Chapter 3 - THE NOTE HE CHANGED TOO LATE
Denise asked me not to discuss the matter with hospital staff while privacy and compliance reviewed the access history.
I agreed.
Then I did something harder.
I stopped looking.
For one full day.
My doctor had warned me stress could slow recovery, and I was still waking exhausted after ten hours of sleep.
So I took a walk along Lake Michigan.
Bought soup.
Called my mother.
Pretended life was ordinary.
At 4:20 p.m., Marcus showed up outside my building.
The doorman called upstairs.
“Ms. Hayes, your husband is here.”
“Ex-husband soon.”
The doorman paused.
“Do you want me to send him away?”
“Yes.”
Marcus stayed in the lobby forty minutes.
Then Sarah called.
“He contacted my office.”
“What did he want?”
“To discuss reconciliation.”
I laughed.
“Two weeks ago he couldn’t take an elevator.”
“I mentioned that.”
“What did he say?”
“That you don’t understand the pressure he was under.”
Of course.
Pressure had become his favorite word.
Then Sarah’s tone changed.
“He also asked whether you have downloaded hospital records.”
My laughter disappeared.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He asked if your divorce decision was based only on him not visiting or ‘other hospital misunderstandings.’”
He knew.
Or suspected.
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
Good.
That evening, Denise sent me a secure message.
Compliance wanted an interview.
Not because of the twenty-seven accesses alone.
Because Marcus’s account had accessed five additional patient charts outside his normal surgical service during the transplant initiative.
All five patients had suffered serious post-operative infections.
My stomach dropped.
“Why would a cardiac surgeon access infection cases?”
Denise did not know.
Then she told me something else.
All five patients had received the same experimental immunosuppression-management protocol used in the international transplant project.
My case was different.
I wasn’t a transplant patient.
But during my hospitalization, one medication from that program had briefly appeared on my chart.
Not administered.
Ordered.
Then canceled.
I searched my report.
There it was.
October 11.
A drug I had never noticed because it was canceled before administration.
Order entered:
M. HAYES, MD.
Order canceled eleven minutes later:
R. PATEL, MD.
Reason:
WRONG PATIENT.
My blood ran cold.
Maybe it truly was an error.
Doctors click the wrong chart.
Systems fail.
People make mistakes.
But then I checked the timestamp.
8:41 p.m.
One minute before Marcus changed my antibiotic dose.
Two separate orders.
Same session.
Same computer.
Marcus had not merely opened the wrong patient by accident.
May you like
He had actively entered two changes.
And according to the workstation log, he had done it from the transplant research office.
