Reawakened by the Surgeon's Touch Read Online Free PDF Page B

sector. It had been either that or give up medicine altogether which he couldn’t quite bring himself to do. He had always believed that he had made the right decision, so why did he feel this need to vindicate his actions?
    â€˜Right, let’s get him out of there.’
    Jude swung round when the woman opened the cab door and felt his heart jerk like a puppet having its strings pulled. In that second he realised what was happening and bit back his groan of dismay. It was no longer enough that he proved his worth to his old mentor. Neither was it enough that he proved to himself that he could still hack it. For some inexplicable reason he needed to prove to her that he was a damned good surgeon!

CHAPTER THREE
    â€˜W E ’ LL HAVE TO use the triage bay. Resus is full.’
    Claire guided the trolley past the queue of people waiting to be seen and elbowed open the door to the triage room. Myrtle, one of the cleaning staff, had just finished mopping the floor and Claire smiled at her. ‘Thanks, Myrtle. Can you see if Dr Arnold is anywhere about? We could use his help in here if he’s free.’
    â€˜I will go and find him for you, Sister.’
    Myrtle left the room at her usual sedate pace. None of the local staff ever hurried and they seemed to find it highly amusing when they saw the foreign doctors and nurses rushing around. Claire had found their attitude frustrating when she had first arrived in the country, but she had grown used to it by now. She didn’t turn a hair when Benjamin, the porter, took his time positioning the trolley beside the bed although she could tell that Dr Slater was impatient to get on with the job.
    â€˜On my count,’ she said quietly, determined not to let him know how unsettled she felt by his presence. She grasped hold of a piece of the blanket then checked that he and Benjamin had hold as well. ‘One. Two. Three.’
    They transferred the injured driver onto the bed and then Bill Arnold arrived.
    â€˜You were supposed to be fetching us back a new surgeon not another patient,’ he grumbled as he came into the room.
    â€˜Stop complaining,’ Claire retorted, well used to the middle-aged Yorkshireman’s dry sense of humour. ‘I could have left the surgeon and just brought you the patient!’
    â€˜In other words, count my blessings, eh?’ Bill laughed as he came over to the bed and held out his hand. ‘Bill Arnold. Nice to have you on board, Dr Slater. What have we got here?’
    The two men shook hands before Jude briefly outlined the man’s injuries. ‘He’ll need a CT scan for starters,’ he concluded. ‘Once I have a better idea what I’m dealing with, I’ll want an MRI scan doing as well to check the full extent of soft tissue damage...’
    â€˜Whoa! Steady on.’
    Bill held up his hand and Jude immediately stopped speaking, although Claire could tell that he wasn’t pleased about being interrupted. He was probably more used to people hanging on to his every word, she thought cynically as she began to remove the patient’s clothes. Some surgeons seemed to think they ranked second only to God in the pecking order and if that were the case, Jude was in for a nasty shock. The surgeons on the team were treated exactly the same as everyone else, i.e. they were expected to knuckle down and get the job done without a fanfare.
    â€˜Is there a problem, Dr Arnold?’ Jude asked coolly.
    â€˜It’s Bill. I dispensed with the formalities a couple of years ago when I retired,’ the older man told him. ‘And yes, I’m afraid there could be a problem in so far as we don’t have access to the equipment you mentioned.’
    â€˜What do you mean that you don’t have access to it?’ Jude demanded. ‘Is the radiographer not on duty today?’
    â€˜Oh, the radiographer’s here all right,’ Bill explained easily. ‘The problem is the