Here's part 3.
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By all accounts, most on Olympic Memorial's
medical executive
committee had similar sentiments. Yet the task before
them involved
more than simply forgiving a respected colleague.
The committee, notified by ER nurses about what had
happened, convened in emergency session at 6:30 p.m.
on Jan. 15.
The chief of staff presided over a 14-member group
that included
various doctors, hospital administrator Stegbauer,
the hospital's
attorney Donna Moniz, and a University of Washington
ethicist,
Thomas McCormick.
They sat around a U-shaped table beside a large
picture
window. Through that window they could see Port
Angeles' harbor
and the now-shuttered Rayonier pulp mill. About 365 jobs
evaporated directly when the 60-year-old mill closed
early last
year, and perhaps twice that number disappeared
through ripple
effects.
Port Angeles still looks like a logging
town--smokestacks, piles
of logs and mounds of wood chips ring the harbor--yet
its boom
days are past. Inside the arch of Ediz Hook sand
spit, a battered
fishing fleet offers evidence of the depleted salmon
fishery. Fish
pens in the bay now raise Atlantic salmon, because
the local variety
doesn't do well on such farms. There was a move afoot
for a while
to unload Alaskan oil here and pump it by pipeline to
the Midwest,
but opponents--led by Turner's wife, Norma--quashed
that plan.
Oil tankers still stop here, but only to wait in the
protected bay until
they can unload at refineries further down Puget Sound.
Port Angeles has been forced to recast itself
ever since the
timber industry plunged in the early 1980s. Sitting
atop the Olympic
Peninsula with Olympic National Park at its back,
Juan de Fuca
Strait at its shores and Victoria, Canada, just 17
miles across the
sea, it relies on tourism now. The populace is a mix
of conservative
blue-collar millworkers; educated, affluent retirees;
equity-rich
urban refugees; and a hodgepodge of environmentally
conscious
''Earth muffins'' and ''granola heads,'' some with
money, some living
in trailers.
The largest employer, by far, is Olympic
Memorial Hospital,
providing almost 1,000 jobs. Opened in 1948, the 126-bed
hospital is a quasi-public enterprise funded by its
own tax district.
Elected commissioners provide oversight, but the
medical executive
committee directly runs the hospital. If there is an
elite in Port
Angeles, it includes these professionals.
By all accounts, their efforts on the evening of
Jan. 15 to make
sense of Turner's conduct were tortured.
Stegbauer invited Tom McCormack to
''facilitate.'' The ethicist
asked ''what agenda items do we want to cover
tonight?'' Talk
began about issues such as futility and brain death.
Only gradually
did those in the room, prodded in part by the
non-physicians, face
that this matter before them involved more than
abstract medical
matters.
According to minutes of the meeting, it was
hospital attorney
Moniz who finally ''pointed out that under the child
abuse reporting
law, it is clear that health professionals have a
duty to report injury .
. . to the criminal authorities within 48 hours.''
Yet some in the room
that evening also recall hearing Moniz say that the
rationale for
reporting under this statute was unclear, that it was
aimed at
protecting children from abuse, that it didn't apply
here. The
hospital, some recall hearing, could instead choose
to report to the
State Medical Quality Assurance Commission.
This option appealed to the committee. ''The
local community
may not be able to cope'' with a report to criminal
authorities, some
felt. No one would look at the complex gray issues.
Everyone
would see it as Turner smothering a baby. Matters of
futility,
questions about when this baby died--all would give
way to cries of
murder.
That Norma Turner was a political adversary of
the county
prosecuting attorney, David Bruneau, only further
fueled concerns.
She had, in fact, promoted the campaign of Bruneau's
opponent at
the last election. Don't let Dave Bruneau make a big
case of this,
one of the doctors in the room urged. Don't let
Bruneau make hay
on this.
In the end, the executive committee reached a
consensus: It was
important to report the facts of the case
immediately. They would
report it to the Washington State Medical Quality
Assurance
Commission, though. They would not report it to the
police.
They also wouldn't impose restrictions on
Turner's hospital
privileges. ''Consensus was that the group did not
want in any way
to be perceived as punishing Dr. Turner. . . ,'' the
minutes read. ''It
was noted that this is a time to support one another
and express
collegial support to Dr. Turner to avoid emotional
damage to all
involved.''
After four hours, the meeting adjourned at 10:25
p.m. Dr. Eric
Schreiber, a committee member and past chief of
staff, reached his
home minutes later. Because of this meeting, he'd
missed his son's
opening night performance in ''A Midsummer-Night's
Dream.'' Now
his family was asleep.
''Give me a hug,'' he told his wife, Jessica,
the next morning.
About the meeting, he would say nothing.
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CONTINUED IN THE NEXT MESSAGE