“None so far. That’s actually the point of my job, Dr. Chao.” I had gotten her name from the assignment sheet I’d received a half hour earlier. Being on call meant catching up quickly. Notes from others who had worked with her mentioned she had a tendency toward hostility, which is why I stopped by Reeves’ office and asked her come up with me to the scrub room.

“This is crap, Sheila,” Chao said. She was done scrubbing and turned off the water with her elbows. “You know it’s crap. Check my record. I’ve never had cause for one of them,” she jerked her head in my direction, “to interfere with my work.”

Reeves had one of those set looks of patience that suggested to me that this was not the first time she’d had this discussion with Chao. “It’s not up to me, Helen, and you know it. The insurance insists on it. The family signed off on it. The law says that we have to allow him to be present in the operating room.”

“And to interfere with the operation.”

“He’s allowed to intervene if necessary, yes.”

“Intervene, hell. Interfere.” Chao jabbed an elbow at me. “This jackass has no medical experience at all. He’s not even a nurse—no offense,” she said to the nurse near her, who gave the briefest of nods, “and you’re trying to tell me he’s in some way competent to make a medical judgment?”

“I checked his rating, Helen. He’s exemplary in all categories. Across the board.”

“And that means exactly nothing, because he’s not a doctor. You’re taking away my right to give the best care I can to my patients, and all you have to say to me about it is ‘the insurance insists on it.’ It’s crap, Sheila. It’s crap and I shouldn’t have to work this way. No surgeon should have to.”

“You and I don’t disagree, Helen. But the point is it doesn’t matter whether I agree with you or not. It doesn’t matter if you like the policy. We have to allow him into the room. If we don’t and something goes wrong, the hospital is open to being sued for negligence. And so are you. We have this argument every single time. It doesn’t change.”

“You could make it hospital policy not to allow them in surgery at all.”

“We could, yes. And then we’d go bankrupt because insurers wouldn’t refer their patients to us and the U.S. Government wouldn’t allow us to handle Medicaid cases. As you know.”

Chao stared angrily at Reeves and then finally looked over to me. “Your name again,” she said.

“Tony Valdez.”

“Where’s your instrument?”

“I was told there was one in the operating room already.” I looked over to the nurse by Chao, who nodded.