Frank were two of the nicest native New Yorkers he’d ever met, besides Enzo’s family, though he wouldn’t let anyone else know that.
He’d been following the case since day one and he wanted to see it through. He wanted to make sure those babies were okay.
“I heard from your mother today,” Dr. Chang said, with a note of derision in her tone.
Oh, bloody hell.
“Aye, and what did she want?” His brogue was slipping out in his annoyance.
Dr. Chang smiled at him. “Oh, she wanted to tell me that I’m wasting her son’s talent and surgical skill by having him work in OB/GYN. She didn’t pay for your education and pull strings for you to be delivering babies like some glorified midwife.”
Sam cursed under his breath. “And what would she know about that? I’m sorry she laid into you like that, Dr. Chang. I hope you know that I don’t think that way.”
Dr. Chang shook off her hands. “I know and I know your mother.”
“What did you say to her?”
“Nothing. I hung up on her.” There was an evil grin on Dr. Chang’s face as she walked into the OR.
Sam chuckled to himself. He was glad that Dr. Chang didn’t put up with his mother’s ridiculous behavior. He was also angry that his mother had done that. She was bound and determined to ruin his career as a pediatric surgeon.
His mother wouldn’t be happy unless he was a bloody neurosurgeon. Not that there was anything wrong with neurosurgeons. On the contrary, he respected many of them—the brain was a delicate organ.
It took such precision to operate on it and the nervous system, but was it any more difficult or delicate than when you were dealing with a heart no bigger than a grape or veins the size of a human hair?
No. It wasn’t, but then kids had never really mattered to his mother.
Sam knew all about that.
Disgusted with her behavior, he headed up to the gallery and pushed his way to the front through the throng of eager observers so he could watch Mindy in action.
He was surprised that none of his other roommates were in the room, but they were probably off doing surgeries, while he was stuck up in the gallery like a first-year intern. Observing, rather than helping.
“Did you hear that Dr. Monica Hanley is coming to West Manhattan Saints?”
“No, I hadn’t. Get out of town. The Dr. Hanley is coming here. When?”
Sam perked up at the mention of his mother’s name and when he glanced around he could see it was two young interns on the other side of the gallery who were talking about it.
“She’s coming in a couple of weeks. Apparently there’s a kid with some kind of inoperable brain tumor, but she’s going to be testing her new surgical procedure to remove the tumor and she’s going to do her groundbreaking surgery here.”
“That’s amazing.”
Sam groaned inwardly.
Great. Just what he needed to hear. His mother was coming to West Manhattan Saints to flaunt neurosurgery in his face once again and he was ticked off. Why did she have to come here to do the surgery? Why hadn’t Dr. Chang told him his mother was coming? Did Dr. Chang even know? Perhaps she didn’t as she’d hung up on her.
Even then, he wouldn’t put it past his mother to go over the head of the Pediatrics attending to Professor Langley to get permission to do the surgery here.
Why here?
“I hear her son works at West Manhattan Saints and that’s why she’s coming.” This was said in a hushed undertone.
“Her son? She has a son and he works here? Who is he?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure he’s going to get picked to assist. I mean, come on, the son of Dr. Hanley. I’m sure she pulled strings to get him into the program. He’s probably riding on her coattails and doesn’t have to lift a finger. Just has all the most awesome surgeries handed to him.”
“I hate him on principle,” the other intern griped.
Sam’s stomach knotted, his worst fears about being his mother’s son realized. It was a good thing they had different surnames. This was why he didn’t want people to know who his mother was. They would stop looking at him as a surgeon and only see him as someone who’d got to where he was because of his mother.
He wanted to get up and leave, or confront the two gossiping fools as they continued to gossip about Dr. Hanley’s son and how crummy a surgeon he was, but instead he blocked them out. He was safe behind his walls.
Sam was here to learn. He was here to observe a once-in-a-lifetime surgery. He was here to advance his career because he was a surgeon. A good surgeon.
He knew one thing—he was not going to be around when his mother was here. He wasn’t going to allow that can of worms to taint his surgical career in the hospital where he planned to spend many years becoming one of the best pediatric surgeons. If she was going to be here, he wasn’t.
Mindy was still on a high after safely delivering the mono-amniotic twins. This was her third delivery of mono-amniotic twins and thankfully the second successful delivery. In the first year of her fellowship Dr. Guild had delivered a pair, but sadly the cord restriction had been so bad that one twin hadn’t made it.
It had crushed Mindy, breaking her heart. She’d almost walked away from maternal-fetal medicine. Who needed that kind of heartbreak every day? But Dr. Guild had talked some sense into her.
“Next time we catch it sooner. Next time we perfect the skill, so that next time we save a life before the life needs to be saved.”
Mindy hadn’t been able to walk away from her specialty then. She’d thrown herself into it, because the more she’d learned, the better she’d got and the more lives she’d saved.
Life was short sometimes and it sucked, but that’s what drove Mindy to rise above that. To find another way to save more lives.
It’s why she had one of the lowest mortality rates for a surgeon who was so young.
Saving lives. Precious lives.
“I saw Dr. Napier scowling in the gallery. I’m surprised you didn’t have him in the OR with you, Dr. Chang,” Mindy remarked as they scrubbed out. The neonatologists had whisked the babies off to the NICU in stable condition and Mindy had finished with Ms. Bayberry and she was in Recovery and stable as well.
Dr. Chang had stayed until the end, asking questions about the procedure.
Dr. Guild had always said it was a mark of a good surgeon to never stop learning and Mindy was a big believer in the Socratic method of teaching. Even if she was teaching a world-renowned and respected pediatric surgeon such as Dr. Amelia Chang.
“Professor Langley didn’t want him in the OR, so I told him that there were too many people in the OR.”
Mindy was confused. “Why would he not want Dr. Napier in the OR?”
Dr. Chang snorted. “Probably because Dr. Napier’s mother complained to him about how many hours her son was getting in OB/GYN, seeing how she finds both our practices of medicine to be a waste of talent.”
“Who is his mother?”
“Another surgeon. He doesn’t like to say and I’m not in a position to divulge her name. Dr. Napier is pretty private.”
“I get that. We all have secrets.”
Dr. Chang cocked an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“Does his mother have the same last name?”
“No, he has his father’s name. His parents were married