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to the vital signs graphics, and handed it to the doctor.
    “Babies get high fever at the drop of a hat, Judy. It’s probably a virus.”
    To Lisa’s distress, Whitney did a rapid and too casual examination. He then picked up the chart, and walked to the nurse’s station.
    Lisa followed. “I don’t like the looks of that baby, Sir. What do you think?”
    “How long have you been out of school, Ms. Cooke?”
    “Three months.”
    “I’ve been at this for a while. I’m not concerned.”
    “We tried to order the chart from the baby’s birth, but the record room can’t find it.”
    “No big deal. I was there, you know.”
    “Yes, Sir. Maybe I am not used to such sick-looking babies, yet.”
    “Let’s see what the lab and the cultures show ,” he said, closing the chart.
    “Can’t we start treatment? She looks so bad to me.”
    “Treatment for what? Young doctors throw antibiotics around like they’re water. That’s why we have so many problems with bacterial resistance.”
    Whitney spent a few moments reassuring the parents , and then he walked back to the nursing station where he completed his admitting orders. “I’ll be home. Call me if there are any problems.”
    “Yes, Doctor,” Lisa said.
    When Lisa returned to the room, Judy was caressing Jessica’s head. “She feels so hot to me.”
    Lisa stood on the opposite side of the crib. “That’s how it is with high fever in a baby so young. How was your delivery?”
    “Everything was fine.”
    “No problems with the baby?”
    “Hell , no. She was eight pounds, ten ounces, and she came out screaming. They did give her something…I’m not sure what it was. Maybe antibiotics.”
    “Why antibiotics? Did she have an infection?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    Where is that damn chart? Lisa asked herself.
    Lisa returned to the nursing station , and said to the ward clerk, “I need that baby’s birth chart.”
    “I called medical records twice. They can’t find it.”
    “What do you mean they can’t find it?” Lisa said, her voice rising. “They must keep a record of its location at all times.”
    “It’s not where it should be. They’re looking.”
    Medicine is full of aphorisms. Lisa recalled this one: “When three things go wrong, prepare for the worst.” They had a really sick baby, a marginal pediatrician, and now a missing chart.
    Lisa returned to Jessica’s crib , and found that her fever had increased to 103.8. The baby was less responsive.
    She rushed back to the nursing station , and called Whitney. “Judy Kern said something about an infection on delivery, Doctor. Do you recall anything?”
    “No, not a thing. How’s the baby doing?”
    “I think you’d better come in.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “I don’t like the way she looks. Her fever’s up, and she’s more lethargic.”
    “Don’t take this personal ly, Ms. Cooke, but I want your charge nurse to make an assessment, and then call me.”
    “I don’t know if we have time for that. We need to do something.”
    “Do as I ordered, damn it,” Whitney yelled, and then the line went dead.
    Lisa repeated Whitney’s orders to the night charge nurse, and then said, “I’m going to medical records. We must have that chart.”
    The medical records room was a trip through manila canyons, with charts piled on shelves floor to ceiling, and stacked on virtually every horizontal surface.
    “I’ve looked everywhere,” the night records clerk said. “I can’t find it.”
    Lisa looked at a glassed-in room in the corner. “What’s that area for?”
    “That’s where the doctors do their medical records work, signing charts , and doing dictations. I checked the chart sign-in sheet, but nobody signed it into that area.”
    When they entered the room, Lisa noted stacks of charts in bright red covers. “ What are the red ones?”
    “Those are the charts that are way overdue for completion. It’s a gentle reminder to the docs to get those done