Call Me Doctor

By K. Wong

Book Summary
Meet Alan Tran, Pharm. D. and his lovely wife, Anna. As the story unfolds, Alan undergoes a journey, from a new graduate to superb pharmacist. His gift of medical sleuthing swells his evergrowing ego, while his world waits on him, hand and foot. Without realizing it, his alter ego takes over and Alan starts to make poor decisions. Does he get away with it, saving his ego and his true love from demise?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479778300

K. Wong

Karine Wong is the author of Don’t Sit on Her! She is a devoted wife and mother of three children. Dr. Wong holds a pharmacy doctorate degree and has an extensive background in hospital pharmacy. Underneath the white smock, she is an avid writer, novelist, and columnist for www.rxeconsult.com.

Book preview

Chapter 1

W here am I? I can’t open my eyes, and there is an uncomfortable pain in my throat and nose. I can feel plastic tubing on top of my right palm and more tubing across my right cheek. I can hear a low beeping noise to my left. It is followed with the sound of air being sucked in and out. Someone opens a door because I can hear muffled voices in the next room. The voices are of Dr. P. and Lexi. There is someone weeping in the background. In my room, a mysterious person is pushing buttons on the machine to my left. The machine beeps several times before the suctioning sounds quicken.

Mrs. Tran, your husband is in ICU bed 4. If you want to see him first, go ahead, but I need an answer from you as soon as possible. Mrs. Tran, do you understand what am I trying to tell you? Dr. P. asks.

He is not my husband. We are getting divorce soon, Anna declares between her snuffles.

If there are no papers filed with the state, you are legally his wife; and since you have no adult children, you have the legal responsibility to make a decision in his care.

Doctor, let me talk to her. She can’t make this kind of decision now, says Lexi.

Fine. But you do realize that we don’t have much time. We tried our best. His respiratory rate dropped from taking a deadly combination of sleepers and alcohol. Respiratory therapy intubated him right away because his pCO2 was elevated at 55. Unfortunately, we were too late. While he was down, he must have aspirated on his own vomit because his chest x-rays came back with infiltrates in his right lower lobe. He mounted a high-grade fever this morning, and his heart rate shot up to 127. His morning labs don’t look good, consistent with septic shock. Sodium fell to 123, potassium shot up to 7.6, and now his platelets are dropping, explains Dr. P.

How low?

His platelets hit a nadir of 1,200. With the INR being over 10 and the elevated fibrinogen levels, you know what this means. I’m sorry, Lexi. He’s in full-blown DIC and doesn’t even have a code status. We need to know before he codes on us.

Lexi gasps. Yes, Doctor. She returns to Anna, who is now crying uncontrollably.

The door closes again, and I hear only the beeps of the machines around me. I want to hear what is going on outside, but I can’t open my eyes or move my body. Am I paralyzed? Am I dead? I feel a slight breeze from the direction of the door. Someone opens and closes it behind them. Anna? Is that you? Lexi? Dr. Patterson?

Alan, I don’t know if you can hear me but I try to speak. It is me, Anna. The doctors ask me to talk to you and make a decision. I do not know what to do. They want to know your advance directive. Doctor says that your lungs are not working well. He says that you might die.

Tell them to do everything to save me. Tell them you need me. Please forgive me.

How could you betray me? You were supposed to protect and take care of me. We were supposed to grow old and die together. All I wanted was to have children with you, a big house, beautiful cars, and be happy. My heart is broken! It hurts so much! Her fist bangs against her chest.

Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry. I want all that too. Remember the homeless man? I finally understand what he was saying. I need you. I love you. Just like you need and love me, right?

I loved you. But I cannot love you anymore. I cannot!

The sobbing stops, and I hear Anna stepping away from the bed. The door flings open. No! Don’t leave me! Suddenly, I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my chest. A long alarm sound pierces my ears. Then an announcement booms over my head. Code blue, ICU bed 4!

Chapter 2

I remembered how it all started. It was last May at the Anaheim Convention Center. I was finishing up my last month as a pharmacy resident at BUMC, also known as Baylor University Medical Center, in Dallas. The top physicians and pharmacists trained there; and naturally, most of them turned into the nation’s leading cardiologists, internal medicine doctors, surgeons, infectious disease specialists, and of course, pharmacy specialists.

Graduating summa cum laude at Western University, I was immediately matched into the pharmacy program at BUMC. The preceptors loved me. They even gave me a nickname: Dr. Know-It-All. I was always on my toes and ready to answer any question they threw at me. I read all about the latest drugs, their acquisition costs, and how they compared to the current therapies. At that time, I didn’t think I was brilliant. I just figured out how to impress them. After my research was done for the day, I would sneak back into the pharmacy library, browse through the latest articles on Medscape and UpToDate, and pull drug prices off the computer. From my own personal research, I gained intimate knowledge of the latest medical treatments and drug prices like how a bottle of one hundred tablets of generic hydrocodone with acetaminophen would cost the hospital less than $7! When poor homeless patients needed medicine at discharge, I was the pharmacy wonder to the rescue. From the top of my head, I was able to rattle off drugs that were necessary to treat their conditions but inexpensive to obtain.

At the convention center, all the residents had to present a poster on their year-long research. I glanced around the display floor, casually sizing up the competition. They were so lame. Positive Correlation between PCAT Scores and Board Exam Scores? Long-term Benefits of a Full-time ER Pharmacist? Medication Reconciliation Reports and Their Reliability? These posters were obviously based on last-minute efforts to come up with something to display here. Well, that was all right. Compared to their posters, mine looked as if it could win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Well, what have you got there? A tall Caucasian male with an ill-fitting toupee wandered up to my display. An attractive young Asian woman, in black fuck-me heels, was at his side. With her arms folded, she quietly stared at my graphs.

I’m glad that you asked. I conducted a clinical study on eighty-eight patients at BUMC, who were either in the ICU or on the medical floor. Fifty-six patients were in the ICU and were placed on the intensive blood sugar control program, where the goal of the blood sugar was always between 60 and 150 mg/dl, regardless of prandial status. The remaining patients were on the medical floor and were not placed on the blood sugar program, I spoke without hesitation. Appearing professional and intimidating, I memorized my entire welcome speech to include all the factoids of the study, avoiding fillers like umm or so.

Toupee Man listened intently, with his right index finger touching his chin and his left arm folding over his enormous midsection. I gestured toward the poster. As you can see, I was able to show that 90 percent of the ICU patients fared better than their medical-floor counterparts. The primary outcome was length of stay. The secondary outcomes were mortality rate and rate of hospital-acquired infections. In my study, the ICU patients were discharged a mean of twenty-three hours earlier than the medical-floor patients. This would imply a significant cost savings to the hospital and a reduction of hospital-acquired infections and medication errors.

That’s impressive. Were you able to show statistical significance? Sexy Heels asked. I glared at her. So you can walk and talk in those fuck-me heels too?

No. If you saw my data, you would see that my study was not powered to show statistical significance.

What are you going to do with this fabulous study now that you are done? Surely, you are going to continue it after you leave the program at… oh yes, Baylor? she slyly inquired. Bitchy Bitch-on-Heels is quite