Chapter 6 - The Allies
The investigation grew over the following six weeks.
It grew because of the notebook. It grew because the notebook had thirty-one entries, and each of those entries corresponded to a patient, and each of those patients had a chart, and each of those charts had a page that did not match the page that had been written by the nurse or the physician who had actually signed it.
It grew because the OSI seized Commander Whitfield's master token and traced every use of it in the past twelve months, and found that the token had been used 412 times — 412 applications of a signature that belonged to a different physician.
It grew because the OSI obtained warrants for Commander Whitfield's office and his home and his vehicle, and found in his office a personal notebook with a list of every patient he had "cleared" for discharge in the last three years, and found in his home a filing cabinet with copies of the original charts — the ones before alteration — for all 412 of them.
It grew because Admiral Wells personally called the surgeon general of the Navy on a Sunday morning and told him, in a voice that was very calm and very still, that she had found a physician at Naval Medical Center San Diego who had been falsifying patient records for three years to discharge unstable patients and free up beds, and that she was going to need the surgeon general to authorize the largest investigation of medical record fraud in the history of Navy medicine.
It grew because the surgeon general said yes.
—
The allies who came to Grace Holloway's defense over those six weeks were not the ones she had expected.
She had expected the nurses. The nurses were with her. The nurses had been with her since 03:15 on the night of the incident, when she had walked into Room 4 with a cool cloth and a calm voice and had fixed a child's oxygen saturation in the middle of the night while her own supervising physician was asleep at his home in Poway. The nurses were with her in the break room, and in the cafeteria, and in the parking lot after shift, and in the group text that had been started by the charge nurse at 22:00 on the night of the incident and that had 47 members and that was called "HOLLOWAY STRONG" — a name that Grace had found deeply embarrassing and had asked them to change and that they had refused to change.
She had not expected the admiral. The admiral was with her. The admiral had been with her since 15:00 on the afternoon of the incident, when she had walked into the corridor and asked for the two charts, and had not stopped since.
She had not expected the sailor. The sailor was with her. Luis Vasquez had come to the nursing station on the second day of the investigation and had asked for the chief nurse and had said, in his careful English, "I want to make a statement. I want to say that Lieutenant Holloway did not do anything wrong. She saved my son. I want that on the record."
She had not expected the boy. The boy was with her. Adrian Vasquez had been discharged on day nine — from a stable ward, with a different attending physician, with a discharge summary that had not been altered — and had come back to visit on day twelve with a drawing that he had made of a dinosaur and a nurse and that he had handed to Grace at the nursing station without a word. She had taped it to the wall of the break room. It was still there.
But the ally she had not expected the most — the ally who had come to her on the fourth day of the investigation, and had sat down across from her in the small conference room where she had been giving her statement, and had said "Lieutenant Holloway, I want to ask you a question and I want you to think carefully before you answer it" — was Lieutenant Commander Ann Howard.
"Howard," Grace said. "You don't have to do this."
"I know I don't have to do this."
"Your career. Your fellowship. Your—"
"My career is already over." Howard's voice was flat. "I signed thirty-one charts that I did not write. I did not report the alterations when I first saw them. I watched a man falsify medical records for three years and I did not go to the admiral. My career is not going to survive this. The only question is whether I go to court-martial as a witness or as a co-conspirator. And I am going to go as a witness."
"Howard—"
"Lieutenant Holloway." Howard leaned forward. "I want to tell you something. When I was a resident, I had an attending physician who told me that a pediatrician's job is to keep children alive. And she said it in a way that made it sound simple. And I have spent eleven years learning that it is not simple. There are beds and there are flights and there are commanding officers and there are budgets. And the whole thing is designed to make you forget that a child is in the room."
Grace did not say anything.
"You did not forget that a child was in the room," Howard said. "I did. I forgot it for three years. And I am going to spend the rest of my career — whatever career I have left — trying to remember it again."
May you like
She looked at Grace.
"So I am going to testify," she said. "I am going to testify about Commander Whitfield. I am going to testify about the charts. I am going to testify about the notebook. And I am going to testify about you. Because you are the only person on that ward who kept a second chart. And I want the record to show that."
