title: ER - Enter at Your Own Risk : How to Avoid Dangers Inside Emergency Rooms
author:  Joel Cohen 
description: Cohen, who has practiced emergency medicine for 10 years, clearly advises what to do in emergency medical situations. Cohen explains how emergency rooms have become overcrowded due to hospital economics, lack of insurance, and so forth, and he describes common dangers and how to protect yourself against them: go to an emergency room only if your symptoms prevent performing daily routines; have a companion with you if at all possible; be polite but firm, not confrontational; ask the right questions; and refuse treatments or tests that strike you as unnecessary, irrelevant, or potentially more dangerous than valuable. The book also lists Web sites of basic medical information. <i>William Beatty</i><br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
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  The Meddler
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Someone was in my room.
  
  
  
  
  
  It had to be one of Sinc's boys. He'd been stupid. I'd left the lights off.
  The yellow light now seeping under the door was all the warning I needed.
  
  
  
  
  
  He hadn't used the door: the threads were still there. That left the fire
  escape outside the bedroom window.
  
  
  
  
  
  I pulled my gun, moved back a little in the corridor to get elbow room. Then--
  I'd practiced it often enough to drive the management crazy-- I kicked the
  door open and was into the room in one smooth motion.
  
  
  
  
  
  He should have been behind the door, or crouching behind a table, or hidden in
  the closet with his eye to the keyhole. Instead he was right out in the middle
  of the living room, facing the wrong way. He'd barely started to turn when I
  pumped four GyroJet slugs into him. I saw the impacts twitching his shirt. One
  over the heart.
  
  
  
  
  
  He was finished.
  
  
  
  
  
  So I didn't slow down to watch him fall. I crossed the living-room rug in a
  diving