Remission by Ofelia Martinez

Chapter 8

Assumptions

Where once there were two men in my life, now there were none. Three months had passed since the cookout, and I hadn’t seen Ramiro at all, and I’d barely spoken to Dr. Medina.

Ramiro went to join his parents in Florida, Dad told me, but then stayed there when his parents came back. He asked Dad for extended leave from the garage, and considering it was his daughter who propelled him away—his words, not mine—he found himself obliged to consent to the request.

Dr. Medina, on the other hand, had pulled a one-eighty on me. He withdrew from the friendly banter we had started. I was given no attention at rounds, and it was almost as if he couldn’t stand to look at me. I had no clue what was up his ass, but I refused to let it affect my work. Never meet your heroes—the best piece of advice I ever got that I stupidly ignored.

Focus on work, I told myself. It wasn’t easy on this particular day. I’d drawn the short straw, though I suspected foul play from Dr. Keach, and had gotten stuck teaching a sensitivity training to our year-one residents.

“We’ve had four complaints this month,” I said to the packed conference room, “of poor bedside manner.” Some of the residents had the decency to feign some semblance of shame, and some shifted in their seats. “So,” I said, “we are going to practice.”

Groans skipped down the row of doctorslike stones on water, so I lifted a hand to silence them. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t want to be here any more than you do, but this is your fault, not mine, so take it up with the chief if you don’t like it.”

They shut it at that. Even among these baby doctors, I could tell which ones had issues with women doctors or women telling them what to do in general. It was the ones who took out their cellphones when I spoke or started hushed side conversations. I narrowed my eyes and called on that type first.

“One of the complaints was from a woman who said the doctor, and I quote, ‘walked in the room, didn’t so much as say hello, read my chart, and never even looked up at my face. Then, he took a thermometer and shoved it in my mouth. He didn’t say what he was doing, and he didn’t even ask me to open my mouth. He was very rude.’” I glanced up from the screen when a couple of the doctors cackled. They shut it immediately and straightened their postures.

One hour of hell later, I dismissed all but one of the residents.

“Dr. Dennis, why don’t you join me? We have a patient who was admitted a bit late this morning, so we haven’t been to round on her.”

The redhead nodded. I purposefully selected Dr. Dennis because I remembered a distinct smile on Valentina’s face when he was around. If she had to be back in her hellhole, at least she’d have a friendly face.

Valentina had been discharged, had been feeling a bit better, but then took a bit of a turn. Now, she was back, and I’d had to admit her for major surgery. I told her last time I discharged her that I hoped not to see her until her next round of chemo, but my wish was not granted.

We found Valentina standing at her bed, facing away from the door. She rummaged through a duffle bag, muttering something to herself. She was in her hospital gown, and the part down her spine provided just enough of a peek to see her light pink underwear. I cleared my throat to announce our presence. She whipped around and smiled at the sight of me.

“Doctor Ramirez!” Her grin broke mid-sentence when her eyes drifted over my shoulder, undoubtedly seeing Dr. Dennis. She drew her hand toward her backside to seal the mighty hospital gown gap. She turned chili-pepper red, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was happy to see some color on her. “Rory—I mean, Dr. Dennis. Hi.”

“Hello, Miss Almonte,” he said.

“Valentina. Please.”

“Of course. Valentina. Hello.”

I let a moment pass between them before speaking again. “So, I thought I told you to stay away, young lady.”

“I’m trying, Doc. I’m trying really hard.”

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

She nodded. “I remember the drill vividly.”

“I know,” I said. “But I still have to go over the procedure with you. Risks, all that.”

Valentina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know that drill too.”

In that second, I got paged to Dr. Medina’s office. What now? It felt like I was being called to the principal’s office. We had barely spoken since my birthday and at work, had only interacted when absolutely necessary.

“Well, missy, if you are that bored of my rambling, maybe I’ll have the capable Dr. Dennis go over the paperwork with you. Do you mind, Dr. Dennis? I was paged.”

“Sure,” he said, taking the clipboard with the consent forms from me.

I tooka deep breath before knocking. Hector’s mood lately had all of us in the oncology department avoiding him. I wasn’t prepared to go into the lion’s den.

“Come in,” said Dr. Medina’s gruff voice from the other side of the door.

“You paged?”

“Yes, please sit down.” He smiled at me, but it wasn’t the same smile as before. There was no playfulness in his eyes, and his lips were tight.

“What’s this about?”

“You haven’t seen your email today?”

“Not since two in the afternoon. I was in charge of a training with the residents today—”

“Yes, yes,” he said, cutting me off. “Statistics got back to us. The preliminary data of the trial is in.”

“It is?” My heart raced. This step of the trial wouldn’t make or break it, but if it improved outcomes, it could mean . . . I couldn’t go there. Not without the numbers to back it up. Dr. Medina simply nodded.

“Yes. A lot of it looks promising, but I have some questions, and I’d like to go over the data with you,” he said.

“You looked at the data already?”

“Well, yes,” he said, his brow furrowing.

“Why did they send it to you?”

“I asked the statistics department to cc me when the results came in—”

My pulse quickened with a rage I knew I wouldn’t be able to tame. “You had no right. That is my data—”

“I thought you agreed we would work on this together?”

Dr. Medina looked aghast as if he couldn’t understand where I was coming from. I counted to ten to suppress the anger building. He was overstepping on my trial. He wasn’t used to people telling him ‘no,’ I could tell. But someone had to.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Dr. Medina, from now on, I’d appreciate being the first one to see the results of my trial.”

“A sensitivity training is not more important than this,” he countered.

“No. But I won’t set aside my other hospital duties. Research is one big part of the whole. I’m also expected to teach—”

“I don’t see the problem here,” he said.

Clearly,I thought. “You are overstepping on my trial, Dr. Medina.”

He leaned back in his chair and scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “I’m not sure what to do here.”

“Look, moving forward, I’d like to be in charge of the trial I wrote. I’m grateful for your mentorship, but that doesn’t mean you can just take over—”

“I see—”

“I mean no disrespect, Dr. Medina.”

“Well, what’s done is done. I’d still kill to go over the preliminary data with you.”

He offered no reassurances, but I was already on dicey ground with my boss, so I let the matter go. We could always re-visit the conversation if he continued to overstep.

“Fine. I have time this evening,” I said.

“No, I can’t this evening. I’m on call tonight.”

“Oh.” I slumped back in my chair, thinking about my schedule.

“How about Friday night. You’re off, right?” he asked.

“I am. But I can’t Friday. I have plans.”

He cocked his head to the side as his eyes narrowed. I could swear a storm was brewing there.

“Cancel your plans,” he said between gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I can work with your assistant to find a time that works for both of us if you’d like—”

“No. I can do it this Friday. I want to get it over with as soon as possible.”

Over with?I hadn’t asked him to do this. He wanted to work on the trial. I never asked him to, and now he was trying to make it seem like some great inconvenience while at the same time overstepping on it?

“No,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I’m afraid the plans I have on Friday can’t be canceled.”

My shift was over, so I stood to leave. “I’ll find a time with your assistant.”

“Dr. Ramirez, we are not done here,” he said.

“I’m afraid we are, Doctor.”

Putting distance between the hospital and me was the best thing I could do for my sanity. It had been a challenging day between the sensitivity training, Dr. Keach hovering over me, and now this. I speed-walked to the conference room where I'd left my tablet earlier.

“Caro?” I heard Sara’s voice as I sped by her. “What’s wrong?”

“I gotta go,” I said.

I’d just grabbed the tablet when I heard steps behind me.

“Not now, Sara, we’ll talk later.”

“It’s not Sara,” he said. I turned to face Dr. Medina, who I hadn’t realized had followed me out of his office.

“We weren’t done talking.”

“Yes, we were. I have to go now.”

“No. I need you to cancel your plans Friday.”

“And I told you, I can’t do that. I don’t know what else there is to talk about.”

He shook his head and took off his glasses to wipe them with a cloth he produced from his pants pocket.

“Your plans can’t be more important than this.”

“Frankly, it is none of your business.”

“You can drink another time,” he hissed.

“Excuse me?” I reared back. Had I heard him right?

“I’ve seen you outside of work exactly two times, and both times you have been drinking.”

“Dr. Medina, with all due respect, sir, you are out of line.” How could I tell off my boss? I couldn’t. Not without risking my job.

“I don’t think I am, Dr. Ramirez. If I think that it’s getting in the way of your job.”

“What? Getting in the way of my job?” He was silent for a moment—the audacity. “Dr. Medina,” I hissed right back at him, “you might have seen me drinking two times, but if you can, please use your brain. Was I drunk or even tipsy? I don’t drink often; you happened to be around for one special occasion, and the other was a girls’ night out. I would never drink and come to work. How could you imply I would endanger my patients like that?”

More silence.

“The bottom line is, I have plans on my day off that I can’t cancel. If you have a real complaint about my work, take it up with HR.” It was his turn to rear back. He hadn’t expected me to hold my ground. To anyone else, he may be a god, but I could see him now for what he was. His ego had everyone fooled, and he wasn’t used to not getting his way when it came to work.

I couldn’t escape because Sara had also followed me and now stood between the door and me. Why was she everywhere? She placed one hand on my shoulder with force to keep me in place and firmly inside the room.

Dr. Medina glared at us, his eyes darting back and forth from her face to mine. He wanted to say something, but he’d come to think twice about messing with Sara, just like every other doctor on the oncology floor. If only she could stand up for herself the way she stood up for her patients and loved ones.

“Dr. Ramirez,” Sara said as she shot daggers at our boss with her eyes, “volunteers at the free clinic on two of her days off a month. You know how many days off a resident has, yet she gives most of them up. She would never break her commitment.” Sara loosened her grip on my shoulder when she was done talking.

Dr. Medina’s mouth fell open, and he hung his head but said nothing.

“Forget it, Sara. It’s no use,” I said as I walked past her and out the door. I could just imagine the stare down that was taking place in the conference room. I had to get out of there.

I was nearly at the locker room when Dr. Keach caught up to me. Not this. Not now.

“Fallen from grace so soon, Carolina?” he asked. I glared at him, and he backed off, but not before saying, “What did I tell you?”

If he tripped, fell, and broke his nose, I would not be upset.