Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 74

Writing a more believable medical hero/heroine…day 2, confidentiality

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Image © Shannon Matteson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Ever heard of HIPAA?

If you’re writing a medical hero or heroine, you should have heard of it.

Also, if you’ve been to the doctor’s office in the past umpteen years, you have heard it.  You just might not realize that is what it is.

In 1996, HIPAA, also known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was endorsed by Congress.

Why does this matter when writing a doctor or nurse? Because your doctor or nurse should have a basic understanding of it. You don’t need to go throwing that term in there, because your readers might not understand it.

But your medical readers, and there are a lot of us, will laugh or roll our eyes or get downright irritated when you trample all over confidentiality… because that is what this is about.

Confidentiality.

Confidentiality has always mattered to an ethical nurse or doctor, but after HIPAA came into being, it got more important. Talking about a patient in the cafeteria, where other people can hear you can lead to serious trouble.  Looking through records you have no business accessing can get you fired. (Link)

Facebooking about a patient can lead to big trouble.  Nurses get fired over this. (Link)

And while this case here – the woman took photos for pete’s sake – look at what is under the header…referred to the FBI.(Link) That FBI thing should clue you in… confidentiality is no joking matter.

I cannot tell you how many books I’ve read where the hero or heroine is somehow connected to the medical field…a doctor, nurse, EMT, etc and will be in the cafeteria, talking about Ms. Shaw and her hip, in the elevator, talking about cranky old Mr. Roberts and his dialysis, etc, etc.

Yes, the staff will talk. But…the smart ones, who value their jobs, aren’t going to do it in public where anybody but staff can hear.

And it shouldn’t be gossipy.  Say a nurse in ICU hears you’ve got a hunky cop on the med-surg floor.  She comes up and wants details… yes, this is totally believable, right?

Do you know that if you are overheard discussing those details, you can get fired?

Basically, you share only the necessary information with the necessary people.

So if you’re overheard discussing patients at yoga…in the supermarket…with your BFF…that’s a no.

You might think this is too restrictive to your story, but if you want to make your medical character more believable, then you can find a way to work it.

Basically:

No gossiping, especially not in public spaces
You can’t have the hero/heroine pull the doctor or nurse aside for info on a patient.  Unless that patient has given permission, and the staff should check, that doctor/nurse is risking his license, his money, possibly his freedom by giving out those details so easily.
The same goes goes if a character out of the blue asks the doctor/nurse for info…unless that doctor/nurse knows the patient has okay’d that release of information, they aren’t going to give it.  They like having their license, the money from the job…and yeah, not being investigated, thrown in jail, etc, etc.
If your nurse/doctor goes digging for personal data, s/he’s doing it at the risk of losing his/her job, possibly her license. Since many records have gone digital, this can be tracked…and it often is.
Only the minimum amount of information needed for patient care is accessed.  Again, say I’m working a med-surg (medical-surgical) floor and there’s a patient in ICU, I can’t go flipping through their file.  I have no business doing it. Again, that information can be tracked.
Violations can and do lead to fines and/or jail time, so this is serious shit. Nurses/doctors/CNAs/Aides they all understand this…we don’t take it lightly, neither should your characters.

 

Yay! Kit made it through! Here’s my thank you… a Damon POV…sorta

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So I made it through the character battle.

Wanna help me try to to make it to the next level? Round 2!

Here’s a Damon…um, out-take maybe?  It’s not a scene that was in a book, but it happened shortly after Kit was grabbed in Night Blade.

My body ached.  I wish I could blame the workout.  I’d been going at it for close two hours now and wasn’t even close to done.  Oughta give Chang a call.  He was the only one I could think who could maybe give me the beating I probably needed.

Why the fuck had I done?

The look on her face.  Something was wrong.  I knew there was.  Magic…under that cloying, awful scent of another man on her, there had been the scent of magic.  It had been there for a few days.  Kit usually smelled of magic—there were charms all over her office, but after she was gone a few hours, it started to fade.  But it wasn’t like this.

The door opened.  “Get out.”

Another snarl answered me.

I bit back a roar. Doyle.

Another person in my life who’d been acting like his tail had been stepped on.  I was tempted to get up and kick his ass, but not in the mood I was in.

He wouldn’t back down and I didn’t want to hurt him.

A flash of orange and black appeared in the corner of my eye.  He was back in his tiger form.  Doyle often shifted to cat when he was edgy.

As much as I didn’t want to worry about anybody else, it was my responsibility now, one I couldn’t put off just because I didn’t want to mess with it.

How long had he been like that?  I didn’t know.  Son of a bitch.  Lowering the heavy bar, I sat up.  Sweat stung my eyes as I stared at him.  I didn’t want to worry about Doyle.  Problems in the clan.

Kit…

Following me.  My hands closed into fists while I stared at the floor.  She’d been following me.

I can’t talk about it. Let me work it… I’ll explain. I’d thought this through a thousand times, it seemed over the past few days, but this time, those words seemed to hit different.  Can’t talk.  Can’t.

Can’t talk…not won’t.  Can’t.

That stink of magic that clung to her.

“Son of a bitch!” I stood up and spun around.  Fury blinded me and I grabbed the bottom of the weight bench, upending it as the realization blasted me.

Had to get dressed. Had to—

A fist pounded on the door.

“Not now!”

The door opened.  I spun around, rage burning in me, tightening my muscles in warning.  “I said—”

Tyson, one of the new cats I’d accepted into the clan, stood there, his head bowed.  “Alpha, forgive me.  But I think you need to speak with this wolf.”

The huge man who shouldered past him had to duck his head to come into my rooms.  He wasn’t a stranger.  I hadn’t ever met him until Kit had introduced us, though.  I’d thought I knew most of the wolves in the area—at least those who’d present a threat.

Goliath was a hell of a mother-fucking threat.

Right now, the look on his ugly mug was one that promised a bloody, painful death.

His eyes were pale and blue as they caught mine.  “You seen Kit?” he demanded.

I stilled. My heart slammed hard against my ribs and the cat inside me went still.  “A few days ago.”

“She’s disappeared.”

Disappeared—

For a second, the word didn’t connect.

Then, as the strength drained out of me, I stumbled, fell back against the wall, staring at the floor.  She ran…she just ran.

“You going to stand there looking some lost little kitten?”

Jerking my head, I watched as Goliath prowled closer, the floor vibrating under each heavy step.  His eyes narrowed in on my face and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Justin and Colleen been throwing  spells.  There’s been a witch at her place…and not a good one.  Coll felt a lot of fear, panic.”  He leaned down, his nose just an inch away.  Slowly, the strength came back as what he was saying made sense.  Strength, and fury.  Somebody was going to die.  Slowly.  I’d rip them limb from limb.  “Her trail just disappeared.  Now if that brain of yours is working, cat, you already know what that means.  Somebody grabbed her.”

I shoved him back as Doyle’s roar echoed through the room.

It’s over…Good-bye, Kit.

Those were the last words I’d said to her.

If I make through another round, maybe I’ll do another scene. Vote here!

Writing a more believable medical hero/heroine… Day One

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Image © Shannon Matteson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

A few years ago, I attended a conference.  One of the workshops was on romantic suspense and building a more believable bad guy.

This is good stuff, I thought, stuff I needed to know. So I trotted on to the workshop, notebook in hand…it was a handy notebook. I still have it.  I made notes on the villain I came up with, because sooner or later, that will be a story.

The last…eh…thirty minutes or so weren’t bad.  She gave useful info and I was able to use some of the info she gave me to help build more believeable bad guys.  Like the one in the Ash trilogy.

Normally, I’d be all over buying her backlist, because her info was solid…as far as that goes.

She lost me out of the gate, though.

All because of this…

So when I decided I’d be writing a romance with a doctor for a heroine, the first thing I did was order eight seasons of ER.

And UP goes my hand.

I tried to be nice. Really. It was her workshop.

But that was some bad advice and I couldn’t, in good conscience, let a bunch of writers think that ordering ER was solid research.

She looks at me, smiles… and I go… “Ah, ER is really not very useful for medical research.  Maybe you could try talking to doctors or nurses.”

And she tells me… doctors and nurses are busy.

Okay, then. To be fair, I did buy her book. I read it. And yep, even though trauma isn’t my thing, the medical stuff didn’t come off as remotely believable. Not from a nurse’s POV.  If she’d asked a nurse, or asked a doctor, a few little things here or there, would have made it more workable.

TV is a piss-poor excuse for research.  I’m not a cop, but I’m not going to assume that Law and Order is seriously what happens in law enforcement.

The only medical show I’ve ever watched that didn’t make me want to either laugh or bang my head was House. Grey’s and ER often just made me snicker or roll my eyes so I didn’t bother watching.

But House? That one I liked, because the main character was such a bastard. I loved him.

Some (possibly little) info about the medical profession, and nurses in particular:

In order to practice as a nurse, you gotta go to college.  Take the boards. Pass the boards…and get licensed.  It’s not like applying for a job and just somebody there liked how you interviewed.  It’s more complicated.
Nurse doesn’t equal bimbo.  Contrary to how we get portrayed on a lot of TV shows.
We don’t tend to view every doctor as possible marriage material. Fact of the matter is, quite a few of us want to get away from that when we leave the job. Marrying a doctor means we take it home.
Our feet hurt. A lot.
The education thing doesn’t stop at college.  It differs from state to state, but most of them have CEUs, Continuing Education Units, where you have to do just that… continue your education.
Quite a few nurses stopped wearing white and those little caps a long time ago. It’s scrubs and tennis shoes or clogs now.

This is just an opening.  Tomorrow, we’re going to going to get down to the nitty-gritty. First thing we’ll talk about? Confidentiality.  That can kill a nurse’s career in a heartbeat.

 

Contest

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Ebook copy of Tempted By Evil (Light and Shadow Trilogy #1) by Amber Lynn Natusch & Shannon Morton

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Ebook copy of Bumble (Legend of Ir’Indicti #1) by Connie Suttle

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Help a girl out… Kit!

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To the death!  Well, no. Not really.

But she’s in a character battle, up against Cassandra Clare. Color me astounded… O.O

You maybe wanna give her a boost and drop by to vote for her?

Here ya go!

Link! Paranormal Cravings…pretty please, only vote once.

here… snippet!

“I know.”  Damon guided my blade to his chest, his grip relentless. “Bloody me. I’d feel better for it. And if it would do something to take that fear away…” A muscle pulsed in his jaw and he was standing close enough, I could hear the thunderous sound of his heart, racing far too fast. I didn’t have ears as sensitive as his—if he’d been standing any farther away, I couldn’t have heard it. As it was, though, the roar of blood in my ears, the racing of his heart, the adrenaline crashing inside me and the torment I saw on his face…the torment I felt in me…it was too much.  “********s not the only one who owes you blood, baby girl.”

Once more, I tried to twist out of his grip. “Damn it, let go.”

Swearing, he dropped my wrist. I put the knife away and darted toward the door.

He slammed it shut before I managed to get it open an inch.

“Kit…”

“Don’t, okay?”  I leaned my brow against the wood and closed my eyes. “I need to get out of here. I need to breathe. I need to…”

His fingers brushed across my shoulder and he pressed his head to the back of mine. “I miss you.”

 

Snippet time… The Unwanted

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Big city… hey, some big cities are mentioned. That counts, right?

“Look, I don’t know why he dumped me. For all I know he got bored with me—” The rest of the words wanted to stick in her throat, but she forced them out. “Maybe he found somebody that was a little less neurotic to deal with. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. It’s done.”

“Destin, if it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have you in here. Like you said, it’s been five years. I’m not asking just because I’m bored, or because I’m going to reprimand you for having an affair with a colleague. It’s because—” Her eyes cut to the door.

A second later, Destin heard the door open.

The skin on the back of her neck crawled and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart started to race and her skin felt too tight, too small. Something that might have been happiness bloomed inside her heart before it withered and died as reality shifted and settled into place.

Even before he spoke, she knew.

Opening her eyes, she glared at Oz.

“Good afternoon, ladies.”

 

 

The flight from D.C. to Dallas was a bitch and not just because he hadn’t ever planned to return to Texas.

He’d spent most of the trip telling himself he could handle walking into Oswald Group just fine and he knew he’d lied every single time. He could handle it, yes. But just fine? Not an icicle’s chance in hell.

Caleb hadn’t seen Destin since he’d walked away from her five years earlier, not even a glimpse. The case he’d just been assigned had him in a different part of the country for nearly three months and he’d been leaving that very day.

Once he’d finished, he’d put in for some personal time and then requested a transfer to the other unit that worked with psychics. It had been headed by Special Agent in Charge Taylor Jones and the man had a reputation for being a brutal, cold son of a bitch to work for. It had suited Caleb just fine—he needed work to forget, after all.

Oz and Jones had worked together to get the first unit going and for quite a while, they’d worked together, but then eventually, they’d split into separate units, handling different areas of the country.

Being in a different part of the country had sounded ideal, and working with somebody who’d work him into exhaustion had sounded even better. There hadn’t been a shortage of work, that was for sure.

The world in general was mostly oblivious of the weirder element that functioned within the FBI. Telepaths, empaths, others who connected with the spirits of the dead.

Caleb’s abilities fell somewhere in the middle. He was psychic, but his gift was classified as a sub-ability. He could pick up on random vibes and he had unusual insights, and every once in a while, he’d get a solid, real connection but his main skill was filtering.

He worked with people like Destin who had powerful but erratic abilities, let them cut through the white noise, the pain, everything that might block them from finding what they needed to find.

There had been just as much a need for him in Jones’ unit as there had been in Oz’s unit and he’d buried himself in the work, hoping to forget. Hoping, pointlessly, praying that nothing would send him back to the other unit.

But just a year after his transfer, Oz left the Bureau and when she did, several agents abruptly quit. Others came to work with Jones and the second unit was disbanded.

There had been terse whispers and rumors, but none of Oz’s former agents would talk and Jones had been there to make sure of that. Caleb had been fine with it. He didn’t want to hear about his old unit. The one thing that mattered to him, he already knew. Destin was working with Oz. She was no longer with the FBI and that probably suited her better, anyway. She’d hated rules, had felt stifled by the structure.

The freelance group took on investigative work and although very few realized just how specialized they were, they made a killing and they had a rep for being the best in the business. Which wasn’t surprising. Psychics were going to have a leg up on the competition.

As he cut through the rather posh offices, he studied the faces. More than a few were familiar. A couple waved. The others, people he knew, deliberately turned their backs on him. A nice, subtle fuck you if he’d ever seen one. Okay, then.

The others watched him with no small amount of curiosity. Ten employees. And to his senses, they all felt psychic. He might not have one of the flashier abilities, but the skill he didhave was reliable. Every person in here was a psychic and he had a feeling Oz used them to pull in some high-profile cases. All without explaining just how she managed to have a stellar rep.

He didn’t bother to ask where he’d find her. He’d seen the neat little office tucked in the back when the administrative assistant had led him up here and he knew without a doubt where Oz would be. She’d want privacy, but she’d also want to be close to her people.

The door was closed, but he didn’t knock.

Destin was there.

He felt it in his gut. And he wanted one look. Just one look at her before she managed to compose her features and hide herself away from him.

As he pushed the door open, his hands were practically sweating and his heart was racing away somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. Racing, pounding. Dancing…

Oz’s gaze cut to him and as desperate as he was to see Destin, he looked at Oz first, braced himself.

She hadn’t changed much. She was still all steel and ice, elegant beauty and deathly self-possession. Unlike his current boss, Oz did have a serious psychic talent, although it was unreliable as hell.

Caleb didn’t think she’d retired, at least not willingly. He suspected she’d come up against something ugly and the higher-ups had told her to let it go. That fit more in line with his memories of Oz. There had been several times when she’d bashed heads with people and she had lacked Jones’…diplomatic skills.

Something ugly had happened, he knew. Either she walked…or they pushed her out over it.

But Elise Oswald looked like she was doing just fine, regardless.

He was painfully, acutely aware of the woman sitting off to his side.

Shifting his attention to her, he found himself staring at her profile. Her gaze was locked on some point just above Oz’s head, like she couldn’t be bothered to look at him and he guessed he couldn’t blame her.

After all, he’d walked away from her.

He’d walked away from this woman he’d loved more than anything…Destin Mortin…the woman who had slowly been killing him inside. She just hadn’t realized it.

His heart had withered away to ashes inside his chest over the past five years and he hadn’t ever planned on seeing her again. If it wasn’t for Oz, he could have probably managed to do just that.

Now? Shit, now he couldn’t remember how he’d felt just five minutes ago—when he’d been almost level. Not happy, never that. Not without her. But he’d existed. He’d been level.

Now it was like he was freefalling all over again.

And she still wouldn’t look at him.

Read more…

Amazon | BN  | iBooks | Kobo | Samhain

Other people visiting the city today…

Lauren Dane

Shelli Stevens

Leah Braemel

Jody Wallace

Caris Roane

Eliza Gayle

Lissa Matthews

Mandy M. Roth

McKenna Jeffries

Taige Crenshaw

Delilah Devlin

HelenKay Dimon

TJ Michaels

Myla Jackson

Stuff…

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I had a phone conference thing with Mary of Muse Camp… it’s something geared for writers.  There are several days geared toward the writing business so you might want to swing by.  My talk was recorded and saved, but you’ve only got a few days to listen.

If you’re looking for the Hunter books in print, they are coming.  The first one is due out in August.  The others will come as I have time.

I’m about to start the third book in the RS trilogy I’m working on… here’s a snippet.  I don’t have titles, blurbs or anything, but here’s a snippet.

 

Trinity frowned as she listened to the noise her son had heard.

Rattling.  Metal rattling and clinking.  Courtesy dictated that she leave and she looked around once more for Noah, but he wasn’t in there.

“Come on, Micah…”

He slipped free of her hand and darted forward.

“Micah Dean Ewing,” she snapped, starting forward.  As she brushed by the desk, her purse bumped against a stack of folders and she swore, catching them as they started to topple over.

She righted them just as Micah opened the door to the back of the office and the rattling and clinking got louder.

She also heard a sound she hadn’t heard earlier…grunting.

Micah’s eyes popped wide, rounding in his young face as a grin crooked his lips.  “Wow…” he mouthed, lifting a hand to point.

“Micah,” she whispered, reaching the pull him away.  But as she did, she couldn’t help but look.

Wow, indeed.

Damn her lack of control anyway.

The rattling and clinking came from a chain…one that was connected to a punching bag and that punching bag was being pummeled, very proficiently, it seemed, by Noah.  Noah, who had stripped down to a pair of running shorts and now he wore just the shorts and a pair of boxing gloves.

Sweat gleamed along his black, arms, and shoulders.  Muscles flexed under smooth skin and that fine sheen of sweat just served to draw the eye even more.  She wanted to drop everything she was doing and just cross the floor, rest her hands on his arms, stroke them down and then lean in, kiss the sculpted muscle…

Trinity stood there staring, she felt something hot and molten spreading through her.  Oh.  Oh, my… I like.  I like so very much…

A split second later, she wanted to kick herself.

She had to get over this.  One of these days, he was going to look over and see the way she was all but drooling over him and wasn’t that going to be embarrassing?

She was bound to go straight to hell for this fixation she’d developed over him.  There had to be some sort of law or commandment or something against lusting over preachers, right?  She was certain of it.  But this one was just so very, very pretty to look at…

Swallowing, she tried to tear her eyes but after a few failed attempts, she decided…What the hell. I’m already on the path to damnation anyway.  I might as well have a nice memory to take with me…

Left Behind…?

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PBW/Lynn Viehl used to do a Left Behind and Loving It workshop every week during nationals.  I only participated once.  I can’t always think of good ideas.  But I had a book come across my way not too long ago that inspired an idea.

I need to do a workshop on nurses and romance books. Doctors and romance books. Any kinda medical professional and romance books. Because the medical professional does tend to show up as a hero or heroine.

And man, some folks get it so fricking wrong. Which leads to people like me (a nurse) rolling my eyes or throwing the book.

This isn’t going to be anything super in-depth, but I’m doing a couple of mini-posts next week, while some of my friends are away partying/having fun/getting their toes pinched in cute shoes at RWA’s national conference.

Me?

I’m going to talk about why I can’t stand to read a book where the main character has anything to do with the medical profession.

If you write/or want to write romance/any book and plan to have/ever have a nurse/doctor/anything medical related, feel free to drop by and see some of the stuff that inspires my rants.

Image © Shannon Matteson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Belong to a book club?

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I’m still going strong with my book club.  I’m booked up through the fall, but soon I’ll be doing calls for the Colbana Files.  Up next is this one…

 

If you’re interested, make sure you visit the Book Club page and sign up.  FYI, this is only for book club members. You must belong to an established book club, you must provide the name of the book club, the member names, mailing addresses and members must be willing to offer reviews in exchange for providing reviews.

Titles discounted at Amazon

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So there are several titles discounted at Amazon…

Hot in Handcuffs

Hot Spell

The Protected

The Departed

The Reunited

Wrecked

The Missing

Broken

Fragile

Hunting the Hunter

Most of the discounts aren’t much.  The paperbacks are 30 to 50 cents cheaper off the Kindle price, but the trades-some of them are a couple bucks cheaper, especially the newer ones.  I don’t know if this is Amazon thing or a publisher thing. But hey, it’s a little bit of money saved, if you’re interested… viola.