“I am a patient first,” I said, when Dr. Osei gave me the floor. “I am here with my own medical record, which Illinois law entitles me to.”
A murmur ran through the room.
“Dr. Hayes has called my complaint unfounded,” I said. “I’d like the committee to decide that for itself.”
I handed the technician a drive.
The screen behind the head table lit up.
I read it aloud.
“Admission, 2:14 a.m. Triage note: Suspect acute appendicitis. CT abdomen STAT.”
Seventy people looked at the screen.
“2:31 a.m. Phone annotation, Dr. Ian Castellano. Spouse, Dr. M. Hayes, states pt has long history of anxiety. Requests CT and surg*cal consult be deferred until morning.”
I turned to the room.
“I have never had an anxiety disorder. My husband was the one who said so.”
Marcus’s lawyer leaned toward him.
“Rupt*re, 9:52 a.m.,” I said. “Emergency surg*ry, 10:40. That is seven hours and twenty-one minutes.”
Nobody spoke.
Somebody’s pen rolled off a table and hit the floor, and the sound was enormous.
I changed the slide.
“Day six, 11:48 p.m. User MHAYES. Workstation OR-4. Action: annotation modified.”
Then the before and after, side by side, in red and green.
Pt improving, CT deferred per clinical judgment.
“This is a fals*fied entry,” I said. “It was made in another physician’s name, without an addendum, a date, or a reason.”
I let the silence sit for exactly three seconds.
“Which violates Policy MG-7.3 of this hospital’s compliance manual. The policy says that no clinician may alter, overwrite, or delete a clinical entry.”
Dr. Prescott lifted her reading glasses.
“Mrs. Hayes. Are you familiar with that policy?”
“I wrote it,” I said. “Four years ago, in the twelfth-floor conference room, under the name C. M. Bishop.”
The auditorium made a sound I will never forget.
It was the sound of seventy people breathing in at once.
Dr. Prescott looked down the table at my husband.
“Marcus,” she said very quietly. “You signed the acknowledgment page.”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His attorney tried to recover.
“A workstation login proves nothing.”
“Then let’s ask the workstation,” I said.
The hospital’s chief information officer, a young man named Aaron Pike who had come at Dr. Prescott’s request, stood in the second row.
His hands were shaking a little.
“I pulled the badge records last night,” he said. “Dr. Hayes’s ID swiped into Operating Room 4 at 11:31 p.m. and out at 12:20 a.m. There were no cases scheduled. The edit was made from the keyboard at 11:48. The log file has not been altered. I’d stake my job on it.”
