Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I am trying to find a short story I read in which a new doctor makes a mistake that kills a patient. The doctor is distraught. Later in the story, a killer chases the doctor who goes through a door in an abandoned wing of the hospital. The wing is occupied by the ghosts of all the patients who died from mistakes by doctors in training. The ghosts protect the doctor from the killers.
I believe I read it between 1996 and 2010. It may have been in a sci-fi anthology. I don’t read horror stories.
"The July Ward" by S. N. Dyer, which has a wiki page
I am trying to find a short story I read in which a new doctor makes a mistake that kills a patient. Doctor is distraught.
Soon after, John Doe #3 dies from complications and the surgeon berates Tom. The situation overwhelms Tom causing him to feel guilty for the patient’s death.
Later in the story a killer chases the doctor who goes through a door in an abandoned wing of the hospital. The wing is occupied by the ghosts of all the patients who died from mistakes by doctors in training. The ghosts protect the doctor from the killers.
Two gunmen soon arrive to assassinate the paraplegic patient and throw the hospital into havoc. Dr. Watson escapes the ward and the two men follow her back into the hospital's underground floors. They chase her through rooms with preserved body parts and specimens until she turns and enters the door labelled “The July Ward.”
In this ghostly ward, orderlies attend to neat and clean rows of patients in beds. Dr. Watson stops to visit the first patient she killed, apologizes once more, then compliments healthcare workers. The two gunmen are apprehended by the ghost staff and Dr. Watson recalls that “only two kinds of people may enter the July Ward— doctors, and the dead. And only the doctors may leave.”
I believe I read it between 1996 and 2010. It may have been in a sci-fi anthology. I don’t read horror stories.
Published in Asimov's in 1991 but reprinted in SF anthologies in later years.
