Disclaimer: Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures.

I thank Buffalo Pictures for the inspiration and for creating such interesting characters. All characters and places are owned by Buffalo Pictures.

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Chapter 1 – Martin's intervention

"No."

This one syllable cut through the busy noises of the operating theatre.

One syllable Martin had struggled a long time to say.

He had the highest respect for Newton. Newton had been his tutor when he had been a student, mentor when he had been a young surgeon and a beacon of hope in this trial where disaster lurked around every corner.

Martin didn't believe in rising among his peers by letting others look bad. Martin didn't believe in betraying old acquaintances. Martin believed in doing everything for the welfare of his patients.

As a GP he had always felt responsible for the health of his patients even if it meant going the extra mile to convince stubborn patients of the necessity of the treatment he described. He felt even greater responsibility as a surgeon, when the patient in his care was unconscious and rendered unable to make decisions for themselves.

Watching his former teacher he realised how long he had now been out of the operating theatre. The steady pair of hands of this supreme surgeon had become unsteady, the astounding eye for detail had become clouded. The way this formerly brilliant doctor kept on butchering the intestines of the cholecystectomy case was unbearable.

Martin had hissed his warnings a couple of times during the procedure, but his colleague kept on making mistake after mistake. Blood was already pooling in the cavity, the pulse was rising while the blood pressure plummeted.

One more mistake like that and the woman was a goner.

They had to restore the vessels quickly or the mistakes already made would take their toll. Martin knew exactly what to do. He had to struggle with the sight and smell of blood, that was true, and he felt the anxiety of the possible loss of this patient in the pit of his stomach. He also had to admit that doing the exercises Aunt Ruth had shown him, didn't help much.

Still, he had years of experience as a vascular surgeon and he knew that the blood loss caused by the cut hepatic artery would cause the patient to bleed out very quickly.

Still, Martin had felt it was not his place to intervene. The hierarchy in the operating theatre is very strict. The leading surgeon has the say and all the other participants are only tools in his tool box, simply following orders. Power struggles over a prepped patient are potentially lethal.

Therefore, there is a clear hierarchy that is not to be questioned.

That was what Martin believed.

Up to a point, he realised watching the blood being pumped out of the hepatic artery and thereby losing its function as source of life.

Martin would have respected the hierarchy for longer, but it was obvious that his old tutor was panicking – the last thing you're allowed to do at the operating table. You have to be in control.

Wasn't that what this twit Milligan had said when Martin had contacted him a couple of years ago to conquer his haemophobia? Well, so much was true, anyway. You had to be a steady commander, one who caused the team to trust you wherever you would lead them.

Looking around in the panic-stricken faces around the table it was obvious that no one, not one single person in the room trusted Newton anymore.

Maybe that had also triggered Martin's mutiny against the captain of this operation – the anesthesiologist saying: "This is bad."

And bad it was, and watching Newton play Mikado with several forceps and clamps didn't make it any better. How many clamps do you want to push into a patient's abdomen? Shouting for more clamps was not helping. The blood flow didn't just have to be cut off. That would just lead to necrosis of the affected tissue. They had to restore the blood flow immediately.

No matter how delicate it was to question the authority of the leading surgeon, Martin had no choice.

"No."

Martin uttered this word. A word short and powerful. He uttered it as a last resort.

To be continued...