MELANIE MILBURNE – Top-Notch Men!: In Her Boss's Special Care (страница 7)

‘So you’ve got a degree in quackery as well as medicine, have you? What a busy little bee you have been over the last few years.’

Allegra got to her feet in one stiff movement, her expression tight with anger. ‘You know something, Dr Addison? It’s just as well you weren’t recruited for a popularity contest because if it was up to me, you wouldn’t have got past the first round of selection criteria.’

‘And what criteria would they be, I wonder?’ he asked, with a little curl of his lip. ‘Perhaps my aura isn’t giving off the right vibes or maybe my office doesn’t have the right Feng Shui. Perhaps you should make an appointment with me to rearrange it for me.’

She pressed her hands on the table and leaned across so the other people close by couldn’t hear, her green eyes flashing with anger. ‘The only things I’d like to rearrange are your attitude and personality, and if there wasn’t a law against it, I’d like to apply some touch therapy to your face as well—in the form of a very hard slap.’

His dark eyes glittered as they held hers. ‘Go right ahead, sweetheart, and see how quickly you get fired from the department.’

‘You can’t fire me,’ she spat back defiantly. ‘Patrick Naylor does the hiring and firing.’

He got to his feet, his sudden increase in height making her shrink back in intimidation. ‘I can assure you, Dr Tallis, that it would take just one word from me and the CEO will tear up your contract and your project into a thousand pieces,’ he said, and with one last glowering look brushed past her and left.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘SO HOW was your little drink last night with the director?’ Louise asked in the female staff change room the next morning.

Allegra scowled as she thrust her handbag into her locker and turned the key with a savage twist of her hand. ‘I’m going to kill Kellie Wilton and Margaret Hoffman.’

‘So he didn’t invite you back to his place for coffee, then?’

‘No, he did not. He threatened to have me fired, that’s what he did.’

‘Fired! Can he do that?’ Louise asked. ‘I thought the CEO was the only one who could hire or fire?’

‘I’m beginning to think Joel Addison could do anything if he put his mind to it.’

‘It’s tough, being at the top, Allegra,’ Louise pointed out reasonably. ‘There’s been a lot of opposition about the refurbishment being so innovative and all. Dr Addison is probably being overly cautious, which is perfectly understandable. You know the fuss the surgeons made about the new trauma theatre locations. If this unit doesn’t produce results and come in on budget, Dr Addison’s the one who will take the rap.’

‘I know all that,’ Allegra said, pocketing her locker key and turning to face Louise. ‘You know, for a while there last night I was starting to see a glimpse of a nice sort of man. He was chatty and seemed interested in what I had to say.’

‘So what happened?’

She gave a frustrated up-and-down movement of her shoulders. ‘Who knows? He just seems to really have it in for anyone a little to the left of what he believes is scientific. It’s as if it’s a personal agenda or something.’

‘Maybe someone in the past gave him a lousy massage,’ Louise said with a little grin.

Allegra rolled her eyes. ‘The only thing he wants massaged is his ego, but I for one am not going to do it.’

‘Have you told him your personal reasons for being so committed to your project?’

Allegra blew out a breath and leaned back against the lockers with a noisy rattle. ‘No … If I did, it would only make things worse. He’d only say I was looking through an emotional lens instead of a scientific one.’

‘But it might help him understand why it’s so important to you if you tell him what happened to your friend in med school,’ Louise said gently.

Allegra pushed herself away from the lockers as her beeper sounded. ‘Look, I’ve put what happened to Julie behind me. I can’t allow myself to dwell on it. It won’t change anything. But I owe it to her memory to stop it happening again and, so help me, God, Dr Addison had better not try and stop me.’

She made her way quickly to the trauma centre sandwiched between the ambulance bay and the main ICTU. Two trauma bays were in operation when she arrived, ambulance personnel, including two crews of Heli Flight Retrieval Paramedics intermingling with the A and E medical and nursing staff.

‘What’s going on?’ Allegra asked Alex Beswin, the A and E senior staffer, as she reached the scene of flurried activity.

‘Hi, Allegra. Two people brought in from the Victorian Alps after a single vehicle accident. Seems their car went off the side of the road and ended up in the river. A car travelling behind stopped and the driver managed to get the mother and the kid in the car free, but both were unconscious and spent a bit of time in the cold water until the rescue team arrived to haul them out. The kid is still unconscious and still hypothermic and bradycardic. The mother has been rewarmed, but she has head injuries, a flail chest and blunt abdo trauma. We need your help on the boy—he was tubed at the scene but the airway’s not great and he’ll need to go up to CT soon. Joel Addison is heading the team getting the mother under control—she’s going to CT now. They’ll both need ICTU after we’ve finished here.’

‘Right,’ Allegra said, heading for bay one, where the small child was contained.

Tony Ringer, one of the A and E staff consultants, who was directing the care there, looked up in obvious relief when Allegra appeared at the foot of the bed.

‘Allegra, listen—this tube’s in too far, it’s too small and there are anterior neck injuries from the air bag. We need to change it but I’d be grateful if you would do it. I’ll help.’

Allegra moved to the head of the bed and, taking the airway bag and checking the tube and connectors, she listened to the chest with her stethoscope. ‘Yes, you’re right, Tony. The left side’s not inflating, the tube is too small and probably down the right main bronchus. We’ll change it for a six point five but we need to be ready for a surgical airway if his larynx is oedematous. I’ll change the tube over an introducer to maintain access.’

Tony took over bagging the child while Allegra, with the help of one of the nursing staff, arranged all the equipment she needed, setting it out for easy access.

‘Right, Tony, let’s do it,’ Allegra said, taking a breath to steady herself.

She took a long flexible plastic introducer and, after disconnecting the endotracheal tube from the bag, passed the introducer into the ETT and the right main bronchus. She then deflated the ETT cuff and pulled the tube out of the airway and over the introducer. She rapidly passed a cuffed 6.5 ETT back over the introducer and into the trachea with not much difficulty, positioning the tube this time in the trachea so that both lungs would be inflated, and blew up the cuff. She checked the insufflation of both lungs with her stethoscope and, satisfied that the tube was in the correct position, secured it with tape.

‘Good job, Allegra,’ Tony said. ‘It’s a godsend, having someone with increased airway skills for this sort of situation.’

‘Thanks, Tony. I guess that’s a benefit of the anaesthetic rotation through ICTU.’

‘True,’ Tony replied. ‘Listen, this kid’s still hypothermic. We’re running in warmed intraperitoneal saline now, and as soon as his temperature is up we’ll need to get him next door for a head CT. Can you manage the airway for his transfer and then settle him into ICTU for us? I want to look over the second team treating the mother. And word’s just through that the husband and father has just been located. He’s on his way in.’

‘What’s the boy’s name?’ Allegra asked.

‘Tommy Lowe,’ Tony answered. ‘I don’t know his age, his father was too distressed to talk. What do you think?’

Allegra looked at the tiny body on the bed with tubes running out of him, her stomach clenching in distress that someone so young had had to suffer so much. ‘I reckon he’s about six or seven.’

‘Too young for this sort of caper,’ Tony said, stripping off his gloves and tossing them in the bin.

‘Tell me about it,’ Allegra said. Stripping off her own gloves, she reached out with a gentle hand and touched the little boy on his arm, her fingers soft and warm on his cold pale limb.

Joel was in ICTU, finishing setting the mother up on a ventilator, when Allegra brought the little boy Tommy round from CT.

‘CT on the mother shows some contusion, but no intracranial haemorrhage,’ he said, glancing at her briefly, his expression coolly professional, showing no trace of his anger of the night before. ‘She’s got a flail chest on the right and underlying contusion. She had an intercostal tube put in before they transferred her. I’ve just had to retape the connectors, otherwise that’s OK. Her abdo CT shows a liver contusion, but no free blood, so the surgeons are treating it expectantly at this stage. She’ll have another CT tomorrow. Her bloods were pretty normal, the Hb down as expected. But there was one unexpected finding, about which we’ll have to inform the police.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked, as she supervised the transfer of Tommy from the trolley to the ICTU bed.