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arrive early and run up to the surgical floor, on level two of the wing, the same level as the operating rooms, to see those patients he would be operating on that day. Although he didn't spend long with each patient, they were reassured by his presence, by his willingness to listen to any last-minute questions or concerns.
    Most of the time he made a very deliberate effort to be accessible, available and non-threatening to his patients. After all, the medical facilities and the staff were there for the patients, not the other way round, although to witness the arrogant shenanigans of some of his medical colleagues, it wasn't a universally evident assumption. Such arrogance often left him appalled and angry—which was one of the reasons he wanted to be the next chief of surgery. Jerry Claiboume was a great guy who had done a lot to ensure that the department of surgery was patient-centred, yet there was still work to be done in that direction, a change from lingering paternalism and, he had to admit, sexism.
    When he had seen his patients and changed into a green scrub suit in the surgeons' locker room, he made his way through the automatic double glass doors to the operating suite. Even after years of being a surgeon, he always experienced a heightened sense of anticipation—a thrill, he supposed he could call it—of the work ahead of him. He was, he acknowledged, one of those fortunate—rather rare—individuals who loved their work.
    'Morning, Rick.' He passed his senior surgical resident going in the opposite direction down the main OR corridor from which the individual operating rooms led off. 'Are we all set?'
    'Morning, Dr Sotheby,' Rick said, coming to a brief halt. 'Yep, it's all systems go. Just going to get a quick mouthful of coffee before we start.'
    'Sure. See you in there.'
    Rick Sommers was a tall, gangly young man, going prematurely bald, which made him look wise beyond his years. In the green surgical scrub suit that flapped around his skinny body he looked undernourished, even though he ate voraciously whenever he got a chance.
    Although they were on a first-name basis, Rick was formal in the OR—they found it worked best that way when others were around. They also got along very well together, Clay reflected yet again as he watched the younger man stride off down the corridor. That was mainly because they had compatible personalities, were good at their jobs and shared the same subtle sense of humour which was an invaluable attribute in the often tense atmosphere of the OR. Clay was well aware that he himself could be mildly sarcastic at times, in spite of good intentions to the contrary, while Rick was never that way—not yet. Maybe that was something that came with power.
    'Good morning, Dr Sotheby,' a nurse greeted him as he neared his own operating room, number four.
    'Morning,' he said, smiling. Before going into his own room, he popped into room three for a quick word with the anaesthetist, Claude Moreau, who would be working there for the day. Claude was involved with a patient of his who was in the intensive care unit.
    'Morning, Claude,' he said to Dr Moreau, who was checking his anaesthetic machine and equipment. 'How's Annie Lewowski? I didn't get a chance to see her this morning.'
    'Hi, Clay.' The tall, calm French-Canadian turned his startling blue eyes on Clay. Of all the anaesthetists in the hospital, he was one of the best. 'I saw her briefly this morning and there's a definite improvement since yesterday. She's breathing all right on her own.'
    Annie Lewowski, in her late sixties, had suffered a stroke, a blood clot in the brain, following major surgery the previous week for a bowel obstruction. 'That's great to hear,' he said. 'I'll see her later.'
    Taking a short cut through the clean prep room which connected two rooms, where some instruments were sterilized in the autoclave and the large sterile packs of linen were kept for the day's cases, he heard two nurses talking in room