David Coleman considered. It was true there were things he believed, but even to himself he had seldom expressed them. Now, perhaps, was a time for definition.
“I suppose the real thing,” he said slowly, “is that all of us—physicians, the hospital, medical technology—exist only for one thing: for patients, for healing of the sick. I believe we forget this sometimes. I think we become absorbed in medicine, science, better hospitals; and we forget that all these things have only one reason for existence—people. People who need us, who come to medicine for help.” He stopped. “I’ve put it clumsily.”
“No,” O’Donnell said. “You’ve put it very well.” He had a sense of triumph and of hope. Instinct had not belied him; he had chosen well. He foresaw that the two of them—as chief of surgery and director of pathology—would be good together. They would go on and build and, with them, Three Counties would progress. Not all that they wrought would be perfect; it never was. There would be flaws and failures, but at least their aims were the same, their feelings shared. They would have to remain close; Coleman was younger than himself, and there were areas in which O’Donnell’s greater experience could be of help. In these past few weeks the chief of surgery himself had learned a good deal. He had learned that zeal could lead to complacency as surely as indifference, and that disaster could be reached by many routes. But from now on he would fight complacency on every front, and Pathology, with young Dr. Coleman at its head, could be a stout right arm.
A thought occurred to him. He asked, “One more thing. How do you feel about Joe Pearson and the way he’s leaving?”
“I’m not sure,” David Coleman said. “I’ve been wishing I knew.”
“It’s not such a bad thing to be unsure sometimes. It takes us away from rigid thinking.” O’Donnell smiled. “There are some things I think you should know though. I’ve been talking with some of the older men on staff; they’ve told me incidents, things I didn’t know about.” He paused. “Joe Pearson has done a great deal for this hospital in thirty-two years—things that are mostly forgotten now or that people like you and me don’t always get to hear about. He started the blood bank, you know. It’s strange to think of it, but there was a lot of opposition at the time. Then he worked for the formation of a tissue committee; I’m told a good many staff men fought him bitterly on that. But he got the committee and it did a lot to raise the standard of surgery here. Joe did some investigative work, too—on the cause and incidence of thyroid cancer. Most of it’s generally accepted now, but few people remember that it came from Joe Pearson.”
“I didn’t know,” Coleman said. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Well, these things get forgotten. Joe brought a lot of new things into the lab, too—new tests, new equipment. Unfortunately there came a time when he didn’t do new things any more. He let himself vegetate and get in a rut. It happens sometimes.”
Suddenly Coleman thought of his own father, his strong suspicion that the sensitized blood which killed the Alexanders’ child had stemmed from a transfusion his father had given years before—given without Rh typing, even though the dangers were already known to medicine.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose it does.”
Both men had risen and moved to the door. As they went out O’Donnell said softly, “It’s a good thing for all of us to have compassion. You see, you never know whether someday you’ll need it yourself.”
Lucy Grainger said, “Kent, you look tired.”
It was early afternoon, and O’Donnell had paused in a main-floor corridor. Unnoticed, she had stopped beside him.
Dear Lucy, he thought—unchanged, warm and tender. Was it really less than a week ago that he had considered leaving Burlington and marrying Denise? At the moment it all seemed far away—a nostalgic interlude that now was nothing more. Here was where he belonged; in this place, for good or ill, was where his destiny lay.
He took her arm. “Lucy,” he said, “let’s meet soon. There’s a lot we have to talk about.”
“All right.” She smiled with affection. “You may take me to dinner tomorrow.”
Side by side, they moved on down the hallway, and it was somehow reassuring to have her beside him. He glanced sideways at her profile, and there came to him a sense of certainty that for both of them there was much that was good ahead. Perhaps it would take time to adjust, but in the end he knew they would find their future together.
Lucy was thinking: Dreams do come true; perhaps mine will—someday soon.
Dusk came early to Pathology. It was a price they paid for working in the hospital basement. Snapping lights on, David Coleman decided that one of his early projects would be to move the department to a better location. The day when pathologists were automatically relegated to the bowels of the hospital was over; light and air were as much requisites for them as for any other branch of medicine.
He entered the pathology office and found Pearson at his desk. The old man was emptying the contents of the drawers. He looked up as Coleman came in.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said, “how much junk you can accumulate in thirty-two years.”
For a moment David Coleman watched. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Pearson answered gruffly. He closed the last drawer and put papers in a case. “I hear you’re getting a new job. Congratulations.”
Coleman said, and meant it, “I wish it could have been some other way.”
“Too late to worry now.” He snapped the locks on the case and looked around. “Well, I guess that’s everything. If you find anything else you can send it with my pension check.”
“There’s something I want to tell you,” Coleman said.
“What’s that?”
Coleman spoke carefully. “The student nurse—the one who had her leg amputated. I dissected the limb this morning. You were right. I was wrong. It was malignant. Osteogenic sarcoma without a doubt.”
The old man paused. He gave the impression that his thoughts were far away. “I’m glad I didn’t make a mistake,” he said slowly, “about that anyway.”
He picked up a topcoat and moved to the door. He seemed about to go, then turned back. Almost diffidently he asked, “Do you mind if I give you some advice?”
Coleman shook his head. “Please do.”
“You’re young,” Pearson said. “You’re full of spice and vinegar—that’s good. You know your stuff too. You’re up to date—you know things that I never did, never will now. Take my advice and try to keep it that way. It’ll be tough to do; make no mistake about it.” He waved toward the desk he had just vacated. “You’ll sit ha that chair and the phone will ring, and it’ll be the administrator—talking about budgets. Next minute one of the lab staff will want to quit; and you’ll have to smooth that out. And the doctors will come in, and they’ll want this bit of information and that.” The old man smiled thinly. “Then you’ll get the salesman—the man with the unbreakable test tube and the burner that never goes out. And when you’re through seeing him there’ll be another and another and another. Until at the end of a day you’ll wonder what happened to it and what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve achieved.”
Pearson stopped and Coleman waited. He sensed that in his words the old pathologist was reliving a part of his own past. He went on, “That’s the way the next day can go, and the next, and the one after that. Until you find a year has slipped by, and another, and another. And while you’re doing all this you’ll send other people on courses to hear about the new things in medicine—because you can’t take time out to go yourself. And you’ll quit investigation and research; and because you work so hard, you’ll be tired at night, and you won’t feel like reading textbooks. And then suddenly, one day, you’ll find everything you knew is out of date. That’s when it’s too late to change.”
Emotion-charged, the voice faltered. Pearson put a hand on Coleman’s arm. He said imploringly, “Listen to an old man who’s been through it all, who made the mistake of falling behind. Don’t let it happen to you! Lock yourself in a closet if you have to! Get away from the phone and the files and paper, and read and learn and listen and keep up to date! Then they can never touch you, never say, ‘He’s finished, all washed up; he belongs to yesterday.’ Because you’ll know as much as they do—and more. Because you’ll have experience to go with it . . .”