Leaving Rampart
By Dianne Elliot

The former Head of Emergency Surgery entered Rampart County General via the front doors. This was the third time he had done so in his twenty-six year association with the now closed and quiet hospital. The exacting visitor winced at the rattling-grind of the automatic double doors, then sped on past the vacant fast food restaurant.

The now-dark double arches were a potent reminder of an important loss that he and Doctor Brackett had suffered seven years back. Rampart General had been bleeding money, and the hospital administrator had believed that offering patients and staff junk food would be profitable.

The vexatious surgeon bristled inwardly every time he had glimpsed one of his heart patients in there, scarfing down hamburgers and fries.

Mentally reliving that irritation, his eyes tracked from the elevators to the stairwell. Before he had formally practiced medicine, he had used to run on a regular basis. Granted, now his eye glass lenses were a little thicker, and so was his waist. Amused by the challenge, he took the stairs briskly to the Cardiac floor.

He arrived only slightly winded.

With its landscape paintings and even door placards removed, this floor appeared abandoned, perhaps even haunted, if his organized thoughts would allow such musings. His paneled office had reverted to being another barren room. After dusting the window ledge off, he settled upon it, gazing wistfully across the vacant parking lot, almost a contradiction in Los Angeles.

Unchallenged, stirrings of nostalgia tugged at him from his memories. In his youth, the doctor would have denied that part of him. Back then, he would have never considered taking a private tour of a soon-to-be-condemned facility. Hard lessons had demanded that he take the time to foster such feelings, or be reduced to an emotionless, soulless shell.

No one should do that to themselves, least of all doctors.

On an impulse, he had decided that he had to visit his surgery one last time.

*********

Room Two. Of course, all of the equipment had been removed, down to the cassette player that regularly ate tapes. Only the massive light fixture, the white tile floor and the unadorned blue walls remained.

"Mrs. Martha Cooper," he gently whispered the name of the first non-emergency patient he had treated in Los Angeles after his return. His heels clicking on the dusty floor, he continued as if the surgical recorder was running, "July fourteenth, nineteen eighty-nine. Double bypass - age sixty-seven."

Her surgery had been a success. More patients crowded into his thoughts. The memories of those he had lost were sharper than those he had saved, but their faces and voices lingered in his mind. That could be a problem when you were a heart surgeon with a photographic memory. Or it could be a humanizing blessing.

The surgery had become too 'crowded'. He gave a troubled cough, concluding that the dust was affecting him, and left quickly.

As he passed the nurse's station, on his way to the elevators and fresh air, the surgeon spied a power strip left on the counter. Part of the reason for Rampart's demise lay in the building's antiquated wiring system. In nineteen fifty-four, no one had envisioned computers, or the plethora of medical equipment that needed miles of extra power and data cables.

As he mused about computers, he fondly remembered Nurse Dixie McCall.

During his first career, she had been the Head Nurse of Rampart's Emergency Department, he recalled as he jogged up the stairs to another floor. Patients, nurses, interns, residents, paramedics, doctors, policemen, children, in any emotional or physical state, did not intimidate the former Army nurse. Dixie McCall had ruled the ER for nine years, until she had been permanently promoted to Director of Nursing for the hospital.

That had meant much more paperwork, but for the rest of her career Dixie somehow managed to wrangle the time for 'real' nursing down in the ER.

Once promoted, the indomitable nurse finally had met her match in an IBM PC.

Standing in her silent office, he remembered how he had returned to Rampart General.

*********

His divorce had been particularly nasty. His adulterous wife and her expensive lawyers had gotten his two-year-old private practice, which was all he had owned of any material value. Two days after the final decree, an acquaintance from his college days had phoned and told the distraught surgeon that he was starting up a computer company, and needed a 'medical expert'. The pay would be low, but according to his friend the dividends should be 'promising', once doctors and hospitals started installing computer systems. Los Angeles was supposed to be nothing more than a three-hour layover, before the nearly bankrupt doctor would fly on to Seattle to start his life over.

As the hours dragged on, he had decided to break his angry boredom by renting a car and driving.

Over a decade's absence from the city had degraded his memories of the various streets he had used to drive on a daily basis. Plus, Los Angeles had grown and changed immeasurably. He had turned into Rampart's Emergency Room parking lot at three-thirty, on June the tenth, nineteen eighty-nine, only to get his bearings.

As he had studied the map, an ambulance and an attending squad rolled in. He had paused, wistfully watching the boxy Mayfair back into the patient bay while the squad parked close by.

From that distance, he had not recognized the paramedics or the ambulance crew. Suddenly, his curiosity got the better of him. After neatly folding the unwieldy map, he'd tucked it in the glove compartment.

He had entered the hospital as he usually did, striding quickly through the ambulance discharge automatic doors. Between the organized chaos and his not recognizing a single face, he had nearly retreated to his rented car, eager for the drive back to LAX. Everything had changed, down to the placement of the water fountains.

"This piece of shit computer!" a mad blond nurse in blue scrubs had cursed into the constant babble of voices and machines.

"That's a delicate machine!" he had grabbed his massive fist short of slamming into the CPU.

The young nurse had glared at him, his surfer bowl cut falling into his tanned face. A tired looking doctor had emerged from the paramedic station, glared at him, then at the dark computer monitor.

"Do you know anything about computers?" she'd asked in a tone that bridged a plea and a demand, perhaps assuming that he was a tidy computer geek. 

"Yes ---" he had owned various computers since medical school.

"Good, we can't afford to be down! Fix this!" They had not exchanged names, but he soon had found himself thrust behind the keyboard.

It only took him a few keystrokes to discover the problem. "Your main network computer is down."

"Great, we're going to be down for hours!" the blond grumbled, reaching for the telephone. "Until - and if - the programmer can fix it!"

"Perhaps I can look into it," he had offered. "I am very familiar with medical systems ---"

"Bryan, I need you in treatment two, STAT!" a harried resident leaned briefly in.

"That'll be the DON's office, third floor," The nurse rushed off. "Thanks Mister ---"

"That's Doctor," he corrected, but it no longer mattered; the nurse had already entered the treatment room, and could not hear his soft voice over the shouting match within.

*********

Dixie McCall had greeted him with a surprised gasp and a sudden embrace, as he entered her posh office. She had talked about their glory days down in the emergency room, while he had diagnosed and corrected several programming errors on the system.

"You're back on line, Miss McCall," he had announced after an hour's work, as the screen flickered on to reveal Rampart's main menu. "Your memory is nearly overloaded. I would highly suggest that the hospital invest in a more powerful system."

Dixie had hugged him again, heaping praises about the Fire Department's genius. He had felt deeply embarrassed by her overt attentions. Granted, they had not seen one another in over twelve years, but he had never felt that particularly close to her.

Over coffee, they had talked. Dixie had informed him where everybody was, and how they were doing.

Without realizing it, he told had her about Atlanta, how he had lost his only child in a traffic accident, his messy divorce and moving on to Seattle. He had rarely opened himself like that before. He had found it oddly therapeutic; it relieved some of his deep anger.

With a coy smile and languishing blink, McCall had told him that Rampart desperately needed doctors, along with everything else, and had asked him to stay.

He'd declined, claiming that he needed a fresh start, in some place different.

Checking his watch, he'd kindly said his good-byes and left to meet his flight.

*********

The downpour had made the return trip to the international airport all that more difficult. A four car pile up on the Ventura freeway had further impeded his travel. After a police officer had not only turned down his offer to help, but ordered him to stay in his vehicle, he had resigned himself to watch, with a practiced and critical eye. Paramedics had to wear both gloves and surgical masks during any contact with patients. Some of the procedures and equipment had changed, and he could appreciate why. What had not changed was that the paramedics had to stabilize the victims with precision and speed.

When he'd arrived at LAX, twenty minutes after his delayed flight was supposed to have taken off, he discovered that the same flight was delayed for another three hours.

He stayed to rebuild his surgical practice at Rampart General.

Over the rest of her tenure at Rampart, Dixie McCall had always called on him first to fix her 'damned' computer. If his time permitted, he had always been more than happy to do so. She was a good, patient listener to the tales of his countless travails with lawyers, hospital administrators, and HMOs.

They -did- become close friends.

In the present, her office shrank back to its bare walls and cream carpeting. After a quiet moment, he left.

*********

Striding toward the ambulance off-loading doors, he breezed by another room, the Doctor's Lounge. That door was locked, so he had to satisfy himself with gazing through the side window. Years before he had taken the most undesirable position of Head of Emergency Surgery, that room had been his refuge. He had gone there to compose himself after the bad cases and fires. The coffee was always hot and fairly good. The people who used that lounge were also very good.... The doctors, nurses, paramedics.

The long pressed wood table and its uncomfortable plastic chairs had been removed and stored long ago. They always had to have fancy doughnuts, over Doctor Morton's dietary objections. How else could you expect them to sit through a Paramedic Advisory Committee meeting? In fact, he himself had had to have his raspberry coconut cream doughnut before going through the first motion.

The meetings could be tedious, but oh-so-necessary affairs. Like the paramedic program itself, the Advisory Committee had grown into a vital, political body, complete with its own constitution and elections, that had been copied across the country.

Twenty four years ago, he had been the self-appointed head of an experimental idea. Currently, he served on the Chief Paramedic's Advisory Board, as Supervising Emergency Surgeon. He realized for the first time, his professional life had finally come full circle.

His memories turned inward to his fellow committee members of long ago. Lincoln. Belliveau. Carson. Stoner. Kelly. DeSoto. Gage. His own partner Bob Bellingham. Good men all. A couple had passed on. Others had left the Fire Department for more gainful employment. Most of the rest had moved up the Department ranks, ending up downtown or teaching at the Academy. Within the next decade or so ---

He refused to dwell on his retirement, on any kind of endings. His logic dictated that retirement was an unpleasant eventuality that had to be prepared for and confirmed on occasion. He had done that today.

Having had his fill of nostalgia, he turned on his heel and smartly clipped smartly out the emergency doors.

*********

His former supervisor and now dear friend was waiting for him, standing beside the sole car in the parking lot. The retired cardiac surgeon straightened himself as best as he could, the California breeze teasing at his white mane and craggy features.

Rampart's once Chief Surgeon would still practice medicine, if his trembling hands would allow. His blue eyes glinted with friendship and pride at his colleague's rapid approach. "Did you remember to shut off the lights in my hospital, Doctor Brice?"

He sagely smiled sagely, pushing up his bifocals. "Yes, I did, Kel."

"Then let's go to your hospital, Craig," Brackett cuffed his shoulder. "The new Rampart General!"

First off, I must thank Mary Morris for reading over this story, catching my grammar mistakes. Thanks for believing in this little story!

One of my 'quirks' is exploring large, old buildings. I enjoy imagining who was there, wondering what happened in those rooms and, well, looking for ghosts. Watching Emergency, I've come to realize that Rampart looked 'old fashioned' even its proper time frame, in comparison to my local hospital, Washington Regional, which was built in the early seventies. A year from next July, the 'new' Washington Regional will open.

So this is a ghost story of a different stripe. And who else better to settle ghosts, then Craig Brice? After all, he would vehemently deny their existence, and yet be likely have so many specters of his own.

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