S03.E16: An Inconvenient Truth

[GalvDuck]

Quote

After taking the lead on a surgery, Dr. Bekker feels the heat after something goes wrong; Dr. Manning and Dr. Charles are faced with a tough decision concerning a 9-year-old girl; April and Dr. Reese rush to find the son of a dying patient.

Didn't see a new post for this latest episode, so I just ran with it.  I hope that's okay and I hope Wendy is okay.  

[watcher1006]

So now it's Rhodes stepping out to deflect blame for a screw-up by Bekker when a few episodes back it was Halstead doing the same for Manning? How deep does this subsurface patronizing of women physicians run in this world?

[Xantar]

Halstead and Manning are turning into the Casey and Dawson of this show. Manning said she wanted a break. Halstead didn't have sex with the other doctor. If you don't spell out what a "break" means and if he hasn't clearly agreed to it, then you don't get to dictate what he does during the break.

Also, it was a little weird seeing Bekker just accepting it when Connor took the blame. Natalie flipped her lid after Halstead did the same thing (and I think rightfully so).

Edited April 18, 2018 by Xantar

[starri]

For all of the show's faults, Connor and Will having ceased their competition to see whose is bigger and instead becoming friends is not among them.

I'm come to really enjoy Peter, the hospital attorney.  I don't know why, I should find him as obnoxious as Stohl, but I find him amusing.  Not as amusing as Abrams, but close.

[Bostongirl]

I actually liked this episode. The plot with the two teenage boys caught in the fire, and the way Goodwin handled it. I thought it was actually very moving. Especially after last week which was easily my least favorite episode.

[spunky]

When does Bekker leave and can she take Natalie with her? I'm so happy that their boss saw through Connor and Bekker's shenanigans. Will needs to be like Elsa and let it go. Natalie can't have a tantrum every time she doesn't get her way.  I felt sorry for Goodwin's Godson, he has to live with the guilt of knowing that he got his friend killed. 

[MinorL]

Natalie has to be one of the most one dimensional characters on TV. 

Edited April 19, 2018 by MinorL

[LittleIggy]

I wouldn’t want a shrink who had as flat an affect as Reese.

Props to Noah. What he did was sweet.

So the attorney wanted Goodwin to cover up a crime? Wow.

I hope Halstead finds that doctor and bangs her. Natalie can take a flying eff.

[Sarnia]

This has been done before.

 

I seriously don't get Connor stepping in to take the blame for Bekker. What was the point of this? And yes, so patronizing.

[RedbirdNelly]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to think of Friends. I understand Manning not being happy--short break and Halsted already jumps to someone else. That can fairly be interpreted as a sign of how not serious you were in the first place. But you can't get pissy about it to Halsted--you just use it as intel on how deep the feelings actually were.

The mom of Goodwin's godson used to be on ER as the social worker who gets paralyzed by an angry dad's bullet--I'm pretty sure anyway; not sure of her name.

Goodwin's scene with her godson was done in a very touching way. Though a mom would understandably be pissed to find her son talking to a police officer without an attorney present. I can't remember if the son is a minor or if he was college aged.

I don't watch Chicago PD but I think Police Officer Halsted is much more interesting than Dr. Halsted. Can we switch them out somehow?

I can't think of a good reason for Conner to have taken the fall for Bekker. Doesn't lying to your superior count for anything? If I were Latham I would be troubled that you clearly can't count on at least one of his fellows to be honest. What if trust/honesty matters down the line?

I would like it if they rewrote Noah to be competent. He just seems like a nice guy, so I'm voting for them just making him gradually become the best doctor like they did with Archie on ER (late seasons).

[Ohwell]

1 hour ago, RedbirdNelly said:

The mom of Goodwin's godson used to be on ER as the social worker who gets paralyzed by an angry dad's bullet--I'm pretty sure anyway; not sure of her name.

Her name is Erica Gimpel, and I remember her mostly for her role on the tv show Fame.  

[GalvDuck]

Bekker ripped her gown off and then removed her MASK in the operating room?  Unless policies are different in different hospitals (like ones on TV), that is a big no-no, especially while a patient is still open on the table.  When I used to work in the ER, we HAD to completely gown up (gown, mask, booties, skull cap or bouffant/bonnet, gloves) when transporting a patient into the operating room suite.  You don't just walk in to an OR from a main hospital hallway.  There's a whole separate suite with sub-sterile hallways and scrub rooms that lead to the individual ORs.  We were never allowed to even drop our masks from our faces until we were out of the suite.  It bugs me on Grey's Anatomy when they talk to each other as the scrub in with their masks off.  But jeez, on Grey's, at least they hold a mask up to their faces to cover their mouth if they come in to the OR to talk to a surgeon. 

[starri]

She doesn't need to be gowned if she's not going near the sterile field (notice the anesthesiologist isn't gowned and he's even closer that she was) and there's usually a circulating nurse who takes care of things that the sterile nurses can't, like fetching supplies and answering the phone.  But yeah, she shouldn't take her mask off with the patient still open on the table.  Once the room is cleaned down and before the patient is in the room, it's always masks, but the gowns don't go on until the field is set up.

[JustS]

9 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Her name is Erica Gimpel, and I remember her mostly for her role on the tv show Fame.  

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembered her from  Fame. I tweeted "It's Coco!" when she came onscreen. Only one other person got it. 

[starri]

Depending on my mood, she's either Wallace's mom Alicia from Veronica Mars or Adele, the social worker who ended up paralyzed on ER.

I love her.

[Ailianna]

Not that anyone but me seems to remember the show, but she was also Angel on Profiler.  I always think of her role there when I see her, which is surprisingly often.

[Quark]

I liked the way Natalie treated her patient in this episode, but I hate her relationship with Halstead. Both him and Casey are such doormats.

[GalvDuck]

On 4/19/2018 at 2:20 PM, starri said:

She doesn't need to be gowned if she's not going near the sterile field (notice the anesthesiologist isn't gowned and he's even closer that she was) and there's usually a circulating nurse who takes care of things that the sterile nurses can't, like fetching supplies and answering the phone.  But yeah, she shouldn't take her mask off with the patient still open on the table.  Once the room is cleaned down and before the patient is in the room, it's always masks, but the gowns don't go on until the field is set up.

Yeah, I know the gown thing isn't policy everywhere and I see it on other shows.  For us, in real life, it was.  

However, my issue with her ripping her gown off so aggressively was that it wasn't exactly the tidiest way to doff it.  There was likely some bodily fluid on it.  In that regard, it was more of a problem of possibly contaminating others.  The mask being off was a risk to the patient.  

[statsgirl]

I think the star of the episode was Goodwin, who handled a very difficult situation with grace and maturity. (Hi Erica Gimpel. It's been a long time since Babylon 5.)

April undertakes to find the man's son. Isn't that the job of the hospital social worker?  Later she's folding the bed linens after he's died?  Isn't that housekeeping? No wonder patients are in such a mess when the nurses do every job but their own.

On 4/18/2018 at 3:30 PM, watcher1006 said:

So now it's Rhodes stepping out to deflect blame for a screw-up by Bekker when a few episodes back it was Halstead doing the same for Manning? How deep does this subsurface patronizing of women physicians run in this world?

This hospital has a serious problemt of bitchy women/self-flagellating men. Will took the blame for Natalie even though not only would it have been better for her as her attending to let her be responsible, she was more than willing. For most of the season Charles has been letting Reese get away with being a bad psychiatrist for some reason (guilt? responsibility?). If trying to take save Robin wasn't bad enough, Connor is now taking the blame for Bekker's mistake at the cost of his own career.

Maybe Connor wants to save other women because he couldn't save his mother, Maybe Charles wants to be the father to Reese that she didn't have. But what is Will's excuse?

Whatever the reasons, all three of these guys need therapy.  And from someone competent.

On 4/19/2018 at 12:51 AM, LittleIggy said:

I wouldn’t want a shrink who had as flat an affect as Reese.

I wouldn't want a shrink who lacked empathy as much as Reese does. Or who can't get out of her own her head much less into mine. The show needs to put her back in the ED working traumas. As Isabel Bayrakdarian says, do what is easy for you  That's your gift.

[greyhorse]

That scene in the operating room with the lost instrument was so unrealistic.  One minute they are chit chatting about something mundane, then the next minute Connor's intensity is dialed up to 15 and he's shouting "somebody needs to talk to me AND TALK TO ME NOW."  The patient wasn't dying, there was merely a lost instrument.  And also from what I know of operating rooms and the people who work in them, the nurse isn't going to say something like "there were 245 instruments used and we only have 244."  She should know exactly what is missing.  She should have a list like - 10 scissors, 10 forceps, 15 clamps, etc.  She should have been able to immediately say that the suction tip was missing.  Also, the lead physician is responsible for anything that goes wrong.  There is no blame to assign such as how Bekker said to Rhodes - "you were on suction, so it's your fault".  It's also not like anything on Connor's side is his fault and everything on the left side is Bekker's.  Just a silly scenario played up to create some fake tension.  And then are they really trying to put Bekker and Connor back together?  That little playful bump by Bekker in the hallway?  Blech.  They slept together once, then she completely turned it off.  But now they're coming back together?

Finally for once, we see Noah act like a competent doctor.  Every one of his patients usually ends up screwed up because of some mistake he makes.  Nice to see him realize the situation and step in.  Wonder what would have happened if the patient were more lucid and opened his eyes.

Not sure why the freak out with Natalie.  They were on a break.  Halstead had a drink with permanent resting beeyatch face cardiologist.  But he chose not to sleep with her.  What's wrong with that?

[shksabelle]

I think I may be done. Don’t think I can take one more second of the perpetually stone-faced Reese. It’s as if she developed some disease which caused her to lose all function in her facial muscles. 

[Netfoot]

8 hours ago, shksabelle said:

It’s as if she developed some disease which caused her to lose all function in her facial muscles. 

It's caused by the shock of realization that she's working on such a crappy show!

[SnarkySheep]

On 4/18/2018 at 3:31 PM, Xantar said:

Halstead and Manning are turning into the Casey and Dawson of this show. Manning said she wanted a break. Halstead didn't have sex with the other doctor. If you don't spell out what a "break" means and if he hasn't clearly agreed to it, then you don't get to dictate what he does during the break.

Exactly. A lot of times, people say they want a "break" as a gentle way of actually breaking up with the person, e.g. kind of easing into the idea. Natalie didn't say anything about what she really meant. On the other hand, as Will mentioned, it WAS only two weeks. He could definitely wait a little long than that before looking for another person.

On 4/21/2018 at 1:13 PM, greyhorse said:

Not sure why the freak out with Natalie.  They were on a break.  Halstead had a drink with permanent resting beeyatch face cardiologist.  But he chose not to sleep with her.  What's wrong with that?

See, I don't know if that's exactly true. At first, when I realized he was about to confess to Natalie, I was all WTF, why would you tell her if it really and truly meant nothing and you didn't even do a anything too significant? But then I realized that hospital scuttlebutt would certainly come back to Natalie, if not Maya herself (by the way she was acting, all flirty and asking Will out for lunch, it seems to me she thinks she's landed herself a boyfriend) so he had to tell Natalie something. Whether it really happened the way he says, who knows?

[MakeMeLaugh]

Please break all the way up with over-earnest Manning and move in with your brother and be the hot Halstead boys for us, Will! Party at Molly’s.

[statsgirl]

The nasty pediatrician was the initiator of whatever happened at the bar and since she's asking Halstead to lunch publicly so there was going to be no way to hide it. 

Natalie wanted a break, Will kissed another woman (although my guess is that she kissed him since she's been making all the moves first.)  I'm sure Natalie expected Will to be waiting patiently and alone for her however long she wanted. Sucks to have to face reality.

[Sandman]

On 4/19/2018 at 9:56 PM, JustS said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembered her from  Fame. I tweeted "It's Coco!" when she came onscreen. Only one other person got it. 

On 4/20/2018 at 9:59 PM, statsgirl said:

(Hi Erica Gimpel. It's been a long time since Babylon 5.)

I remembered her! I thought Erica Gimpel looked fantastic -- although it's hard to think of Coco and Van Buren as contemporaries...

So they found a doctor even more pinch-faced and judgmental than Bekker. Great.