“Invite me to your indoctrination?” he interrupted. “Show me the proper corporate facility and tell me all this can be mine if I just adjust my attitude?”
Actually, that was correct. But she wasn’t going to admit that to Grant, because that would just fuel his fire, and he had such a big fire going already that adding to it would prove nothing. The truth was, she felt bad about this. Always did, when it became personal. This time more than usual, though, because she liked this clinic, and she did see merit in it existing as it did, without change. With Ridgeway, though, change was inevitable, which made her sad for the little Kahawaii Clinic because, if she could be honest with herself, she’d pictured herself working in a setting like this. Part of that discontent she’d been feeling for a while had been that she wanted to connect to medicine in a way she wasn’t allowed in her current capacity, and here, that connection would have been so easy.
But Grant was right. Kahawaii would change. She glanced down at his feet. He would have to wear regular shoes. No more bare toes. “Look, Grant, I know this isn’t going to be easy for you. But we…Ridgeway Medical…does have its place. Small private hospitals and clinics struggle against the larger ones for a lot of reasons, and unfortunately most of those reasons are purely business. They can provide outstanding care, have an exemplary medical staff, sterling reputation, everything you want in a medical facility, but if they can’t afford the latest MRI machine, for example, the patients who need an MRI for whatever reason go somewhere else, and it doesn’t take too much of that to affect the bottom line financially. Patients who go away rarely ever come back. They find it more convenient to bundle up all their medical needs together and keep them at the one facility that can meet all their requirements. So when the bottom line takes hit after hit like that, with people leaving to find more services, the facility suffers. That’s precisely why Ridgeway Medical is so important. We can keep that patient at that smaller facility and offer them everything they need there. In Indiana, for example, we own three small hospitals. Each, in itself, can’t afford an MRI scanner, and the patient load is such that it’s not warranted at any one of these facilities. All three were suffering when we stepped in, and the very first thing we did was buy a mobile MRI. It goes from facility to facility, and serves all three on a rotating basis. We’re not losing our patients who need an MRI, and they’re allowed to stay with the medical facility of their first choice because we pooled resources.
“I mean, people want to look at their medical treatment as something cozy and personal, but there’s a huge, demanding business behind it that makes it work, and what we do is try to find a way to allow people to have the kind of medicine they want yet make the business aspects work to keep it that way.”
“Is that in the company brochure?” he snapped. “Because if it’s not, it sure should be. You’ve got the corporate verbiage down perfectly. It’s a very good selling job if somebody wants to be sold, which I don’t!”
In the official presentation they made, this was the part where they usually went to a multimedia presentation—graphs, charts, movie, testimonials. Which made Grant correct. She did have the company verbiage down…another of the reasons she wasn’t so sure of her future in the company, as she was tired of the impersonal feel of it all. “Look, I don’t know what I could say to make it right for you. Most people don’t like the transition, and I understand that—”
“Do you, Susan? Do you really understand, or is that more jargon? Have you ever had everything you’ve come to count on transitioned right out from under you? And in the case of Kahawaii, have you even considered that you’re transitioning it right out from under its patients, too? Look out there.” He pointed to the gardens just off the end of the lanai, where Laka was helping an elderly woman take a walk down the path. The woman shuffled along on a walker, doing fairly well, actually, and Laka walked along with her, keeping a steadying hand on the woman’s back. “Her name is Pearl. Replaced hip. Aged eighty-nine. How would she fare in one of your clinics?”
“We have rehab facilities—”
“She lives at home, Susan. Not in a rehab facility. Laka, or one of the other clinic workers, goes over there twice a day to help Pearl walk. She’s living at home, where she’s happy and comfortable. We send meals over from the clinic, too. All Pearl needs is a little assistance, and I can promise you that if we were to send her to a rehab facility, she’d give up and die. For her, staying at home means everything so that’s what we’re helping her do, and she’s allowed her life and her dignity. It works out for us, too, as when we have children in the pediatric wards, she comes over to read stories to them. Or if we have babies staying here, she spends time sitting and rocking them, and singing to them when their parents can’t be here. It’s a valuable relationship, Susan, and I’m betting you don’t have anything that personal in any of the Ridgeway facilities, do you?”
His voice was softening now, going from anger to…well, it could have been pride because there was a lot here to be proud about. But maybe it was love. Grant did love this clinic, and he had a passion for the way medicine was practiced here. Watching Pearl make her way along the path for a moment, Susan finally shifted her gaze back to Grant. “No, we don’t, and I’m sorry. It would be nice to think that we could do something like that, but the truth is, when you have a hundred facilities to look after, it just can’t be that way.”
“Meaning the individual patient doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, the individual patient always matters, which is why we operate the way we do. We strive to give the best care to everybody who comes through our doors, but it’s just not so…”
“Personal,” Grant supplied.
“It’s nice to have an ideal, Grant,” Susan said, standing. It was time to leave. Truly, she did feel bad for what would of necessity happen at this little clinic, but it wasn’t under her control. Somebody other than Grant was selling the place, and if she and her father didn’t buy it, someone else would. Judging from the beautiful land on which it sat, that someone else might not be a company vested with medical interests. This would be the perfect place for a plush resort, or luxury condos… She wondered if Grant could see that handwriting on the wall, because it was written everywhere. Property this beautiful was scarce, and if Ridgeway didn’t seal the deal…well, she didn’t even want to think about the possibilities. “And I wish you well in yours. I’m sorry this won’t be turning out the way you’d like it to, but I really don’t make the deals. I just oversee the medical operations.”
“You don’t seem like the type,” he said, as she stepped away from the table.
“And what type is that?” she asked, starting to bristle again.
“Corporate.”
“And what is the corporate type supposed to seem like?”
“Not like you. Out there on the beach, when that boy drowned…the way you took it so hard…”
“I’m not unfeeling, Grant. I went to medical school just like you did, went through the same medical service rotations, learned the same procedures, dealt with the same kind of patients. And even though we don’t agree on anything that Ridgeway Medical does, it’s not fair to characterize me the way you’re doing. Saying that I can’t care, or that I don’t have compassion because I’m corporate is the same as my saying that because you’re only a country doctor you’re too simple to understand the reasons a corporation like Ridgeway exists. I wouldn’t do that because you do understand why we do what we do, even if you don’t like it. And being a country doctor certainly doesn’t make you backward, so I wouldn’t ever say anything like that.”
It was time to go, time to get back to the life she knew. She didn’t have a fight with Grant, and didn’t want to have one. He wouldn’t believe that, but she did admire his passion for the kind of medicine he practiced. She even envied him that. It had been such a long time since she’d felt that kind of passion about anything, and she only hoped that once Ridgeway took over his clinic, he would hold on to it. Doctors like Grant Makela were rare.
Men like Grant Makela were even rarer.
CHAPTER