.30. OK? Right. (Does the half-smile again, claps his hands together and turns back to computer work-station)

That was what Maynard was like when I first met him, and now four weeks after that introduction, I had, at long last, a really interesting story to tell him. So I looked round the cafeteria contentedly, hoping to sight the benign Dr Beadle.

Instead of which, I saw striding into the room the one person in the hospital that nobody liked: the Chief of Medical Staff, Dr Bernard Hoffbrand.

At that moment I would rather have been anywhere on earth – even the North Pole – than in the cafeteria in St Helen’s Hospital, Houston, within ten yards of Dr Hoffbrand. So perhaps this is a good moment to explain how I actually came to be in Houston in the first place (and not somewhere more welcoming and comfortable such as the North Pole). It’s a rather strange story.