Dr. WestphallShirley..
[Nurse Daniels shoots the gun]
[Distraught] I'm sorry Dr. Westphall. Just don't come near me.
Dr. Westphall
Don't do this please.
I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble. I know it was wrong for me to kill Peter.
Dr. Westphall
Don't let that mistake take your life, too.
Peter hurt a lot of people
[Morrison runs to approach Shirley. Shirley raises the gun]
STOP! I want to talk to Jack.
[Morrison gets closer to her]
That's close enough. Hi, Jack. [sighs] You ever been up here before?
[Morrison shakes his head no]
Smell the ocean? And look. Look at this. You can see for miles. There's the Pru and the Hancock Tower, and across the Charles, there's Cambridge. God, this is so beautiful! Why didn't I ever come up here before? I'm glad Cathy's on the sixth floor. Have you seen her?
[Morrison nods yes]
I think she's getting better.
All that screaming and blood.
Come on, Jack, you know what I'm talking about, in the ER. Blue-lipped junkies, 13-year-old pregnant girls, legs mangled under motorcycles. I know how special life is. I save lives, and I only took one... so far. You were his friend, Jack! Why didn't you do something?
There was nothing I could do.
You believed him! You believed Peter. Everything he did, you stuck with him, said he always got bad breaks. Well, that didn't give him the right! The world's full of bad breaks.
You're my friend, Shirley. And all that means is I'm willing to share your pain.
You're willing to share this? [Points gun at Morrison]
Dr. Westphall
Shirley, don't, please!
What Peter did was wrong. What you did was wrong, too. And there's nothing that I can do about that. But I'm still here for you.
Yeah, I am. I've been on call for 48 hours.
The hospital will kill ya.
[They hug]
Dr. Westphall
Yeah.
I wanted to be the one to tell you.
Dr. Westphall
Tell me what?
Carrolton University Medical School used to be in Mexico.
Dr. Westphall
Jack, excuse me, I've been in surgery all day. Would you mind cluing me in on what you're talking about?
Well, I didn't get accepted to a med school here in the States, so I took a job doing research while taking pharmaceutical training. Carrolton offered a two year program, but when I got there, I found that I could accelerate. So, since I had other training, I took the test.
Dr. Westphall
How long were you at this place?
Dr. Westphall
You got two years' credit in six months?
Well, I had to take the test, and the boards, I had a background.
Dr. Westphall
Doesn't make you a doctor, Jack.
Dr. Westphall, I didn't realize what...
Dr. Westphall
Would you excuse us a for a minute, please?
[person walks out]
Dr. Westphall
Thank you.
I didn't realize what I was doing was wrong.
Dr. Westphall
Jack, if it were practical to train a doctor in that amount of time, don't you think we'd do it? Why the hell didn't you tell me? You owe me that much at least, for fighting to keep you here for a second year.
I wasn't... I was afraid. You're disappointed in me.
Dr. Westphall
Yes, I'm disappointed, what the hell do you think?
Well, there must be some way to straighten this out, I mean something you can do.
Dr. Westphall
The mistakes you made here, the misdiagnoses, I believed it was because you were doing your best to function under tremendous personal pressure and now it seems all the errors you made were the result of a grossly inadequate medical education. If I'd had the power, I'd suspend you, you know that?
Well, I'd like to continue with the educational part of my residency, but I'll take myself off cases.
Dr. Westphall
That's a damn good idea.
We lost one of your patients, Florence Hufnagel.
In here, on her way to the morgue.
Why haven't her test results been charted? We have ward clerks up the wazoo, but you can't get a simple blood test back from the lab before high noon?
Well, the doctors didn't seem to know what caused the heart attack. Though my guess is it was brought on by the bed.
Dr. Westphall
The bed, what bed?
Well, Miss Hufnagel was found... Well, she had been swallowed up by the bed.
[Auschlander laughs as all four exit the elevator] I don't think it's so damn funny.
I'm not laughing, I'm really not. It's tragic.
Wait till the hospital gets slapped with a lawsuit for shoddy equipment.
St. Elsewhere · 129 quotes
