Monday Mornings: The Doctors AND Patients are Boring

Well, after three episodes, I'm not really sold on this show. I want it to be something it's not, and I want the characters to be more interesting than they are. It's already a slippery slope, but, given that the first season is only set to be ten episodes, I hope to hang in there for five. What's wrong with the series? Well, Napur and Tierney aren't really likable... they're just there doing their thing. Hooten is boring. Wilson and Park are pompous. I like Ridgeway, Villanueva, and Robidaux, but the personal drama alluded to with the first two is a turn-off. And then there's the patients... this episode features a story not far from one seen on Emily Owens, MD recently, another was your plain "is there a doctor in the house?" cry for help, and the third was a stroke victim whose doctor doesn't have the best bedside manner. If you're a fan of what you've seen so far, what's keeping you with the program?

Martin Schoeller

Monday Mornings "Who's Sorry Now?" (S01E03): A mentally unstable patient has been to the hospital many times for different things, and Wilson orders and MRI this time. It's a tumor and Wilson wants to operate, despite the fact that the patient is not able to give consent. Another doctor in the operating room also expresses concern when the patient asks for a lawyer. [the music during the procedure was a bit odd.] After the operation, the patient gives a different name and is completely coherent, though he believes it is 2006. [yikes!] He went missing, and eventually his wife filed for divorce and remarried. His former family does come to visit him, and there's a lot of crying during the reunion.

A stroke patient needs surgery to remove part of his skull. There are no complications until he winds up brain-dead, and Park puts him on a ventilator, though he should have talked to the wife about her wishes, as the patient did have an advanced directive explaining that he didn't want to live on machines. [I don't think I realized those were voided during surgeries!] Well, Risk Management talks with Park, hoping to get him to show more remorse for what happened. [is he supposed to be a new hire? because otherwise I think that this would have gone down A LONG TIME AGO!] Park tries to be compassionate in speaking with the widow, who struggles to ask for her husband to be removed from a ventilator. At least he goes to her house that night, in the rain, to truly express his sorrow. [although that IS a little creepy.]

While out to dinner, Napur performs the abdominal thrust on a woman who then stops breathing. Lieberman is impressed. Hooten tells Napur not to announce that she works for the hospital if it happens again, because of potential liability issues. [fair enough.] 

Ridgeway's case was deemed un-winnable so the hospital has settled. Tierney is still getting sued, and he is deposed. Settling will cost nearly a million dollars, but Hooten wants to stay out of court.

The M&M: Hooten wonders if Wilson tried hard enough to find the man's family before operating. Park is called out over how he doesn't say "I'm sorry" to patients' families.