Cutting for Stone

In the three months since he arrived, Marion has not left the hospital grounds. The hospital is much larger than Missing Hospital but very understaffed. His schedule is overloaded and busy, and he loves it. Although the hospital is poor, it has a helipad. When Marion asks about it, B.C. Gandhi, a fellow doctor, tells him that the rich hospitals paid for it so they can pick up organ donations from the hospital’s many gunshot victims.

Marion treats a high school teacher, Mr. Walters, who remembers when Emperor Selassie came to JFK’s funeral and how it made him proud to be Black. Mr. Walters has an ulcer that won’t stop bleeding, even after several days. The chief resident, Deepak, decides that Marion will operate while he assists. However, Dr. Abramovitz, the head of the hospital, decides he wants to operate. He is very old, and should not be operating, and everyone tells Marion to contaminate him before he can begin surgery. Dr. Abramovitz makes his first incision before Marion can stop him but leaves soon after, claiming that he was contaminated. When Marion and Deepak perform the surgery, they discover cancer in his body, and Deepak admonishes Marion for not finding it before the surgery. When Marion tells Mr. Walters about his cancer, the man is philosophical.

At the communal dinner that night, they talk about the difference between their hospital and the Americans they treat versus other hospitals, like Mass General. Marion learns about Medicaid, which funds their hospital and internships. These internships are given to non-Americans because there are not enough American residents, and they don’t choose to work in Medicaid hospitals. Marion feels foolish for not having seen and understood this.

Marion admires Deepak, who is teaching him more about surgery. Deepak shares his history with Marion; he is in his late thirties and was a doctor in India and England before coming to America, where he had to start over because his medical credentials do not transfer. Although Deepak is almost done with his training, he is afraid that an upcoming site inspection will be bad for the understaffed hospital.

The hospital’s residency program is put on probation, and Marion worries he will not get credit for his year of training. One night, he operates on a man who was in a car accident, a case that everyone else sees as a lost cause. The man has vena cava wounds, one of the most difficult issues to fix. Deepak steps in and performs the tricky operation while another man observes. He says that if Deepak writes up his case, he will see that it gets published, and he offers him a job in Boston. After the man leaves, Deepak tells Marion that he is the foremost expert in liver transplants, named Thomas Stone.

Marion is shocked to find Thomas Stone in his life because he had not sought him out as Ghosh had asked. Marion begins to research what Thomas has done since leaving Africa. His approach to liver transplantation is unique in that he focuses on the smallest piece of liver necessary for a successful transplant.

The man Deepak operated on recovers, and Marion decides to become a trauma surgeon. He attends a liver transplant conference in Boston that spring because he is sure that Thomas Stone will be there. He is amazed by the hospital where Thomas works but also dismayed by its luxury in comparison to Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. He is mistaken for an internship applicant and so takes the tour of the facility. They end up at a morbidity and mortality conference, and Marion sees Thomas Stone there. Marion feels angry.

Although the surgery under discussion at the conference is not Thomas’s, he accepts full responsibility for its outcome. He also reads a letter from the deceased patient’s mother, in which she says that everyone, save one nurse, ignored her son. After he reads the letter, he holds the room in silence. He then asks a question that comes from his own book. Marion is the only one who raises his hand to answer. He wonders how someone can be a brilliant doctor and a terrible human being at the same time.

Marion finds out where Thomas lives and gains entrance to his building because the doorman sees the resemblance between Marion and Thomas and identifies him as Thomas’s son. Marion breaks into Thomas’s apartment, which is spare and workmanlike with few personal touches. He finds a picture of Thomas as a child with his mother and a jar with a finger in it. Although Marion is ready to destroy something, he changes his mind after he sees the picture. Instead, he opens every door and drawer in the house and leaves the bookmark with the message from Sister to Thomas on the desk. He takes the jar with the finger and leaves the door open when he leaves.