How I Ended Up Spending Twenty Years in Prison

              After I welcomed Diane, my first child, into my life, it took me seven months to realize that you can’t always have the things you want at the same time.  Single parenthood and the medical practice I loved were not working in my life.  So I took an ER job, working both jobs while I closed the office, transferring patient records to the doctor of their choice, including Dr. P., who was a surgeon but had a small family practice in the same small town I was in. 

              I worked in the ER for two years, and the three or four 12 hour shifts a week were working well with single parenthood.  Diane was in kindergarten, and she wanted a sister.  So I adopted Nerissa.  Nerissa carried cytomegalovirus (CMV), which can cause an illness like infectious mono and a form of hepatitis.  I developed both illnesses from the CMV, plus a post viral chronic fatigue.  I was out of work for 5 months.  When I was trying to figure out how to go back to work, I prayed, I prayed a lot.  The one thing that kept coming to mind was prison.  Dr. P., whose office was down the road from mine, was working part time for the prison system, doing minor surgeries.  But I didn’t want to work in prisons.  I thought it would be depressing, and maybe dangerous.  When I tried to ask God why I should even consider this, “Jesus was a prisoner” kept coming to mind.  Still, I didn’t want to do that.  When I started back, I couldn’t do 12 hr ER shifts.  In southern Delaware there weren’t very many choices, so I went to work in another doctor’s office.  He was fairly new in the area, and had gotten a call from Stockley Center, the Delaware state institution for the developmentally disabled in Georgetown, De to interview as a staff MD.  He came back from that interview saying “I don’t want this; I just want to build up my practice.  But it might be perfect for you.  Why don’t you call them?”  So I did.

              When I interviewed at Stockley, I found I would be one of 3 or 4 staff physicians.  Their medical director, Dr. J., was someone I met before, an internist with a broad range of knowledge, a person I liked and respected greatly.  I was thrilled to get to work with him, and really looked forward to it!  And I got the job!  It seemed the kind of place where I could control the hours and balance my life.

              I had worked at Stockley less than a month when an announcement was made to the general staff that they would be subcontracting the medical directorship.  Dr. J. found this out in the same meeting where the rest of us heard it, despite meeting daily with the Stockley administration.  It had been done behind his back to force him out. 

              By then, I loved Stockley.  If a society can be judged by the way it treats the most helpless members of that society, ours would have been judged well by Stockley.  The residents were cared for by teams.  Every resident had individual programs for all kinds of things: to allow them to choose their clothing, to help them to learn to handle money, to do some baking, and gardening and playing cards, to live a life that mattered and end that life with dignity, remembered by those who lived with them and cared for them.  There were lots of crazy ideas, but the basic intention and effort was admirable.  I wanted to be part of it.  An attempt was made to maximize the potential of every individual, no matter how limited that potential might be.  I went home that night, looked up the company that had gotten the contract and put in an application.  Next day, Dr. J. said, “You know, there’s no point in my applying for the job, but you could”.  I laughed and told him I already had.

              There was a nationwide recruitment for the medical director position.  The basic requirement was board certification, and I was board certified in internal medicine with added qualifications in geriatrics.  A fellowship in developmental disabilities and/or a master’s in business administration were desired and I had neither of those.  11 applicants were interviewed.  9 were more qualified than I was, most of them having fellowships in developmental disabilities.  The recruitment process went on for 9 months.  During that time I was interviewed 3 times.  I prayed, but said “Lord, I really want this job.  If you want me somewhere else, they are going to have to turn me down.  Your will, not mine.”  Be careful what you pray for!

               The 9 more qualified candidates dropped out, for one reason or another, leaving just two of us, a woman with a local private practice who had not been considered a serious candidate because she had no board certification, and me.  They interviewed us back to back on a Friday and offered her the position on Monday.  The administrator explained to me that they could not go to the state legislature and say “We spent $500,000 on a nationwide recruitment for medical director and a physical therapy director (that price included the first year’s salary for both) and they found this great medical director and she was already working for us!” 

              The Saturday after the interview, I received one of those letters that go to every doctor in the state, announcing an opening with the company that had the contract for the state department of corrections.  I read that letter and thought I’d better not trash it until I see what happens Monday.

              The woman who got the job I had wanted was less qualified than I was.  She wasn’t board certified.  When she interviewed, she refused the opportunity to meet the residents of the medical center, our medically sickest patients, some with tracheostomies and oxygen and tube fed.  She didn’t visit any of the residents or facilities.  I decided I was not going to work for someone less qualified and less interested in the Stockley residents than I was, so I called the medical director of the Delaware DOC, Dr. Robinson.

              Dr. Robinson asked if I could get up to Wilmington for an interview.  I told him I would be coming up the following Thursday (Wilmington was almost 100 miles north of where I lived) with my 3 year-old daughter, Nerissa, for an eye doctors appointment.  He said to bring her along and meet him at the Air Transport Command Restaurant at 3 PM.  So, 3 year-old in tow, I met him at 3 PM.   

              To start with, Air Transport Command was a formal restaurant, so when we walked in at 3 PM, all the tables were set with white tablecloths, water and wine glasses, and china plates.  After I managed to keep Nerissa from trying to unset the nearest table, I sat her next to the window and next to me.  I sat across from Dr. Robinson.  Since I was trying to be interviewed, I needed to keep eye contact with him, so much of my knowledge of what my daughter was doing came from his facial expressions. 

              Dr. Robinson ordered an orange juice for her and gave her a piece of chewing gum, with my permission.  I let her do what she was never allowed to do: go through my purse.  She found a bag of coins I was carrying to teach Diane, my older daughter, how to make change.  It seemed a fairly safe thing to let her play with.  She stuck her well-chewed gum to a saucer and stood coins on end in the gum.  She dropped the coins in the orange juice, watching them float to the bottom and fishing them out with a fork.  Dr. Robinson’s face seemed to reflect, what, nausea?  Revulsion, maybe?  I asked; he had no children.  Finally I just said “Look, I’m a lot better as a doctor than I am at making a 3 year old behave during an interview.”  I got the job; I suspect I was probably his only applicant anyway.

              I did call Dr. P, though (remember him, from the beginning of the story).  I told him I was taking a prison position and leaving Stockley, so there was a full time staff position there if he was interested.  He was, and he took the position.

              A year later I got a call from a nurse/ friend from Stockley.  The woman who had gotten the medical director’s job had not fulfilled her contract.  She had refused to close her private practice, treating the medical directorship as a part-time job, so they had fired her.  If I was interested, the job was open again.  I put in an application but received a call from the company.  There was someone already working for them who was taking the position.  So the first time, I couldn’t get the job because I was already working there, and the second time I couldn’t get the job because I wasn’t working for them.  But third time lucky, right?  I asked my nurse/ friends to let me know if the job came open again.

              Two years later, the contract for Stockley Center came up for bid.  Liberty, the company that had the contract, called me and asked if I was interested in a staff position.  They were in a pickle.  They had a good medical director that they wanted to keep.  Problem is, the state had specified that all the physicians had to be board certified in a primary care specialty and Dr. P wasn’t.  Liberty put him in their proposal, thinking the state would grandfather him and accept him, but they refused.  So they had to replace him immediately in their proposal.  I told them I needed to talk to Dr. P.  He said he had been told he was losing the job, no matter what.  I told him I would be leaving a full time position behind me in the prison if he wanted to trade jobs again.   However, it turned out that Columbia, another company, had already won the contract on points.  Members of the committee had called Liberty and told them to revise their proposal immediately.  There were people on the committee who did not want to lose the current medical director. 

              Well, that was illegal.  The Delaware attorney general got involved, called both companies in and said the contract had already been awarded to Columbia.  Columbia then called me: they didn’t have a medical director for Stockley; was I interested?  Of course I was!  So Columbia took me to interview with the committee at Stockley (all Stockley interviews meant facing 6 to 12 people around a table, all asking questions.  Great fun.).   It looked like Stockley would accept me, but then Liberty filed suit against the state, so Columbia did too.  Meanwhile, the Department of Correction had also changed contractors.  The new contractor had given me a week to decide if I was working for them or leaving.  I had to make the decision, so I stayed with the prison system.  I withdrew my name from the Columbia medical directorship; they were very nice about it.  I withdrew my name from Liberty, and they threatened to sue!  But I stayed in the prison system.  The attorney general decided, since both companies were suing, that Stockley should put out a new request for proposal and entertain new bids.  They awarded the contract to Pennhurst, a different company all together.  Dr. P came back to the prison system anyway, in another position.

              That was the last time I tried to get out of corrections.  I had to accept that this was my mission, this was what was given to my by God for my life’s work, and He clearly was not going to let me get out of it.  So (except for two years as a hospitalist at Nashville General Hospital, which was experience I needed in order to run DeBerry Special Needs Facility) I would spend the next 20 years in prisons – fortunately only for 8 or 10 hours a day.  They let me sleep at home!