After a mini-hiatus Chicago Med is finally back. We talk a lot about how doctors themselves are human, and it’s a show like this which reminds us that it’s important to tell the stories of how our caregivers feel after they treat their patients and send them on their way, or don’t.
An 18-year old comes into the ER with injuries from an accident he caused while driving under the influence. The boy needs emergency surgery, but an officer blocks the way of the gurney until she can get a blood draw from her prisoner. Maggie steps in between the officer and the patient because it’s against hospital policy to interfere with patient care. It becomes a fight between hospital policy vs. the law. Maggie refuses to back down for protecting a patient in her ER, so she is arrested on obstruction charges. Sharon asks Voight for help, but his hands are tied on this one. Maggie is eventually let out on bail, and Dr. Rhodes gives her a ride home. Seeing his friend suffer for a kid with a rich dad to get him off the hook hits too close to home for Rhodes. It reminds him of a time he was in the same situation, and he chose to use his father’s influence to get him off the hook. Rhodes walked away for the price of throwing a friend under the bus, and his friend died before Rhodes could get up the courage to apologize for that act of cowardice.
Halstead has legal issues of his own. The lawsuit against him is coming up, and the hospital lawyers are trying desperately to protect both him and the hospital. In the middle of this mess, he still has an intense need to try to help the one patient he shouldn’t. After running into her daughter in the hospital, Halstead asks Dr. Rhodes for his hospital access so that he can go into the system and check up on something the girl mentioned that he found odd. It turns out the patient suing him is not getting better since she is on the Placebo list of her clinical trial. Halstead wants to do everything he can to save his patient, but the lengths he wants to take now wouldn’t just cost him his medical license, it could compromise the entire clinical trial and all the patients in it. Rhodes manages to talk some sense into him before Halstead crosses yet another line.
Dr. Manning helps a young mother and her newborn. You can see all the tell-tale signs that this is a girl who was not emotionally prepared to have a baby, and it has gotten so bad that she’s put her child’s health in danger. The baby has all of the symptoms and brain damage associated with Shaken Baby Syndrome. They make the call to DCFS to protect the baby. It is only later that Dr. Manning gets the baby’s birth records, and she realizes she has made a horrible mistake. The baby actually had a brain injury in-utero which the baby re-developed recently, leading to her seizures. Manning realizes that every single mother is just doing the best she can.
Reese treats a patient with a simple knee injury, but Dr. Charles notices that the patient doesn’t seem as relieved as he should be for having only been clipped by a moving vehicle. Dr. Charles thinks that his patient wanted to hurt himself, but the more Charles talks with the man, the more it seems that Charles doubts himself. Truth be told, Dr. Charles just doesn’t look right. His office is a mess, he was quick to diagnose his patient, and he snaps at Reese, which is definitely not like him. This case, which Dr. Charles was right about all along, is more revealing about the doctor than the patient. As it turns out, Dr. Charles has a psychiatric condition of his own and he recently starting weening himself off his medication because of some symptoms of fatigue. It’s important for Dr. Charles to take his own advice on this one and admit when he needs help.
If this episode proved anything, it’s that sometimes the best thing we can do is to take a step back before we take two steps forward.
Follow Us
