Thomas turns away from the basket filled with Jordyn’s shoes, a hairbrush, a pair of socks, a soccer ball and an array of books and magazines and carries the jacket to the sink and turns on the cold water. He reaches into the cupboard for a stain stick and plastic jug of ammonia. It would be a shame, he thinks, scrubbing vigorously at the stubborn spot, if the jacket ended up being ruined.

Dr. Madeline Gideon September 14, 2018

Dr. Madeline Gideon

September 14, 2018

I got the call about Cora Landry last April. I had rushed into my office to check my messages and to catch up on some paperwork before my next appointment. I had four voice mails. One from the parent of a patient hoping to reschedule their session, two from pharmaceutical reps and one from a fellow doctor at the hospital—Leo Soto, an ER doc with a smooth, timbered voice and a soothing bedside manner. He wanted me to stop down if I had time. A young girl had been brought in by ambulance early that morning with stab wounds. She was heading into surgery soon to repair the wounds from an attack. Extensive reconstructive work to her face was expected.

Due to the violent attack, Dr. Soto anticipated a need for psychological support for the girl and her family. I remember looking at my watch. I was buried beneath paperwork and my next appointment was due to arrive shortly. It sounded like an interesting case.

After getting the call from Dr. Soto, I made my way through the hospital’s maze of corridors and skywalks that admitted over twenty thousand patients per year and had more than thirty thousand ER visits. I was only one of about seven hundred physicians employed by the hospital but I loved the bustle, brainpower and the diversity the hospital had to offer. Plus, as a divorcee with no children it housed the only family I have left in the world. To get from the psychiatric tower to the emergency department I took an elevator down three floors and walked what felt like a mile.

“Thank you for coming down, Madeline,” Dr. Soto said, greeting me. He was tall and slender. A dark-skinned man, with neatly trimmed silver hair and a matching mustache. At six-feet tall he and I, in my one-inch heels, were the same height. “I’ll take you to see Cora and her parents,” he said. “Cora is heavily sedated right now but if you can just say a few words to the mother and father about the resources available to them, I know it will be helpful.”

“Of course,” I agreed. Once assessed, each patient in the emergency room has a private room that shields them from the craziness of the ER. Behind the sliding Plexiglas door was a preteen girl lying in the hospital bed. Her facial wounds were hidden beneath swaths of gauze, but even so, I could see that significant damage had been done.