All Episodes Talk: What's Up Doc?

[Sassyfangirl]

I loved er! I used to watch it back in 2001 and at first I watched it cause I had a major crush on Doug and come he was cool how can anyone not like him. But I really loved him with carol she was my second favorite. I liked carter and mark. Susan was ok but I loved Corday. Benton was cool but he could be a jerk tho. I just really loved the first early seasons better. When Doug left the show wasn’t the same and I didn’t like Luca at all. He was boring. I still watched a few episodes but when mark died I didn’t better to care about other people on ER. Oh and I never liked Kerry. She wa such a bitch to people esp Doug. I have rewatched the show on pop and it was good the ending was awesome and it was great to see Doug and carol again. Oh I will say that I liked Pratt and Morris friendship to bad Pratt died. Morris was annoying at first but he was cool in the last two seasons. I guess carter was right after all he did set the tone. 

[alexvillage]

I started watching this show again, from the first season. It is still a very good show. When it first aired I stopped watching after season 6, although I caught a few scattered chapters in the following seasons. 

Interesting to watch: the growing use of cell phones and the need to show the characters speaking on them when it wasn't really necessary for the plot. The novelty of things, it is kind of amusing.

Big fail concerning DVD releases: In a show that has a character who is deaf, and where one of the main characters uses sign language and learn about Deaf culture, not all DVDs are captioned. This is unacceptable but sadly too late to complain and demand remediation.

[Madge65]

Oh Nooo! I have watched the ER marathons every Saturday since July - I feel rudderless today - I might have to clean my house or take a walk! At least it will be back next weekend - it is silly how much I look forward to my ER friends .... oh and today is Maura Tierney's B-day ..... oh - thought of you all earlier this week - I was at Target - an Indian family of 5 or 6 was nearby and a little girl ran ahead and the grandma kept calling out "Neela!!! Neela!!!!!"

[Rusty]

I’m trying to figure out an episode. Carter has an older overweight patient who turns out to be pregnant and in labor. Any help figuring out which episode this is would be great.

[desertflower]

I'm still plugging along in the final season. I just saw the girl who played Lane in Gilmore Girls as a patient's wife/girlfriend. There were quite a few GG cast members who turned up on ER. Rory, Dean, Lane, Paris, Liz, Madeline, Francie. I'm probably still missing someone. 

ETA: Logan's dad also appeared as a cop. 

Edited February 5, 2018 by desertflower

[BooksRule]

Quote

I’m trying to figure out an episode. Carter has an older overweight patient who turns out to be pregnant and in labor. Any help figuring out which episode this is would be great.

I'm not absolutely positive, but I just saw this one last week (I'm recording the three episodes shown each weekday) and I'm in the middle of re-watching season two.  I know that the patient (before they knew she was in labor) was reciting the various holiday food she had eaten so I knew it had to be around Thanksgiving or Christmastime.  After checking imdb.com and looking at the guest cast photos, I think it was 'Dead of Winter' and she was played by Linda Lutz.  (It's the same episode where the 22 children were found in the one small apartment and it was the first appearance of 'Rudy' Rubadoux.)  

[desertflower]

I just watched the episode in S15 where Morganstern comes back to visit his mentor who has dementia and keeps flashing back to when he worked in the ER in the 60's. It was really well done and made me cry at the end. The subplots were good as well. It's sad that episodes like this get a little lost and forgotten in the "later seasons are crap" viewpoint. I won't argue that the later seasons aren't as good as the early ones, but they were still capable of some great episodes. 

[Rusty]

4 hours ago, BooksRule said:

I'm not absolutely positive, but I just saw this one last week (I'm recording the three episodes shown each weekday) and I'm in the middle of re-watching season two.  I know that the patient (before they knew she was in labor) was reciting the various holiday food she had eaten so I knew it had to be around Thanksgiving or Christmastime.  After checking imdb.com and looking at the guest cast photos, I think it was 'Dead of Winter' and she was played by Linda Lutz.  (It's the same episode where the 22 children were found in the one small apartment and it was the first appearance of 'Rudy' Rubadoux.)  

Thanks Booksrule.

[doodlebug]

4 hours ago, BooksRule said:

I'm not absolutely positive, but I just saw this one last week (I'm recording the three episodes shown each weekday) and I'm in the middle of re-watching season two.  I know that the patient (before they knew she was in labor) was reciting the various holiday food she had eaten so I knew it had to be around Thanksgiving or Christmastime.  After checking imdb.com and looking at the guest cast photos, I think it was 'Dead of Winter' and she was played by Linda Lutz.  (It's the same episode where the 22 children were found in the one small apartment and it was the first appearance of 'Rudy' Rubadoux.)  

Yep, that's the one, I started trying to find it and got sidetracked.  It was just shown and was in Season 2.  Carter works up the lady for abdominal pain and Benton comes down to see her only to discover she is giving birth.  Nobody is available due to the huge number of patients and Benton ends up delivering the baby only to discover it's twins.

1 hour ago, desertflower said:

I just watched the episode in S15 where Morganstern comes back to visit his mentor who has dementia and keeps flashing back to when he worked in the ER in the 60's. It was really well done and made me cry at the end. The subplots were good as well. It's sad that episodes like this get a little lost and forgotten in the "later seasons are crap" viewpoint. I won't argue that the later seasons aren't as good as the early ones, but they were still capable of some great episodes. 

Many of the return visits by the original crew in the last season were especially poignant, IMO.

Edited February 6, 2018 by doodlebug

[slasherboy]

HAHAHAHA   Love when Carter finally gets to be in charge when they bring a trauma in (can't remember what they call it; I know it's not "running the table" but it sounds sorta like that).  Anyway, he's all excited and enthusiastic and barking orders left and right ~~ "Green, you do this, Malik, you do that, Dale, you do this ... Benton ... Dr. Benton ..."

Well, the patient is already dead.  Carter pulls his gloves off and throws them to the floor and says, "What a gyp!"

HAHAHAHA

[BooksRule]

Quote

HAHAHAHA   Love when Carter finally gets to be in charge when they bring a trauma in (can't remember what they call it; I know it's not "running the table" but it sounds sorta like that).  Anyway, he's all excited and enthusiastic and barking orders left and right ~~ "Green, you do this, Malik, you do that, Dale, you do this ... Benton ... Dr. Benton ..."

I just watched this episode.  It sounded like they said 'run the code'.

[doodlebug]

1 hour ago, BooksRule said:

I just watched this episode.  It sounded like they said 'run the code'.

That would be correct; it’s a Code Blue, of course.  Running the code (giving out orders, deciding what gets done and in what order) is a big milestone in a young doc’s career and most of us were pretty jazzed to do it the first time.

[jewel21]

Today I watched the episode with Coby Bell who later went on to star in "Third Watch" and "The Game." I was asking my brother if he recognized the actor, and my brother who is five years younger than me, and was quite young when the episode originally aired, totally remembered that his character was diagnosed with testicular cancer, got an erection during examination, and had to have his testicle removed along with radiation and chemo. I have no clue how he remembered that story line because I certainly didn't, heh.

We also got introduced to Romano and OMG, but baby Reece is adorable.

[RedbirdNelly]

watching Season 12 and recently covered the episode where Clemente is for some reason treating a baby chimp. I generally hate stuff like this but I will admit the end part where they bring in the mom got to me. Even though that was totally stupid, it was sweet.

Right now Eve is on the show and I know she exits in a bit--have to wonder if that was planned as an arc or something changed? because having a new, different nurse manager could have been a good angle (and to have her gradually soften up).

when Helah got fired, Helah makes a good point to Sam about covering for her (she's annoyed Sam participated in her firing to get a raise). I'm not the world' biggest Helah fan--there are too many times of her copping that 'not my job" line or immediately dumping any nurse friend who dares top consider medical school. But she had a fair point there.

[doodlebug]

28 minutes ago, RedbirdNelly said:

watching Season 12 and recently covered the episode where Clemente is for some reason treating a baby chimp. I generally hate stuff like this but I will admit the end part where they bring in the mom got to me. Even though that was totally stupid, it was sweet.

Right now Eve is on the show and I know she exits in a bit--have to wonder if that was planned as an arc or something changed? because having a new, different nurse manager could have been a good angle (and to have her gradually soften up).

when Helah got fired, Helah makes a good point to Sam about covering for her (she's annoyed Sam participated in her firing to get a raise). I'm not the world' biggest Helah fan--there are too many times of her copping that 'not my job" line or immediately dumping any nurse friend who dares top consider medical school. But she had a fair point there.

The Clemente chimp story line was partially meant to tell us what a 'rebel' Clemente was, always breaking the rules.  However, the main point was to show us how maternal Abby was since she gets knocked up a couple episodes later after we'd seen countless instances of her not liking kids and talking about having an abortion in the past.  This episode and the couple before and after it, all include stories with Abby interacting with kids and or mothers and getting all sentimental about it because it was really the only storyline left for the character.

Eve was never meant to be a regular, Kristen Johnson was signed for a defined arc as were so many other guest stars.

Haleh was generally a character I liked, although sometimes I thought TPTB went a little too far in making her the stereotypical sassy black woman.  In this episode, she knows Sam is a single mom and needs money; she really cannot be all that surprised that Sam was not going to defy Eve and get herself in trouble.

[RedbirdNelly]

3 hours ago, doodlebug said:

  However, the main point was to show us how maternal Abby was since she gets knocked up a couple episodes later after we'd seen countless instances of her not liking kids and talking about having an abortion in the past.  This episode and the couple before and after it, all include stories with Abby interacting with kids and or mothers and getting all sentimental about it because it was really the only storyline left for the character.

Eve was never meant to be a regular, Kristen Johnson was signed for a defined arc as were so many other guest stars.

Haleh was generally a character I liked, although sometimes I thought TPTB went a little too far in making her the stereotypical sassy black woman.  In this episode, she knows Sam is a single mom and needs money; she really cannot be all that surprised that Sam was not going to defy Eve and get herself in trouble.

good point on the maternal thing; last night I watched the episode with the kidnapped girl and Abby ends up at Lukas'. I though her reaction/being so sad made sense but had not thought about the maternal story line focus . ..

I wish sometimes these characters were not arcs. Eve really could have been something interesting and it was believable you'd bring someone new in like that.

I didn't hate Haleh and in a lot of ways I liked her--I liked her competence and that she was around for so long. Just didn't like the "not my job" stuff and lack of friend loyalty the moment someone considered a different job.

In the same episode, there was a nice moment when Neela gets a call from Iraq, goes to return it and ask Frank if he has something sarcastic to say. He quietly says no. Of course it turns out ok, but it was nice to see him react to what very well could have been bad news by recognizing what it meant and not being a jerk. At the end of the episode Ray gets himself beaten down by the dad of his 14 year old girlfriend. That dad really could pack a wallop--don't let the glasses fool you. But Ray is lucky not to be facing charges, not that he knew she was that young.

[desertflower]

I did it, you guys! I finally made it through my mountain of recorded episodes and finished the series. So here are my thoughts on the end, even though everyone is done talking about it:

-Hearing Doug and Carol's theme music in Old Times makes me giddy. 

-Weird that Doug asked Sam and Neela if Susan was still at County. She left before he left and I doubt he would've known about her returning. 

-Morris and his girlfriend's scene in the tent when he makes a ring for her is very sweet. I like Scott Grimes a lot.

-I liked Alexis Bledel in the finale. Fresh faced new doctor but competent too. 

-Loved seeing Lydia and Lily, two nurses we hadn't seen much of in later years. No Connie, though. 

-I like how the mass trauma at the end gave them a chance to show all the paramedics. 

-Wonderful seeing teenage Reese. It was also awesome they gave Benton and Corday that scene together with just the two of them. 

-I always get emotional when there is an old man who is not ready to say goodbye to his wife. (Well, except for Ruby.) Ernest Borgnine totally broke my heart. 

Well, now I will get back to watching some of the Netflix shows I put on hold to watch ER! Maybe i will stop hearing medical jargon in my sleep now. :)

[starri]

I've noticed that some of the terminology from ER, a lot of which is obsolete, seeps into my vocabulary.  Maybe it just varies from hospital to hospital, but I've never heard a Basic Metabolic Profile be called a Chem 7.  And a Coag Panel isn't called a "PT/PTT." since you always look at the INR, not the PT.

[slasherboy]

Pratt switched his blood with a friend's blood who was brought in after being picked up for driving drunk. Did he ever get caught for doing this? What were the ramifications?

How realistic were the actual procedures they did on ER?  Some of you medical-types know?  Thanks.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

Didn't he get suspended? And then Luka sent him to the Congo?

[doodlebug]

10 hours ago, starri said:

I've noticed that some of the terminology from ER, a lot of which is obsolete, seeps into my vocabulary.  Maybe it just varies from hospital to hospital, but I've never heard a Basic Metabolic Profile be called a Chem 7.  And a Coag Panel isn't called a "PT/PTT." since you always look at the INR, not the PT.

I think it varies a lot from hospital to hospital, region to region.  Where I work, a BMP and Chem 7 would both be understood although the BMP is more common these days.  Even though the PT is no longer the gold standard, I hear plenty of docs referring to it when discussing coags.  We all know what is meant by the term, if nothing else.  ER's medicine stands up a lot better than the medicine on a lot of old time shows if only because they were pretty meticulous about the terminology at the time.  However, if anyone on the show ever pronounced umbilicus correctly, I would probably have fainted from the shock.

[doodlebug]

3 hours ago, slasherboy said:

Pratt switched his blood with a friend's blood who was brought in after being picked up for driving drunk. Did he ever get caught for doing this? What were the ramifications?

How realistic were the actual procedures they did on ER?  Some of you medical-types know?  Thanks.

Pratt ends up confessing to his actions.  And, as noted above, he got a suspension and then Luka sent him to help Carter.

The procedures are almost always ones that are medically accurate.  However, nobody, not even godlike ER docs, can do the wide assortment of procedures we see on the show.  Many of the things we see them doing would not be done by ER staff, but by consulting doctors like anesthesiologists, surgeons and the like.  The show wanted their regular cast to be the focus, so we saw them doing a lot of procedures like trachs, crikes, endoscopies and the like that would've been done by specialists, especially in a big city teaching hospital.  The ER docs also were always suggesting the most current treatments and therapies for diseases outside the realm of their specialty and convincing specialists to try them.  It's not very likely that an ER doc would know more about the latest cardiac drugs than a cardiologist.

ER also compresses timelines by minutes to hours.  We see a patient come in and go from totally stable to at death's door in a couple seconds.  There's usually more time than that to react.  They also tend to pile the complications on, one after the other.  Virtually every trauma patient gets a chest tube, they perform emergency thoracotomies on a huge fraction of trauma patients.  As I've said before, there are far more trauma patients and many fewer elderly patients with heart attacks, strokes and the like on the show.  On the show, almost everyone who gets CPR survives and we're lead to believe they will recover completely, not so in real life.

Finally, we see them undertaking procedures and keeping patients down in the ER for treatments that would never be done there and that no ER doc would be comfortable supervising.  In my own specialty, they show the ER docs having fetal monitors down in the ER and being adept at interpreting fetal heart rates.  Not so much.  Mark once bragged he had delivered over 200 babies.  Nobody doing an ER residency would deliver 20 babies let alone 200.  Mark was Chief Resident when Love's Labor's Lost occurred.  No way any ER doc would agree to keep a patient who'd had an eclamptic seizure down there.  I was once called to the ER for a pregnant patient who'd seized.  The ER doc had already personally pushed the cart on the elevator heading for L&D before calling.

[starri]

5 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

However, if anyone on the show ever pronounced umbilicus correctly, I would probably have fainted from the shock.

Are you Team "um-BILL-i-cuss" or Team "um-bill-*I*-cuss?"  To say nothing of the great innominate vs brachiocephalic artery debate.

It's just that I recognize a lot of the stuff, but I've never actually seen it done in real life.  I'm still in around S9/10, and I've noticed they've final started to do FAST exams, not DPLs, for example.

33 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

In my own specialty, they show the ER docs having fetal monitors down in the ER and being adept at interpreting fetal heart rates.

In my hospital, any woman who's over 20 weeks goes straight to L&D.  The ER docs don't even evaluate them.

[doodlebug]

4 minutes ago, starri said:

 

In my hospital, any woman who's over 20 weeks goes straight to L&D.  The ER docs don't even evaluate them.

I think that's the case most places and always has been.  The show isn't accurate in that aspect.  OB units all have outpatient evaluation/triage areas these days where patients are seen just like in the ER.  As an example of how OB -averse most ER's are; a patient of mine, 26 weeks pregnant, was sent up to the OB unit when she came to the ER with a compound fracture of her forearm.  We sent her back downstairs pronto.

[Driad]

Has any TV show done CPR correctly?  We were taught to get our shoulders directly above the patient's chest and put our weight into the compressions.  Most TV CPR looks like a massage by comparison.

[doodlebug]

1 minute ago, Driad said:

Has any TV show done CPR correctly?  We were taught to get our shoulders directly above the patient's chest and put our weight into the compressions.  Most TV CPR looks like a massage by comparison.

I think, at least in part, it's because they're doing CPR on actual people in many cases.  Putting one's full weight into compressions is a good way to hurt someone.  Anyone who's done CPR in real life, has heard ribs cracking.  In cases where it isn't a living actor posing as the patient, I suppose it's so they can get a shot of the actor's face or whatever in the shot.

[Bastet]

Yeah, if they did proper CPR on the guest actors, they'd hurt the poor sods.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I always expected more broken ribs on patients they performed CPR on. I know there were a few instances, but I'd think there'd be more times that that would be a result of all that CPR. 

I think my general surprise when I first started watching the show is how practically everyone seemed to get a catheter. 

[LizDC]

10 hours ago, doodlebug said:

However, if anyone on the show ever pronounced umbilicus correctly, I would probably have fainted from the shock.

Speaking of pronunciations, what’s the correct way to say “angina” - with the “i”  like in “it” (AN-gi-na) or like in “ice” (an-GI-na)?  Susan says it the first way and it always sounds wrong to me.

[WendyCR72]

Well, I've done medical transcription. And the first way is how it is always said: AN-gi-na.

And, for the record, "umbilicus", when I'm doing a report, is pronounced um-bil-EYE-cus. Accent emphasis on the I before "cus".

[doodlebug]

7 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Well, I've done medical transcription. And the first way is how it is always said: AN-gi-na.

And, for the record, "umbilicus", when I'm doing a report, is pronounced um-bil-EYE-cus. Accent emphasis on the I before "cus".

That's the way I learned to pronounce them, too.

As an intern, I did 4 months of internal medicine rotations.  When we were on medical call, we were on the code team.  Most hospital codes are for elderly, debilitated, fragile people.  I can remember vividly pumping on someone and feeling the broken ribs and sternum crunch under my hands.  Happened all the time, almost every time, and we used to morbidly joke about Rice Krispies and the snap, crackle, pop during CPR.  

[starri]

Also, CPR doesn't work nearly so well as TV would have you believe.

[desertflower]

I love all the real life medical insight we get in this forum! 

[RedbirdNelly]

chiming in with my season 12 update. .. .saw the one where Neela is riding along with the ambulance crew and runs into a burning building to help get people out. She shows up at the ER coughing, and Abby tells her the hair in her nostrils are singed, that she needs to be monitored, but Neela insists on leaving.

Having just watched the This is Us superbowl episode, I was yelling at my tv "listen to Abby! you need to be monitored! breathing in smoke is dangerous!"

[RedbirdNelly]

last night was the episode where Neela and Gallant get married. It's noteworthy because it may be the first time Morris seems competent, while working on a trauma with Kerry who is doing her once a month or so shift and he's on top of all the current methods, while she is not.

[alexvillage]

On 2/10/2018 at 10:44 PM, Driad said:

Has any TV show done CPR correctly?  We were taught to get our shoulders directly above the patient's chest and put our weight into the compressions.  Most TV CPR looks like a massage by comparison.

I am rewatching the seasons I had watched and hoping to finish the series and because I am binging, I can see that they got better as the seasons progressed. In the first seasons the ones giving compressions was sometimes in a position that the arms would be almost parallel to the ones receiving CPR. It was also way too slow for CPR. And no, they still didn't get it but at least they got a little better, to a point where I can not be annoyed by it.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I randomly came across this pic while reading something about the Olympics and I had to do a double-take cause this German figure skater looks like NW's doppelgänger. At least to me, haha.

[doodlebug]

Today's second eppy is 'Calling Doctor Hathaway' which always annoys me in the way it handles Carol's MCAT's.  First off, although the episode occurs back in the dark ages when people got their results by mail rather than electronically; there is no way Kerry could have accessed her scores without her consent.  Are we supposed to think that the medical school affiliated with County receives the MCAT scores of every single person who took the exam in the US?  In 2015, 60,000 people took it.  Kerry read through the whole list looking for people she knew?  As far as Carol scoring in the 85%ile, I don't think so.  She seems bright enough, but that is some rarified air up there.  Finally, Kerry blatantly recruits her for the med school telling her not to look at the Ivy League until she's looked there.  Amazingly enough, medical school faculty doesn't bother recruiting Amongst other things, there are about 3 applicants for every position, even at the least prestigious medical schools.  Presuming Kerry is correct about the medical school's credentials, there will be more than enough applications from people every bit as qualified as Carol for them to choose from., no need to try to twist her arm to apply.  The average applicant these days applies to at least 10 schools anyway. If Carol wanted to go to med school, County's affiliated school would be on her list and she would very likely get early acceptance if she wanted it; Kerry or not.

Back in the dark ages when I applied (AKA 1979), most people applied to the  medical schools in their state because they gave preference to residents since they received state funding.  For me, that meant I applied to 6 schools.  I was given interviews at all 6 schools and my first interview was with my first choice school (they give you the interview date, you don't get to choose).  When the acceptance letter came 2-3 days later, I canceled the rest of my interviews.  The elite med schools at the time, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, et al, didn't rely on state funding so they could take anyone which is what made them elite. I didn't apply to any of them, I wasn't one of their people.  A friend of mine with a 4.0 grade point in a Chemistry major who did better than Carol on the MCAT's applied to the big time schools, got interviews at Stanford and Columbia and was accepted at Columbia.  He didn't even get an interview with most of the schools he applied to and this was back when about 40% of applicants got in unlike the 30% today.

Edited February 15, 2018 by doodlebug

[RedbirdNelly]

what I remember from that episode is how quickly the rest of the nurses turn on Carol for daring to consider medical school. No one waited for her to start acting like a snob or looking down on her friends--she was immediately excluded. Annoying.

[RedbirdNelly]

watched Season 12 Christmas Eve episode where Eve gets fired after punching out the world's worst Santa. I generally always enjoyed Christmas episodes on ER. It's one of my favorite things. Season 1 with the blizzard is the best but I think they generally did a nice job with these. Even liked Morris singing with Haleh at the end. And I generally can't stand Morris.

[starri]

S9 Gallant is still a student, right?  Because it really looks like he's wearing a long coat.

[jewel21]

I just watched the episode where Mark goes home because his mother had a fall and broke her leg. I never realized how depressing Mark's life is, and now much crap he goes through. Poor guy.

[doodlebug]

6 hours ago, starri said:

S9 Gallant is still a student, right?  Because it really looks like he's wearing a long coat.

Carter wore a long coat as a student much of the time, too.  In the pilot episode, Mark and Benton gossip about his tailored white coat and there’s a shot of him standing there in a long coat.

[ch1]

18 hours ago, jewel21 said:

I just watched the episode where Mark goes home because his mother had a fall and broke her leg. I never realized how depressing Mark's life is, and now much crap he goes through. Poor guy.

What’s even more depressing is that his mother and father died like a year from each other and Mark died two years after his Dad.  That’s freaking depressing.

[starri]

19 hours ago, doodlebug said:

Carter wore a long coat as a student much of the time, too.  In the pilot episode, Mark and Benton gossip about his tailored white coat and there’s a shot of him standing there in a long coat.

The hierarchical nature of things shouldn't bother me as much as it does--the only reason med students call me "Doctor ______" is if there are other residents on the service that prefer to be called that, and I'm still uncomfortable having the nurses call me "Doctor"--but the coat length thing I actually agree with.

[doodlebug]

1 hour ago, starri said:

The hierarchical nature of things shouldn't bother me as much as it does--the only reason med students call me "Doctor ______" is if there are other residents on the service that prefer to be called that, and I'm still uncomfortable having the nurses call me "Doctor"--but the coat length thing I actually agree with.

I haven’t worn a white coat since 1989.  I have one since I work for a hospital system that has us pose for ID pics  in them; it’s 8 years old, still in the plastic bag it came in.  We wore the short jackets in med school and long coats after graduation.  On ER, Lucy wore a short coat as did Henry, Carter’s student; so the show was inconsistent.

It never bothered me to have other docs and nurses, patients or office staff call me by my first name.  I always felt a little weird calling them by first names when they called me ‘Doctor - - -‘.  I have a couple of friends, both L&D nurses who I’ve known 30+ years, we see each other socially all the time and they have a hard time calling me by my first name even in social situations, I still remind them and they tell me they learned to call doctors by their title and they can’t shake it. 

I work with the residents in their outpatient clinic several times a month and I always tell them to use my first name and they never do which I guess makes me officially an old fart.

[debraran]

I just binge-watched first season of ER again (friend loaned me Hulu acct) and I forgot how much I loved it and how much it makes a new fav, Chicago Med pale in comparison. Even with all the dated technology and charts, it has much better scripts and character development.  Carter is scared and fresh but Dr Reese in CM is just a "deer in the headlight" resident that can't compare. They all seem like a soap opera compared but I know Dick Wolf can improve scripts if he wanted too.

I had forgotten Carol was to be written off and had such bad barbiturate levels and I forgot how they had Ross have a never seen or heard of son, he mentions once.

I didn't enjoy it as much many years later but in many ways, it will always be one of the best medical shows out there, like Law and Order will always be the best to me of the law shows.

No medical show is entirely accurate, but working in a hospital for 20 years back then, they did the best in recreating the drama of some days, the friends, gossip, competitiveness and broken relationships and love many had for each other.

Edited February 19, 2018 by debraran

[RedbirdNelly]

3 hours ago, debraran said:

I just binge-watched first season of ER again (friend loaned me Hulu acct) and I forgot how much I loved it and how much it makes a new fav, Chicago Med pale in comparison. Even with all the dated technology and charts, it has much better scripts and character development.  Carter is scared and fresh but Dr Reese in CM is just a "deer in the headlight" resident that can't compare. They all seem like a soap opera compared but I know Dick Wolf can improve scripts if he wanted too.

I had forgotten Carol was to be written off and had such bad barbiturate levels and I forgot how they had Ross have a never seen or heard of son, he mentions once.

I didn't enjoy it as much many years later but in many ways, it will always be one of the best medical shows out there, like Law and Order will always be the best to me of the law shows.

No medical show is entirely accurate, but working in a hospital for 20 years back then, they did the best in recreating the drama of some days, the friends, gossip, competitiveness and broken relationships and love many had for each other.

I started watching Chicago Med because I missed ER --and then Pop started showing ER reruns which drove home strongly how much better ER was. I'll even take late in the series ER over Chicago Med. I wish they'd write CM better.

[slasherboy]

10 hours ago, debraran said:

I had forgotten Carol was to be written off and had such bad barbiturate levels and I forgot how they had Ross have a never seen or heard of son, he mentions once.

We had quite the discussion about Ross's son several pages back, and came to the conclusion that Doug actually mentioned his unnamed son 3 times.  Ta-Da!

[desertflower]

On 2/17/2018 at 8:34 PM, starri said:

The hierarchical nature of things shouldn't bother me as much as it does--the only reason med students call me "Doctor ______" is if there are other residents on the service that prefer to be called that, and I'm still uncomfortable having the nurses call me "Doctor"--but the coat length thing I actually agree with.

I was actually wondering about this recently, because I noticed that Sam called a lot of the doctors by their first name. I was curious if that was normal. I guess it depends on how familiar they are with each other? But you probably shouldn't do it with the chief, right?