PEOPLE ARE DUMB | Cheryl Bailey
I walked past her in an empty hospital corridor. A hospital employee in scrubs, she was sitting on the floor, talking on her cell phone. Probably on break. Too early for my echocardiogram, I was wandering the halls, checking out the massive construction going on all over the medical complex. Covid was receding, but sitting in a lobby with nervous patients and families, sharingair, was still an edgy prospect.
I saw a man exit the door at the far end of the hall. As I approached I could read the sign taped “NO EXIT.” Hmm. Well, he had exited without an alarm, so I opened the door to peek outside. Dead end—I tested the doors and found I’d be locked out. It was time to return to the cardiology department.
I passed the young woman again. She was about thirty. Radiology tech, I assumed. Her lanyard with multiple ID badges was in a heap next to her, illegible to me. She told her friend on the phone, “People are dumb,” as I walked by. I didn’t entirely disagree with that statement. She continued, “Oh, this lady…” and I realized she’d been talking about me. She thought I was dumb for opening a door that was clearly marked no exit.
The anger that rose in me was so unexpected that I froze. I’d been a prominent surgeon in that hospital for over twenty years. I’d walked that very hallway with a patient dying of cervical cancer so she could get her radiation therapy. Not only was I not dumb, I was a powerhouse, walking and exploring a hospital I dearly loved. No one trifled with me.
The rage didn’t stop there. In my mind, I started denigrating the woman, sitting on a filthy hospital floor in her scrubs that should be kept clean. Unprofessional. What an embarrassment, with her long, stringy brown hair, her stupid conversation, her careless chatter overheard by her victim, I fumed. I imagined her showing up late to work and being disrespectful to patients. All of this in mere steps.
True, it didn’t exactly require psychoanalysis to understand I was mad because I was in the hospital, my hospital, as a patient, not a doctor. My heart had a dilated aortic root, not quite big enough to need repair, unless today’s test found it had changed. Unless my irritability was bad enough to cause a blowout right there.
How would she have liked that, eh? The “dumb” lady collapsing and coding right in front of her? Would she have put down her phone and called for help? Maybe, after making sure she had happy hour details firmed up. Would she have felt some remorse at my death, or would my weak heart bursting just confirm how stupid I was?
I stomped my way through the corridors, muttering as I wheeled around the familiar space. There were patients being steered on gurneys and groups of pregnant women on a pre-natal class, none of whom stepped aside for me. At sixty-one, I’ve had my share of being called “dear” or feeling invisible in stores, but no one dismissed me in the hospital. I had been the alpha wearing scrubs and a white lab coat, moving along with purpose. People accommodated me so I could get to the important job I had to do. It was beyond insulting to have been called stupid in my domain.
Still, I loved the variety of people moving in a busy hospital, an environment thick with drama. I stood to the side as a phlebotomist edged her cart into the elevator next to a worried man heading back to a relative’s bedside after a quick smoke outside. They held the door for an elderly woman using a walker who puffed with each strenuous step. Every person in a hospital has a backstory like few other places in society, and I relished it all.
That young woman’s insult at my supposed feebleness sparked an emotional trip like a flashback in a movie. From running down hallways in an obstetrics rotation, to late nights putting quarters in a vending machine for a stale egg salad sandwich, to busy clinic days, my career had been challenging and gratifying. So many memories, and so much fulfillment.
My dilated aortic arch wasn’t going to kill me, and the hospital employee wasn’t my enemy. With a sigh big enough to lower my shoulders, I tilted my head back for another deep breath. Settle down.
I turned back to talk to the woman on the floor. I would gently ask her not to be so cranky to people, especially within their hearing. My little sermon would encourage her to be kind to her elders, if only because she might be pissing off someone in a position to do her harm. Besides, I wasn’t that old. I approached the hallway corner and heard her voice.
She was crying. Sobbing, really, with the kind of gasps that warn of distress. “She just wouldn’t back away, you know? She kept saying stupid shit like ‘Covid is a hoax, vaccines are a government plot…’ You know the type. And I said, ‘Ma’am, no offense, but I have MS, I see a lot of patients every day, and I’m really trying hard not to get sick. That’s why we doctors ask everyone to get vaccinated and wear a mask. We’re all trying to stay healthy.’”
She was a doctor? How could I have missed that?
I could hear her blow her nose. I turned the corner and saw her listening to her friend on the phone. “It’s too much, Lou. I can’t take it anymore. My patients used to trust me, you know? I explained things, and if it made sense, they’d be able to stay with the program, take their meds, whatever. But this pandemic has made people gullible to the dumbest lies. Chips in the vaccine. Horse deworming pills. After a half hour telling them they’re going down the wrong rabbit hole, they still think I’m trying to make money off them.”
She paused, shaking her head. “I’m thinking about quitting medicine. I don’t have the patience to be nice, Lou. I’m suspicious of every new consult.” Chatter from the other end of her phone. “No, no, don’t worry. I’m not going to kill myself.” Then she admitted, “Well, I’ve thought about it. But I’m okay. I still say people are dumb, but I won’t do that, I promise. I won’t do that.”
I choked as I listened. I remembered terrible events in my career where I’d suffered at a patient’s death. Was it my fault? There had certainly been times when I had blamed my actions or mistakes for a bad patient outcome, and suicide can beckon when a physician loses herself in this place of despair. I knew what she was feeling.
I turned the corner. She wrapped up her call and stood. As she wiped her tears with the back of her hand, I approached her.
“I’m Dr. Randolph. I was a surgeon here for twenty years. I’m sorry to eavesdrop, but I just need you to hear how valuable you are. As horrible as this time is, I swear it will pass. And your patients will need you more than ever.” It was a struggle to compose myself.
She hid her surprise at my identity and nodded her greeting. “Carrie Emerson, Med Peds resident. I shouldn’t have been out here in public, but the resident’s room is always full, and I really needed to vent. Usually no one walks down this hallway.”
The young physician laughed. “And usually I’m not a blubbering mess. I just don’t understand how my own patients can be so cruel when I tell them I might get sick if I get Covid. How can they want to hurt their own doctor?”
She got through the ugly crying and wiped her runny nose. After stepping back to take a deep breath, she looked better, and all my ridiculous anger had vanished. “The whole world has lost its mind over the last couple years, Carrie. It’s going to take time to reset. Plus you and I just blew our social distancing and masking precautions!”
No point in telling her all the rotten things I’d made up about her. No point in admitting her phone call had triggered my own insecurity. “I hope you’ll stick with medicine. My career was such a blessing to me, and we need good doctors more than ever. Now go wash your hands and see what’s on your afternoon schedule.”
“Dr. Randolph,” she replied, “I have no idea why you came down this dead-end hallway just now, but I’m so glad you did.” She put her lanyard over her head and now I could see her photo ID establishing her as Dr. Emerson. “I’m gonna get through this damned pandemic.”
I had no doubt about that.
Cheryl Bailey is a retired gynecologic oncologist whose creative non-fiction piece “Love, Frank” was published in the Fall 2022 issue of Intima. Bailey, who has published articles for small medical journals and hospital newsletters, edits and reviews medical articles for the Journal of Medical Regulation and was a community columnist in the St. Paul Pioneer Press for a year. Her first novel is set for publication June 2024 with Calumet Editions. She is President of the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice and a Board member in the St. Paul League of Women Voters. Bailey also sings in the Mill City Singers and plays the flute in the St. Paul JCC orchestra. She lives with her husband, mom and two poorly behaved dogs.