"The Resident"

A new medical drama with the same old characters.

The show opened with the chief of surgery in the middle of a rather bloody open, not laparoscopic, appendectomy.

The circulating nurse started taking selfies with her phone; the anesthesiologist was distracted; the patient started moving; blood spurted all over the surgeon.

According to a nurse, the patient lost 2 liters of blood in 20 seconds.

What artery, other than the aorta, could he possibly have cut that would bleed so much? The chief of surgery just stood there. I yelled at the TV, “Put pressure on it for God’s sake.“

Finally, they started CPR and the surgeon seemed to be packing the wound.

A nurse said, “CPR isn’t going to put all that blood back into his body.” It’s hard to argue with that. Another nurse said, “He’s so dead.” Also true.

The chief of surgery blamed the anesthesiologist claiming the patient woke up and allegedly bumped his arm. The anesthesiologist wasn’t having any of that until the chief reminded him that he covered for the anesthesiologist when he ‘tore through that woman’s oropharynx on a routine intubation.”

The chief also pointed out that the anesthesiologist was “at the end of a 30-hour shift”

They all decided to say the patient had a heart attack. I guess there was no autopsy or inquiry into what happened. No one was asked to explain why the anesthesiologist called for four units of blood stat as soon as he saw what had happened.

New resident Devon Pravesh was in bed with his significant other. He was pointing to and naming the parts of her shoulder. How romantic. Forgetting that he graduated from Harvard Medical School a few weeks before, she gave him a watch to commemorate his first day as a doctor.

When he arrived at the hospital, he met senior surgical resident Conrad Hawkins, an over-the-top arrogant prick, even by surgical standards.

A nurse Conrad had been dating apparently dumped him. His solution, seemingly inappropriate for 2018, was to drag her into a vacant call room and passionately kiss her. Her response was to tell him to take off his shirt and pants. He complied. Then she left and locked him in the room. Interesting that a hospital call room would have a lock on the outside that could not be opened from the inside. Seems like a significant staff and patient safety issue to me.

Conrad treated a woman with leukemia and leukopenia. Wait, I thought he was a surgeon. Oh never mind. It’s a TV show.

He found out the appendectomy patient he admitted the night before had died and asked, “what the hell happened?” His former girlfriend said “HODAD [‘Hands of Death and Destruction’ (the chief of surgery’s nickname)] happened.”

Conrad confronted the chief of surgery and told him he should quit operating and become a celebrity TV doctor because he looked the part. The chief of surgery was no slouch. He had something on Conrad too. There was a patient who died a few years ago because Conrad or someone else screwed up and gave her a fatal chemotherapy overdose. This is why surgical residents should not be administering chemotherapy.

An all too realistic scene featured an obese, non-compliant diabetic with a gangrenous foot.

Next the surgical service admitted a hysterical young woman IV drug abuser with endocarditis, another nonsurgical diagnosis. She collapsed and fell to the floor. Conrad tells Devon to run the code and he pulls a book out of his pocket which Conrad knocks out of his hand. They have a little chat while she lay dying.

He asked, “What’s the first question you ask in a code?” Devon answered, “Rhythm. What’s the rhythm?” A lesser character said, “Pulseless electrical activity.”

Here’s what the monitor showed.

 

Clearly flat line.

Devon kept on doing CPR even though Conrad told him to stop because it had been 24 minutes without a pulse. He magically restored sinus rhythm while continuing CPR, but Conrad threw a wet blanket on everything by pointing out that the woman was probably brain-dead.

At this point I was 24 minutes into the show, and I declared it brain-dead.

You should too.