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“The Resident” Should Be Allowed to Die a Natural (Swift) Death
Always one to watch and critique medical dramas, I sat down with a beer to watch the newest entry to the genre. “The Resident” is the Fox network’s answer to other edgy shows that promote liberal agendas.
Much like those other edgy shows, this one also bears little resemblance to reality. Rather than overly romanticizing medicine or treating doctors like gods, this show delights in bringing physicians to their (im)moral knees. Doctors are at once shown to be rebel anti-heroes or establishment goons who get off on swimming in dollar bills the way Scrooge McDuck swims in his golden pool of coins.
The episode begins with two C-level doctors taking their lobbyist and Congressman out quail hunting. Reminiscent of a Dick Cheney moment, the Congressman accidentally sprays shot into the backside of the lobbyist. While everyone rushes over to him, the Congressman grabs his chest and keels over. Thankfully, there is not one, but two(!) excellent physicians/surgeons present to begin CPR. The entire party presents via ambulance to the main stage of our tragedy.
Meanwhile, The Resident himself is giving a talk to an apparent high-school science class, taught by his long-term patient: an idealistic, young, handsome, suspiciously well do-gooder black teacher. While giving the lecture, the teacher suddenly begins gasping for air. The Resident creates a makeshift stethoscope out of tubing, a funnel, and nitrile gloves (the second most realistic moment in this show) and listens to his patient’s lung sounds and heart. He examines him. It’s flash pulmonary edema! He commands the class to call 911. They do and as medics arrive, he administers a precordial thump, and tells the medics that the patient is now perfusing, but was in V-fib. He runs alongside them to arrive at the hospital.
The Congressman’s party and the teacher’s party arrive via ambulance to Chastain Park Hospital at the same time. The shooting victim is taken to have the pellets removed from his gluteus maximus while the Congressman is rushed to a treatment bed. The C-level doctors begin discussing what a PR nightmare this is and how the only way to fix it is to ensure a good outcome (which is exactly what mustache-twirling Old White Men do).
As the episode progresses, we find that The Resident is named Conrad Hawkins, an ex-military (we know because he still wears his dog tags) idealist who isn’t afraid to break the rules to ensure a good outcome for his patients. He is teaching the overwhelmed newbie Indian-American intern, Dr. Pravesh, who works with another doctor who is barely seen or discussed. Together with a nurse only referred to as Nic, we meet some of the other patients on the floors.
Of course, our Sainted Teacher needs a heart transplant. His heart is failing quickly and this will be the fourth attempt. A heart is found through UNOS and allocated to the selfless, faithful (and we know because his church groups comes to pray with him), young man in need. Meanwhile, the Congressman’s heart has failed as well. Evil Old White Man Doctor, sometimes called Dr. Randolph Bell, determines that the heart should be reallocated to the Congressman. That way, they will save his life not once, but twice! The Resident, not able to stand for this sort of corruption, insists that the doctor do the right thing and give the heart back to his Selfless Teacher who has been waiting for years. Corrupt Old White Man Doctor, only thinking of his own reputation, says no and mocks Conrad to boot.
Meanwhile, nurse “Nic” is taking care of a cancer patient. Pandering Female Doctor from the Hunting Mishap is the doctor on the case and clears the very attractive young lady to be discharged to home, so long as she returns to her outpatient cancer clinic. Nic asks the doctor if she saw the recent labs, and Big Britches Lady Oncologist Doctor says that she did, but she ordered later labs that were fine. The patient is at no risk and will have a smaller chance of infection if she goes home. Nic sullenly takes the doctor’s order, but goes into the computer to read the Attractive Cancer Patient’s records. Upon discovering nothing, she asks The Resident if he knows something. Oh yes, everyone knows: Fancypants Oncologist (aka Dr. Lane Hunter) keeps all of her own records and the hospital has no rights to them. After all, she’s a Big Stinking Deal and has many protocols and experimental products that she’s working on. To have the records open to everyone, she risks losing her patents or her products. All her patients go to her special private clinic which only she benefits from. Cue outrage.
Luckily, The Resident has come up with a solution to his problem. There is a Hispanic girl lingering on life support. She is certifiably brain dead and has been for at least a few hours since a drunk driver hit her car. No one has approached the family about organ donation. This is where we meet Brilliant Robotic Nigerian Immigrant Doctor. Unfeeling Beautiful Nigerian Female Doctor says that she is willing to take on the job, however it is swiftly nixed by everyone, since she has the worst bedside manners and anyone from the transplant team would be seen to have a conflict of interests. The mother is consulted and no, she will not donate, she still has hope for her “vegetable” daughter (we know she’s a vegetable because all of the doctors talk about the lack of hope at great length and even use the word “vegetable”).
Meanwhile, The Resident goes to the lab to check in on the Congressman’s labs. He inquires about them and about Randomly Useful Patient X to the attractive lab technician. He smiles at her, coos, comments on her beautiful new earrings (they are cats), massages her earlobes and flirts with her. She instantly gets him those blood samples that he needs stat. After doctoring the labels so the Congressman is no longer a match for the heart, he returns them to the Gullible Lab Tech, who questions nothing and takes them back. When Greedy Old White Doctor sees the labs, he is irate. Knowing they have been relabeled, he angrily confronts The Resident about it. Smarmy and smug, The Resident notifies him that there’s another perfectly good heart … in a Hispanic teenager: if he is willing to convince the mother.
Grudgingly, Corrupt White Executive Surgeon sits down with the family and discusses the option of giving life. They miraculously agree!
Happily for everyone, the manipulations and blackmails have worked to the advantage of the doctors and the hospital. You get a heart! You get a heart! Everyone gets what they need!
…but wait, we’re not done yet.
Perfect Heartless Nigerian Surgeon meets up with Corrupt White Surgeon to discuss her doing his surgery. Why, the audience wonders, would he let a lesser surgeon do the Congressman’s surgery? Ah, but we find out that it is because his hands are shaking. He either has a drug problem or early onset Parkinson’s. Rather than notify appropriate people, Old Corrupt Parkinson’s Surgeon continues practicing, instead placing lives in danger. Robotic Unfeeling Beautiful Nigerian Surgeon riles at his request: she will not cover for him yet again, particularly after he elected not to help her with her H1 visa. But after some expert manipulation by The Resident, she agrees.
The Selfless Teacher gets his heart and lives. The Congressman gets his heart and lives. The Lobbyist with shot pellets in his rear is in pain, but lives.
And The Resident holds hands with Nic.
And they all lived politically correctly thereafter.
The only correct thing in this episode is from a moment where two of the doctors are removing pellets from the lobbyist having a brief conversation about the nurse only known as “Nic”:
Dr. Pravesh: “She’s so good … she should be a doctor.”
Other Doctor: “Yeah, but she’s smart. She has no interest. She likes to actually spend time with the patients.”
Dr. Pravesh: “Bbbbut … she could be a doctor!”
Other Doctor: “Actually, she’s working on that.”
Dr. Pravesh: “See!”
Other Doctor: “In Nursing. Doctor of Nursing Practice.”
This show makes you actively more stupid for having watched it. It is worse than a propaganda film because at least those were somewhat believable. This is so heavy-handed that it is nearly and unintentionally funny.
Please join me in avoiding this show at all costs. Even if Emily Van Camp is in it.
The tagline for the show, “Can one doctor save a broken system?” seems to make the struggle seem worthwhile. The real question is, “Can familiar faces save a patronizingly low-quality TV show?” The answer?
No.
Published in Entertainment
I’m not site what it is, but it appears that Grays Anatomy is doing much better with this. One episode all of the cardiac monitors flatline and a newbie grabs the paddles and shocks a guy without checking to see if he’s conscious. Turns out, it was just the monitor. Guy was not too happy to be shocked at 120J while taking a nap.
Also, one of the last seasons of that show demonstrated the fallout of making bad decisions that killed people.
I think they must have gotten a new medical consultant on the way. Or maybe they just started listening to them.
That is true. Scrubs was much closer to reality. It showed doctors doing what they do, but also what nurses had to do too.
120? Is that all? Everybody knows those things never work until you get to 360.
Hold on, this is a recap of Episode 2. I think to give this show a fair shake, you need to go back and watch Episode 1. Perhaps it’ll bring the whole thing into better context.
I just want her analysis, lol
Similarly, many real police officers, including the late, great Dennis Farina, called Barney Miller the most realistic cop show ever on television.
I love myself too much to allow for that kind of abuse…anymore.
I’m curious how 911 is shaping up for first responders. Anyone?
As a forty year veteran of hospital laboratories, I cringe at how these shows always depict the labs. The deception you describe in the mislabeled tube, well, there are so many redundancies built into transplant and blood bank work that that could NOT happen. (Even for routine labs, that type of error is usually discovered before harm comes to a patient.) And you don’t get on a transplant list right way. It takes weeks if not months. I tear my hair out!
Yeah, if they had unexpectedly come up with a second heart, they would have put it on a plane to the guy in Flagstaff who was next in line.
The trick is that another heart came up that was exactly compatible…in the same hospital.
I feel bad for the techs because they depict them as minimally educated flunkies. This would never happen in actual hospitals.
As for the transplant list thing, I assume they were doing a directed donation. That is something that you can do. But you can’t just slap someone on the UNOS list and get a heart that quickly. At least, I’m fairly certain you can’t. It must work in hours in order for many organs to be viable so I’m sure it happens, however I sincerely doubt that this show put in that kind of effort into research.
well, being an uneducated glutton for punishment, I was willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt, but tonight’s episode killed it.
I’m willing to muddle through some pretty egregious politicization after several years into the show (actually, I’m not), but this show can’t make it out of episode 3 without some pretty major politicking.
If I can give up Bones, So You Think You Can Dance, and Nashville after following for several years (Bones, I went 10 years!), I can drop this after episode 3.
Yeah, Bones got pretty bad, didn’t it? Never saw the other two. Can I give myself a pat on the back for being smart enough to not give the new doctor shows even one chance?
Between pregnancy and breastfeeding, I found a lot of time to watch tv =p Bones got awful when Emily Deschanel took it over. I like watching dancing, but stopped when SYTYCD started cheering the judge overrule of a democratic vote. Democrats only pretend to like Democracy. Nashville is weird. Good music, but I wish it would stop trying to make Country Blue.
Parody has become redundant.
OK. I admit it. I was a fan-boy for House M.D. Hugh Laurie was great and the show had excellent writing. What did you think?
I thoroughly enjoyed House. There were plenty of points in favor of unreal medicine (doctors doing their own lab draws, giving medications, doing all of their own radiology). It generally wasn’t offensive to everyone, except nursing via complete invisibility (except when something needs to be brought to a doctor).
But it was never lupus!
Having lived life as a medical mystery, I can say that most doctors are not that interested in finding out what it is. If they find something that kinda shows a positive result, they stick with it. Medicine is not exactly a 1:1 science. One medication treats many things. A test can show many things. Often times, the exact diagnosis is never known.
Oh, but it was fun!
The only thing that bothered me about House, was when I would (rarely) figure it out before them. If I know the answer, they’re missing something obvious.
I have never been a fan of medical dramas.
There is however one different one, that is kinda worth watching called “Chasing Life”(2014 – 34 episodes) its told more from the patients point of view. A cancer patient. A young woman is diagnosed with leukemia. The drama unfolds as she goes through treatments, how her friends, co-workers and family react to her, and how she tells them what she’s going through. Its a good tear jerker. I think its on Netflix (USA only).
Over all my favorite medical drama, is iZombie. What? She wears a lab coat, occasionally says something medicalish.
Never. Thanks.