When I Left, the Hospital Went Under

Chapter 3

After I left the hospital, I didn't go home. I hailed a taxi and went straight to the other top-tier tertiary hospital in the city, Westbridge General Hospital.

Their head of cardiothoracic surgery had been trying to poach me for ages.

I grabbed a table at the coffee shop across the street from the hospital, pulled out my laptop, and sorted through the recordings of all my past surgeries.

Thirty minutes later, the director of medical affairs at Westbridge General Hospital came downstairs personally to pick me up.

We sat down together in the conference room.

As he scrolled through the laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery clips I had brought, his eyes glowed brighter and brighter with every second.

"Dr. Chappell, your foundational skills are rock solid," he said. "Look at this high-difficulty vascular dissection. There aren't even three surgeons in the whole city who can pull this off this cleanly."

He snapped the laptop shut, his tone crisp and no-nonsense.

"We won't make you stay up all night cranking out those pointless, bureaucratic reports," he continued. "What we value is your actual clinical skills, not paperwork."

"We'll give you an associate chief physician position straight away, double your annual salary, and assign two dedicated interns for you to mentor," he added.

It was the first time in my entire career working within the public health system that someone hadn't tried to strongarm me with talks of "selfless dedication" and "the greater good".

"Thank you," I said sincerely.

"I still have some loose ends to tie up at my current job, though," I continued. "It will probably take a week before I can start officially."

"No problem at all," the director replied with a smile, holding out his hand. "Good things are worth waiting for anyway. We'll hold the position for you."

By the afternoon, I was heading home with my official offer letter in hand.

When I got in, I locked the offer away in my personal safe, along with my morning leave request, the handover surgery recording, and the liability waiver.

At eight o'clock that night, I pulled up my i********: feed.

The very first post was a new update from Ivy.

It was a selfie of her in a sterile surgical gown, standing right in front of the VIP operating room doors.

Going all out for the weight of a life. Tomorrow at 9 a.m., witness a miracle!

A flood of gushing praise from all my old coworkers filled the comments section.

A: [Ivy, you are amazing! You have such a bright future ahead!]

B: [Mr. Harbor has such a good eye for talent. This is the future of our department!]

I swiped past all that garbage without a single change in expression.

Then I opened my food delivery app and ordered myself a deluxe platter of spicy Cajun shrimp.

A buzz rang out as my phone screen flared to life.

It was a voice message from Ivy.

I tapped it open. Her voice sounded shaky and uncertain.

"Eunice, are you asleep?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Why did no one mark which anesthetic Mr. Lane is allergic to on his medical chart?

"Also, when it comes to the third branch of the retroperitoneal vascular plexus, do we route it around the left side or the right side?" she continued.

Her voice shook with barely concealed panic.

I had marked every single one of these details with bright red ink when I handed over the case files, so obvious that you could not miss it even if you tried.

She had not even bothered to glance at them. Now she was cramming at the last minute, treating a human life like it was nothing more than a game.

Right after that, another voice message popped up. "Eunice, reply to me when you see this. This is a matter of life and death."

I did not waste a second. I flipped my phone to silent and tossed it onto the nightstand with a thud.

'You stole that death warrant for yourself. Now you get to choke on it alone.'

The next morning, at eight thirty sharp, I showed up right on time outside the neurology clinic of the city's physical examination center.

While I was waiting for my name to be called, I unlocked my phone and took a quick look. Ivy had posted another update to her i********: feed half an hour earlier.

Everything is ready. Deep breath, into the battle.

I stared at her overly confident, smug face in the photo and counted down the seconds to nine o'clock silently to myself.

The clock struck nine. The surgery officially kicked off.

I muttered to myself, "Dr. Sterling, I hope your scalpel is as steady as your sharp tongue."

I lifted the warm water in my hand and took a slow sip.