Beth’s heart thudded against her ribcage. This was awkward. ‘I know.’
‘You what?’ He shot her a startled look.
‘I know. Jean told me.’
‘And you thought…what? That this wasn’t a relevant piece of information that needed to be passed on?’ Matt’s eyes flashed dangerously.
‘Jean asked me not to. As an interpreter I have a duty of confidentiality.’
‘Not when the health of a patient could be compromised. The sole responsibility for clinical decisions is mine and I can’t make them without all the information.’ His control slipped slightly and he shot her a thunderous look.
He could rail at her all he liked, she wasn’t going to back down. ‘Yes, it is. But Jean was communicating directly with you and if she’d wanted to tell you there was nothing stopping her. She knew that you didn’t understand signing and she had every reason to expect that her signed conversation with me was private.’ Beth shook her head. There had been no obvious right answer to this and she’d had to make a judgement call. ‘I know what you’re thinking. If he’d turned up for his appointment then there’s a chance that what happened tonight might have been avoided….’
He broke in, a note of exasperation in his voice. ‘I don’t think anything. I don’t know what to think, because I’ve no idea why Doug didn’t turn up for his appointment—for all I know he was being held hostage at gunpoint by the milkman. Don’t you think it might have been sensible to mention it so that I could at least make some attempt to deal with the issue?’
‘Yes, actually, I do. Which is exactly why I made Jean promise to discuss it with you tomorrow. She said I could tell you, but I wanted her to speak with you herself.’
He opened his mouth and then closed it again. The tension in the room snapped and the suspicion of a smile quirked his lips. ‘Well, that’s good to know, anyway. And for what it’s worth, I think you made the right decision. I don’t like the fact that they felt they couldn’t trust me, but if the experience they had in A and E tonight is anything to go by, I can’t blame them for not having too much confidence in us.’ His eyebrows shot up as Beth’s face betrayed her thoughts. ‘What now?’
‘Oh. Nothing. I was just thinking that you might have a point.’
He laughed. ‘Well, I suppose we could go another round over that, but I’m willing to call it a draw.’
‘Probably best.’ Arguing with Matt had set her pulse racing, and the look on his face told her that the feeling was not entirely one-sided.
He scraped his hand over the back of his head. ‘Look, I don’t want to play games here. When you see Jean will you tell her that I remembered Doug had missed his appointment. That it’s okay, I’m not going to label them time-wasters or put them to the back of the queue, but I would really like to talk to her about it because I want to know if there are things that I can do better.’
‘Fair enough. Yes, that would be good. I’ll tell her. Thanks, there are some doctors who wouldn’t have taken that attitude.’
It seemed that Jean and Doug needed no protection from Matt. ‘So, anyway, was that what you wanted to talk about?’
He grinned, shaking his head. ‘No. That was a side-issue.’
‘So what’s really on your mind?’ Beth was feeling a bit more like listening to him now. She might even do a bit of t
alking of her own.
‘I want to talk to you about the study you’re doing. My deputy, Dr Allen, mentioned it to me and I found the proposal on the hospital intranet, along with some other papers that you’d written.’
He’d been checking up on her. A sensation that was not altogether unpleasant shimmered up her spine. ‘Yes. I’m using computer modelling to isolate specific behaviours in doctor-patient interaction and relating them to the patient’s perception of satisfaction and clinical outcomes.’ She put an emphasis on her final words. ‘With particular reference to the deaf.’
‘I’d like to discuss the possibility of Cardiology participating in your study.’
What on earth was he up to? ‘Why? Just because you have one deaf patient…’
‘Actually, it’s more than one, I got Phyllis to check. And it’s not just about my deaf patients. I think that better communication can improve both our patients’ confidence in us and our clinical outcomes. So it strikes me that I should be looking at whether the kind of techniques you’re using will help us to assess our current communication strategies.’
He had to be under some misconception about what she was trying to do. ‘It’s only fair to tell you that your predecessor was resistant to the idea of me doing the study here in Cardiology.’
‘Yes, I know what my predecessor thought. Phyl dug the relevant emails out of the archive for me. I don’t agree with him. Both Sandra Allen and I think it’s a great learning opportunity for the department.’
‘But I don’t know much about other groups. Deafness is my speciality.’
‘Fine. All we want to do is to see how a study like this works. We’d like to be involved partners, rather than test subjects. But in return we’d give you an opportunity to try things out, see what works and what doesn’t. We’d do what we could to get other departments interested as well.’
‘How involved would you want to be?’ Beth had a sneaking suspicion that Matt’s idea of partnership meant that he would be in charge.
‘That’s up for discussion. But this is your study. You call the shots.’