Chapter 3
Cameron
“Can we make this quick? I have a lot of patients to see today.”
I’m not in the world’s best mood when I walk into the Reinhart Medical Center meeting room on Monday morning.
Half of it is because I’ve been working around the clock between the understaffed free-clinic and the pediatrics floor.
The other half is because I know what this meeting is about and if I am being completely honest, I am not fully mentally prepared for it.
It’s not that we didn’t know our dad was sick.
Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as ALS, is a slow killer but it seems to always win in the end.
Even a world renown surgeon like Arthur Reinhart couldn’t do anything about it once he was diagnosed five years ago.
Same as we couldn’t do anything about his death two weeks ago.
“Now Cam,” my brother Josh’s patronizing voice fills my ears and instantly makes my jaw tighter, “We can’t rush the logistics. After all, the hospital has been in shambles since dad died.”
I sit down in a chair next to him, closer than I’d prefer to be. But this is how meetings are usually set up– legal team on one side, a doctor and his money greedy brother on the other. I’m the doctor. He’s the head of finances.
“I am aware of the state of the hospital,” I remind him.
“Good. So you’re aware that the free clinic you are clenching with white fists is literally hemorrhaging money from Reinhart Medical right now.”
I could throttle him. I just might. But before I can turn the meeting room into a boxing ring, a woman on the other side of the table reminds me that they are here to iron out details. Meaning I can’t iron out my brother’s face.
“I’d like to start by saying how sorry I am for your loss,” she begins with rehearsed sympathy. “Arthur Reinhart was a catalyst for American hospitals and he will be truly missed by all of us.”
Save it, lady. Let’s get into why you’re really here.
“That said, we need to talk about his will,” she goes on.
There it is.
The man next to her, a bald, broad shouldered man that looks more like a body guard than a legal advisor, cuts in. “We understand that the ownership of the hospital has fallen fully into your laps since both of you are the heirs in his will.”
“It has also come to our attention that the two of you have some…disagreements…on how the facilities should be run?” the woman points out, her words punctuated with a question mark.
“I feel–” I start in but Josh takes the liberty of speaking for me. I clench my hand under the table.
“Cameron here has an attachment to the free-clinic. Not to mention the in house insurance options we have been offering to patients who won’t pay up front before treatment.”
“Can’t pay up front,” I cut in. “People without occupation provided insurance. Lower income patients in emergency situations.”
“People who don’t and probably won’t pay,” Josh goes on. “In short, we are hemorrhaging money because of these…patient luxuries.”
I sit upright, turning in my chair to face my ‘brother’. I put that in quotes because with how differently we see medicine, I’ve been tempted to get a DNA test to prove that we are actually related. “Medical care shouldn’t be a luxury!”
“Doctor Reinhart, we understand your frustration,” the woman intercedes. “But your brother is correct. The numbers are…concerning. Changes will have to be made or Reinhart Medical will be at risk of going under.”
With that, I bear down. “Our father has run this facility and multiple others seamlessly. And he’s done so with compassion and a heart for the patients. It’s what sets Reinhart apart from other hospitals.”
“It’s also why other hospitals are thriving and ours is…well. Here. Sitting across from a legal board shoving gauze in the holes to stop the internal bleeding,” Josh says with a chuckle.
“I think it’s important that we consider all angles of the reality, Doctor.” The guy says flatly. There’s no soul in this man. There’s muscle and a master’s degree full of big words but nothing else.
The woman leans in, as if being closer to me will somehow infuse more compassion into her words. Her tight pony tail and starchy gray pantsuit are a bit contradictory to that though.
“Cameron. Can I call you Cameron?”
I don’t respond and she keeps talking.
“Your father was a generous man. A considerate man. But he wasn’t a very financially savvy man. I understand what his vision was. But in today’s economy, visions like that are unrealistic. As much as free health care would be ideal, it’s just not really the world we live in.”
“His vision was to help people. People who can’t afford it. And in this economy, as you put it, nothing is affordable. But not providing basic healthcare? That’s criminal,” I argue.
“That’s debatable,” Josh cuts in.
“Nobody asked you,” I bark out. Then I turn back to the stooges across the table.
“Listen. I know I sound irrational right now. But my father just died. The man who created one of the best medical facilities in the country. And no one is going to just waltz through his doors and start ripping the place apart brick by brick! I’m going to fight for this, you do understand that don’t you? ”
The body guard guy sits up straighter and locks his eyes on me. But keep in mind, I’m not a small man either. Sure, I might be forty three. But I work out. I’m in shape and I’m in good health. Not only that, I’m pissed.
“You’re going to need more than just a hot headed argument to keep the doors open at this point, Doctor Reinhart. You’re going to need money.”
I swallow hard at that. Because that’s the irony of it all.
“I think we are done for now,” I say, shoving up from my chair.
Before anyone can say anything else, I march out the door.
My mind is racing with so much anger, so many twisting and turning thoughts that my head just might explode all over the pristine hospital walls.
But before I can process any of what I’m thinking, I hear footsteps hot on my heels. I recognize them immediately as Josh’s.
“What the hell was that?” he snaps and I whip around to face him, stopping like a brick wall in the middle of the hall. Luckily we are in the admin wing and other than a couple paper pushers that know well enough to do a hard U-turn when they see us, we are alone.
“I was about to ask you the same fucking thing,” I snap back.
“You are delusional if you think that we can hang on to dad’s pipe dream of offering free health care to everyone that walks in the front door,” he goes on.”
“And you are delusional if you think that’s all it was was a pipe dream! Dad built this! It’s an empire in the medical world. Or have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything. Including the fact that our numbers have been down for years,” he says and I snort bitterly, shaking my head.
“The numbers. Because that’s all that matters to you is the numbers.”
“I am the head of the financial department, Cam! My job is the numbers! To see to it that we don’t collapse on ourselves and lose everything.”
“And I am a doctor. A pediatric doctor. My job is to care more about the people than the politics. That’s what he did. That’s why we are better than the rest. But we won’t be if we shift our focus away from the patients,” I say and for a moment, Josh has nothing.
Of course he can’t argue. He knows I’m right. He knows that our dad cared more about good health care, especially for the underprivileged than he did the money. Was it unorthodox in today’s health industry? Sure. But he made it work.
“You do realize that now that he is gone, I own half of all of this, right?” he asks.
“Half doesn’t mean you get to decide the fate of our legacy, Josh,” I point out. A page rings through the hallways.
“Doctor Reinhart to emergency. Doctor Reinhart to emergency."
I pull my stethoscope from the pocket of my light blue scrubs–doctor issue– and drape it around my neck.
“I’m not giving up,” I state. “If money is the issue, we have money. A whole fucking inheritance of money.”
“You forget there’s one tiny stipulation to accessing that money,” Josh says as I turn to walk away.
“There’s always loopholes,” I tell him.
“Good luck with that,” he scoffs and I just keep walking.
I didn’t forget about the stipulation he’s talking about.
Our dad made it very clear in his will that the half a billion dollars he has locked away has a very unique shaped key.
It would require me, his eldest child, having a ring on my finger.
And even as a single doctor, it’s not like the universe just drops eligible bachelorettes in front of me every day.