"That wasn't your call."

"Dr McAndrew, this was a serious mistake."

"And I'm the Chief Attending, dealing with this sort of thing is MY job."

"You were not here. We certainly can't have a nurse who would mix up blood samples on active duty."

"I understand that. I also understand that I have a cell phone and you could have called me." Adam fumed.

"We were lucky there were no fatal consequences from Ms Dobler's mistake."

"No fatal consequences and yet you still suspended her for two weeks. You're still putting her up for review, possible termination?"

"Ms Dobler needs to understand the gravity of what she did."

"If she did it."

"If? According to the duty roster, Ms Dobler was assigned to draw all the blood samples and deliver them to the lab."

"I know Brittany Dobler. Yes she's basically fresh out of nursing school, she's still wet behind the years. But she's not stupid, she knows how to do her job and she's extremely careful to do it right because more than anything she loves kids. She would never hurt any of them, not on purpose, not by accident."

"Dr McAndrew it's noble of you to stand up for one of your department's staff members but the only people who had access to those blood samples were Ms Dobler and the lab techs. And both technicians have been here for over two years with flawless records. If a mistake was made it was almost certainly Ms Dobler. She has been suspended without pay and WE will decide at the end of that time if she continues her employment at this hospital and that is the end of this discussion."

Adam bit his lip to keep from screaming. It wouldn't do to have a doctor screaming obscenities in front of children. Or worse, punching someone in his overweight, bureaucratic smug face. Adam really disliked Neville Briggs. He'd had more than one unpleasant encounter with the administrator, just in the last week. He wanted nothing more than to prove Brittany didn't screw up so he could shove it in Briggs' face.

"What was that all about?"

"Kenji. You'd better call the service and see if they can send a temp."

"Brittany call out sick?"

"Brittany is on suspension. Two weeks."

"What? Little Miss Sunshine got in trouble?"

"Yeah. Apparently." Adam shrugged, "According to Briggs and his micromanaging bull dogs, Brittany mislabeled a blood sample. Accidentally mixed up the draw from Charlie Hutchinson with another patient."

"You're joking right?"

"She confirmed she drew the blood. The mistake was caught when the results triggered a review by neurology before the hospital would approve the insurance's request to transfer Charlie to a care center. A review which pointed out that there was no way Charlie Hutchinson's test results could have that high a differential in a week."

"Are they going to fire her?"

"Not if I have something to say about it. There's a review at the end of her suspension and I'll be right there by her side."

"Good. We gotta stand by our girl."

Adam saw Jackson coming out of the locker room, pulling her coat on."

"Jackson."

"Doctor."

"I guess you heard. About Charlie."

"uh huh."

A thought went through Adam's mind. He didn't want to believe it, it wasn't possible. It was about as likely as the thought of Brittany being careless with something as important as a blood sample.

"The insurance company is demanding the blood work be redone right away. So it's really only a few days delay." Adam said as casually as he could. "And Briggs is looking into the screw up."

"I thought Brittany"

"Brittany admitted she drew the blood but she's pretty certain she labeled all the samples correctly."

"No one else had access to the blood samples."

"We both know that's not totally true. There are a few members of the staff who have full access to all areas. Attendings, charge nurses and such. I would hate for Briggs to get the idea that someone might have used that access to switch the samples on purpose. Maybe someone that doesn't want Charlie taken away from the hospital.

"Well have a good night, Jackson." Adam turned away without another word. He hated thinking Jackson might do something like that, although at the same time he couldn't blame her. He understood the notion of a patient getting under your skin. No matter how much the teachers at medical school lectured about not getting emotional it was a lot harder in real life. After all, they are only human. He couldn't berate Jackson when he was just as bad. He knew if it came down to it, he'd pitch a fit if anyone tried to take Jordi away, even the boy's own family. Still he didn't like the idea that she'd do something illegal. He couldn't prove it and only mentioned it in the hopes that if she had any plans for an encore she would drop them. Jackson was too good to lose. And she'd been around long enough that he couldn't use inexperience to get her out of trouble.