The Surgeon

Forty-one-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Anne Wiley sits on the operating room floor in shock after losing a patient for the first time in her 12-year career. Her anesthesiologist, Dr. Robert Bolger, glares at her with contempt, while surgical nurse Madison tries to comfort her. Madison’s colleague, Lee Chen, silences the flatline monitor, and perfusionist Tim Crosley remains at the heart-lung pump. Dr. Bolger announces that they’re finished and leaves with echocardiologist Dr. Francis Dean.

Anne’s mind flashes back to earlier that day. She jogged through Lincoln Park on a windy Thursday morning, arriving at the hospital to perform an ascending aortic aneurysm repair on 59-year-old Caleb Donaghy. She had met Donaghy twice before: once during a consultation when he was scared and argumentative, wearing a ball cap that obscured his face, and again the night before the surgery, when he was angry about being asked about organ donation. Anne was dismayed to see Dr. Bolger assigned as the anesthesiologist, knowing his reputation for arrogance and misogyny.

During surgery, the team chatted lightheartedly while another nurse, Virginia “Ginny” Gonzales, shared a story about a bad date. Dr. Bolger reprimanded them for unprofessionalism. Anne requested music by the Beatles and began the routine procedure, stopping the heart with a cold potassium solution and replacing the aneurysm with a graft.