In January, when Jeff Chien told Allan Kamara that he thought he was going to be fired from the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center emergency department, where they worked, Kamara thought his colleague was being paranoid.

After all, as the ER’s medical director, Chien was a legend, someone about whom everybody spoke in reverential terms. Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, often referred to as VMC, was the sort of place where violent assault at the hands of patients was a near-daily occurrence. Kamara, a nine-year ER nurse at the facility, had watched the 300-employee department chew up and spit out plenty of lackadaisical suburban doctors, and when he worked his first shift with Chien in 2016, he did not have high hopes. Twelve hours later, he was a believer.

“A multiple major trauma would come through the door, and you would be just mesmerized by the way he would conduct this . . . theater of organized care,” said Kamara. “When he delegates, because he mixes his delegation with utmost humility, even if you don’t want to do what he’s telling you to do, you will find yourself doing it with passion.”