August 24, 1995.
I awoke early this morning,
most likely because I had the Mount Auburn conference
with Drs. Setnick and Hagopian on my mind.
I considered the possibility that they might really
be looking for a constructive solution to the
hospitals emergency room dilemma.
More likely however that they wanted to scold me
to try to (re)assert their authority.
I was determined not to permit myself to be put on trial;
and to insist on written charges.

This morning I assisted Chet Boulris at cataract extraction.
The patient was Helen Goodridge.
The pupil was firmly miotic
from protracted administration of pilocarpine.
After he had stretched the pupil,
he decided that the cataract was too far advanced to use
phacoemulsification and he proceeded
with a routine extracapsular extraction.
There were no complications.

I arrived at MAH early
and waited in front of Dr Setnick's locked office.
Varant arrived a few minutes late.
Finally Gary Setnick came.
From the moment that we sat down,
there was no question about the confrontation
that Gary had in mind.
He stated that the complaint under Cobra, as he called it,
had been filed, and he explicitly
asked for my "cooperation",
in return for which he promised to use his influence 
to have the Cobra charges against me dropped.
I protested that I did not believe Cobra
was at all applicable, and that the threat of 
prosecution under it was being used to intimidate
me and to extort from me services to which Mount Auburn
Hospital had no right.
He showed me the written complaint
that had been filed by Dr Jim Stevens.
He promised me a photocopy, but in the
end he did not give it to me.
He blamed me for making the patient angry
and embarrassing the staff.
I pointed out that he had deliberately embarrassed me,
by calling the Patalanos' office number and Varant Hagopian
with the explanation that I could not be relied upon.
He volunteered that he had tried so to telephone
*all* the members of the ophthalmology division
and then defended himself against my statement
that he had defamed me, by saying that he had been
unable to reach them.
Gary kept coming back to demand an explanation
for my conduct, a kind of apology,
a promise that the situation would not be repeated;
but I compared his demands to the attempt
in totalitarian societies to extort
a confession of wrongdoing, and this I refused.