by Dane, Max
Ryan didn’t like shots. And even though no one used needles anymore, the high velocity air-shot they used, still hurt like hell.
He grimaced.
She knew him well enough to know what he was thinking.
“Ah, you big baby just do it and get it over with.”
Protesting he said, “But didn’t we get our regular inoculations at the beginning of the year. I should already be fully protected against everything.”
“Well, you can explain it to the nurses when they come around. But you better not be carrying any bugs into this house Mr. Dane.”
She looked serious.
“Ok, ok. If they offer, I’ll get one.”
With that he finished getting ready, and drove to work.
When he stepped off the elevator and onto his floor, he nearly ran right into several nurses pushing white carts to the front conference room. Grimacing again, he headed to his office to put his things down and read his mail. He had two messages waiting; the first was from Ben letting him know that he could go to the labs today to talk with some researchers. That was good news.
The second message was from IntelliHealth asking all employees to take time to get vaccinated against the evil virus that would wipe them all out if they didn’t.
‘Damn, Jean nailed it,’ he thought.
Picking up his coffee cup, he headed up to the front to get his shot, and then to get some coffee. When he got to the conference room where the nurses had set up shop, there was already a short line of people waiting.
With a sigh, he stepped up to the end.
Theresa came and got into line after him.
“Always something isn’t it. They say we could be carriers. I guess the trade-off for keeping us healthy, are all the shots.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
While they waited, she asked about how he was doing; did he like it here; was everyone being friendly. He said yes to it all, and meant it. He really was having a good time. Just as he was running out of things to say, the line cleared, and it was his turn.
The nurse said, “Please hold your identification chip over the scanner.”
“I’m sorry, why do I need to have my ID chip scanned?”
The other nurses stopped what they were doing and looked towards Ryan.
“My understanding is that the CDC wants statistics on how much of the population has been vaccinated. If you do not want to scan your ID chip, that’s fine, but I can not give you the shot unless you do.”
He never liked being pressured to do anything.
Normally, he would say ‘Ok then, forget it.’
But in that instant he remembered how he had ignored Alex when he was sick yesterday. If he brought something home and Alex got sick because he didn’t get the shot, it would be bad. Very bad.
He waved his chip, and rolled up his sleeve.
He imagined that the nurse gave him an extra little jab while he had his arm there.
Turning back, he forced a smile at Theresa and headed for the coffee.
Later that day, he went to floor 123 to visit with the researchers Ben had been good enough to arrange. With Ben’s approval, Ryan had temporary access to floor 123. A week only, but it could be extended if necessary.
When Ryan stepped off the elevator, he was confused for a moment because the floor plan was completely different. The elevator opened at the end of a very long, white hallway lined with doors. There were many doors going down both sides, and he could hear lots of noise and people talking from inside them.
With no one to greet him, he began walking down the hall and came upon his first set of doors on the right-hand side. It was a set of double doors, and both were open revealing a lab suite on the inside. He could see long lab benches filled to capacity with beakers, flasks, water baths and lots of unknown equipment stacked all about, often on top of each other. There were lots of people in white lab coats working and talking.
Interested now, he wanted to see more.
Moving down the hall he saw several more labs just like the first. Then he heard a familiar voice, he couldn’t place it at first. Moving to the source, he poked his head into the next lab and saw a pair of scientists talking to a large view screen as data scrolled across its display. He recognized the voice from his interview; they were talking to SID. He came to another lab where there appeared to be a woman talking to SID as well. At the next one, he found another conversation going on with SID and a group of students.
It felt odd to hear the same voice having multiple conversations at once.
Moving on, he became more impressed. All together, by the time he reached a cluster of offices, he had counted 32 separate lab suites with more than half interacting with the research assistant program, SID.
‘This place is really a marvel,’ he thought.
Walking up to the first office he came to, he stopped and looked inside.
An older gentleman sat with his back to the door at a desk covered with debris. He was reading something. Judging from the amount of papers, books and belongings here, this was a senior investigator. Ryan had seen them before. They always looked as if they might live in their offices. The door was open, so he knocked on the frame and waited. The man sighed heavily and eventually turned around, obviously annoyed at the interruption.
Smiling his biggest smile, Ryan said, “I’m so sorry to bother you, I have an appointment with Dr. Bender. Do you know where I might find him?”
“Look in his office, number 123B just down from mine. If he’s not there, you can try his lab back that way on the left.”
Without waiting to see if Ryan understood, the gentleman turned back around and went back to work.
Ryan moved through the offices until he came upon 123B, and found another older gentleman, presumably another senior investigator sitting inside. Ryan knocked on the door, to which the man held up a finger, indicating Ryan should wait. Patiently, Ryan stood quietly at the door for several minutes while the fellow inside typed furiously at his keyboard. Finally, the man saved his work, and turned around. Once again the annoyance factor seemed pretty high to Ryan, who was now feeling less than welcome.
“Hello, what do you want?”
“I’m Ryan Dane, I work for Ben James, and I believe I have an appointment with you this afternoon, Dr. Bender.”
The man had the appearance of having forgotten.
“Oh. Well, what would you like to talk about?”
“May I come in?”
“Yes of course, but I am a bit occupied, so please get to the point,” Dr. Bender hurriedly said.
“Well, I’m on a project that might benefit from the advice and/or perspective of IntelliHealth scientists such as yourself. You see Dr. Bender, it appears that a small number of patients have been given or nearly given the wrong medical treatment.”
“I don’t understand why you are talking to me about this,” he said slightly agitated now.
With all the patience he could muster, Ryan began again.
“Well, you see Dr. Bender; these treatments have been directed by prescribing research faculty. Please understand, I’m not suggesting that a member of the research faculty made a mistake about which procedure to follow. What I am saying is that somehow the treatments were mixed up resulting in the patient nearly getting an incorrect and potentially dangerous treatment. While the error was indeed caught, it nonetheless stirred up a lot of attention, especially in light of the danger to the patient.”
Ryan paused while Dr. Bender considered what he had just said.
“I am still not sure what you want from me, Mr. Dane.”
“Well Dr. Bender, while we were looking at the possible mechanisms capable of resulting in such an error, it was realized that the only group not consulted were the researchers. I was hoping you might be able to give me some insight into how you prescribe a treatment for a patient. Maybe it will yield some clue as to how these errors have occurred,” said Ryan.
“Hmm, now I see what you�
��re getting at, let me introduce you to my assistant Dr. Sarin.”
Dr. Bender got up from his desk.
Heading out of the office with Ryan in tow, Dr. Bender said, “I study basic research and do not prescribe patient treatments per se. Actually though, I have some faculty in my lab who do prescribe patient treatments.”
After passing several doors down the hall, Dr. Bender turned and walked into a lab suite.
“I believe the man who can help you better than I could, would be Dr. Jeff Sarin, my lab director and research assistant. He should be in the lab right now.”
Dr. Bender led Ryan through a large lab suite, and began asking for Jeff. With just a few tries, Bender found the man he was looking for and introduced him to Ryan. Then as quickly as possible, and with barely a wave, Dr. Bender left the two of them on his way back to his office.
Dr. Jeff Sarin was Indian, and looked younger than Ryan. Fortunately he seemed much more personable than his colleagues on this floor.
“I’m very sorry to bother you, Dr. Sarin. I need some help, and it seems Dr. Bender has given me to you.”
“Please call me Jeff. My real name is Vignesh, but my students cannot pronounce it.”
Jeff smiled.
“What can I do to help?”
Ryan explained again why he was here.
Jeff thought for a moment, nodding his head.
“Well, we do have four faculty in our group that regularly prescribe treatment to patients. I believe some of them prescribe treatments manually through our computer network, and others use SID as the conduit for prescription. It really depends on the investigator, and how they prefer to work. Both options are available to all.”
Ryan said, “May we talk with one of each; someone who uses the SID program as well as someone who enters the data manually?”
“Sure Ryan, lets visit Dr. Ellis, one of our lab’s collaborating research physicians.”
Jeff led Ryan to a workbench where a gentleman in a lab coat was moving some equipment around on the counter. As they walked over, Jeff told Ryan that he was one of the researchers who preferred to enter his work manually using a typical computer network terminal.
After a brief explanation, Ryan was able to watch the doctor input and assign a treatment. While they watched, Jeff explained that the doctor never knows anything about the patient beyond the biological state, symptoms and health. No names and no history beyond what was necessary to know.
He went on to say that the doctors working in a given area of research, had access to patient data associated with that interest regardless of which IntelliHealth Facility they were in.
“I’m not sure I understand, Jeff.”
”Well, what I mean is our researchers see the patients of the IntelliHealth System grouped by their biological condition, not by their location. If Dr. Ellis is approved to begin a new treatment on patients with a particular disorder, he may prescribe a treatment that will be administered to patients around the world, not just in our local hospital.”
Curious, Ryan said, ”So treatments our local patients receive, are equally likely to be prescribed from here, as from any IntelliHealth Facility?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” said Dr. Ellis.
Apparently, there were lots of crossover-collaborative treatments going on.
He was learning a lot of good things here.
Jeff said goodbye to Dr. Ellis, turned to Ryan.
”Now let's visit Dr. Gimble. She prefers to prescribe treatments using the SID program.”
Walking through the lab suite, and into the next, they found Gimble looking into some sort of microscope and occasionally pausing to write short notes in a yellow pad.
Jeff explained why they were there, and what they needed to see. She wasn’t happy about stopping to help them, but she did agree. They walked over to the nearest view screen, and she began, “SID, I need some help.”
The screen came to life displaying her current work, files and profile.
Then the SID program spoke.
“Yes of course Dr. Banner,” it said, ”How may I be of assistance?”
“These gentlemen would like to see me prescribe a treatment to a patient; and for this example, I think it would be most useful to find one here at this Facility. I would like to look at the treatment progress of case number 1011BZ3.”
Instantly, a window appeared with a line graph indicating some sort of progress across a variety of variables.
“Sid, please add the time index to these results.”
The two dimensional graph became a three dimensional plane with bumps and dips across its surface.
“SID, what is your analysis,” she said.
The warm metallic voice didn’t hesitate.
“The drop in amino-chlorides indicates gene signaling has failed in the reconstituted nerve endings. The best reaction is to alternate current treatment with direct insertion of new stem cells.”
“Agreed. Please update the current treatment schedule, save and close. Thank you SID.”
“Goodbye, Dr. Banner.”
The screen faded to black.
Ryan had been ready to blame the SID interface for the errors, but after seeing the smooth interaction between SID and Dr. Banner, he couldn’t see how. There was a perfect discourse between the scientist and the diagnostic program. If there were an error it would have to occur between SID and the patient treatment schedule on the Hospital side of things.
Ryan walked with Jeff back to the hallway outside.
“Jeff, I noticed that many of the labs on this floor are using the SID program. Have you ever experienced or heard of the SID interface making an error, maybe even due to faulty microphones, or any hardware failure?”
Jeff walked with Ryan a little way down the hall towards the exit.
“I’m sorry Ryan, but no; not once, not ever. You have to understand we work with SID everyday. Our work is augmented, supported and assisted by SID. As smart as the people are here, without the SID program we would be back to mixing test tubes, and running centrifuges.”
Jeff continued, “I noticed you’ve been rubbing your arm; judging from the location, it’s probably where you were vaccinated against Rn186. You should know it was SID who made that vaccination possible. For years now, IntelliHealth has created most of the inoculations provided by our world governments; and SID was there for everyone. Including the very one that is now protecting you and most of the world.”
“And hurting my arm.”
“Yes, that too,” Jeff said, smiling.
Jeff stopped at the elevator, “Trust me Ryan, we use SID every day for so many things, if there were mistakes, we would see them.”
“Thanks Jeff. You’ve really helped, and given me a lot to think about. May I call you, or visit if I think of more questions? ”
“Sure, no problem. It was nice to meet you Ryan.”
They shook hands and parted as Ryan stepped into the elevator.
Jeff had been very friendly and helpful.
There was a lot to digest from this visit. It also pointed out his need to understand how the prescribed treatments were received and implemented on the hospital side.
He returned to his office and updated his notes.
He needed to talk with someone on the hospital side.
That evening, on his way home, Ryan couldn’t get the image of all those kids waiting in line, at Alex’s school, out of his mind. He remembered how quickly they were moving. The nurses deftly moving from one to the next.
He rubbed his arm.
It was still sore around the area of the shot.
It was getting late, but Jeff Sarin was stuck and couldn’t leave.
Students in the labs upstairs were gearing up for midterms, and the mood was frenzied and frantic. Dr. Leonard Bender’s labs were no different.
Vignesh, or ‘Jeff’ to his American friends, had studied under his friend and mentor Dr. Leonard Bender as a post-grad. When he finished his postgraduate work, he was award
ed his Ph.D. and chose to stay with Bender as his lab director. Some might have argued it was a career-killer to stay in the same lab where he’d earned his doctorate, but he was happy here. Besides, his area of interest was essentially the same as Bender’s and so he was still enjoying what they were doing in the lab.
Usually.
For the most part he didn’t mind the sometimes, annoying assignments he would get from Dr. Bender. Like having to meet with that fellow Ryan Dane today. However, it was relatively brief, and the questions were kind of interesting.
No, that was not a problem.
But this afternoon was different.
Dr. Bender had sent all of the grad students to him to go over a test which most of them had recently failed.
Jeff had just sent another one off to make revisions to their paper. He looked out the door at the line of students that wrapped around the hallway, and then looked at the clock.
It was going to be a long night.
Waving at the door he said, “Next.”
Yes, he loved his job.
CHAPTER 5