This week’s Chicago Med provided various lessons in closure. Second chances are rare, let alone second chances to put conflicts and worries to rest. It’s important to grab hold of them when they present at the right moment. This is what Maggie faces with a patient she had a difficult history with, and what Natalie, Dr. Rhodes, and Dr. Charles face when examining their actions on recent cases.
Maggie comes face to face with the officer who arrested her last year for not defending her patient’s rights to privacy. The officer is declared brain dead after a random accident, and Maggie happens to be the charge nurse responsible for transplant coordination. Maggie can put her professional hat on before her personal feelings, but there are those who question it. At the very least, Ms. Goodwin feels that it would be uncomfortable for the officer’s husband. Maggie takes offense to Goodwin putting April in charge of organ donation coordination, but has no choice but to comply. Now that April knows her baby is developing within the normal range thus far, she has the energy to deal with the transplant coordination. Maggie and the officer’s family need this closure more than the hospital needs to worry about hurt feelings. Maggie and the husband come to an understanding so that they can lay the officer to rest with dignity.
Halstead treats a bulemic jockey who won’t stop risking his life if it means he gets to ride in the Kentucky Derby. He can’t stop his patient from risking his life, but Dr. Charles reminds him that there a ways of intervening to make it seem fateful. One anonymous call to the drug testers for sports, and it could get the jockey on the path to being healthy.
Natalie still has not forgiven Jeff for revealing his feelings for her when her husband was still alive. Natalie doesn’t have time to worry about her personal life. The case she had lost week goes under review at the latest M&M (the Morbidity and Mortality meeting, not the candy), and Natalie gets beat up quite a bit. Not only does the head of the ER go out of his way to belittle everyone’s choices regarding the patient, Jeff makes everything worse by defending Natalie in the middle of the presentation. He humiliates Natalie and puts both of their careers in jeopardy in the process. Jeff and Natalie have reached an impasse that began when they first started. Dating your late husband’s best friend can’t work well, and it surely doesn’t fill the void.
Remember Megan, the heart transplant recipient that Dr. Charles had to assess last week, and the evaluation Dr. Rhodes took issue with? When Megan gets word that a heart has become available, she becomes so excited that she accidentally runs a red light. Her injuries from the accident compromise her body’s ability to take the strain of heart surgery, but more troublesome is the fact that she had alcohol in her system following the death of a friend. Rhodes feels foolish for trusting his patient and Dr. Charles has to reassess the patient. To make a bad situation worse, Dr. Choi discovers an AVM formed on her daughter’s spine. These two just have terrible luck, but the way they beat up on themselves is too much. People make mistakes, and random things occur. Put those two together, and anyone would have a bad time of it.
The rules for transplant coordination are strict for a reason. Due to Megan’s slip, the transplant committee rules against her receiving the available heart, even though Dr. Charles is clearly conflicted about the choice. Dr. Latham unknowingly finds himself in Charles’s psychological crosshairs since he seeks to understand the physiological signs of a person who feels guilt. Fate intervenes for Megan just as her daughter Bria is in surgery. Because the nearest viable heart recipient wouldn’t get to Chicago in time for the organ to be viable, Megan receives the heart.
It seemed that this week everyone was able to be more open-minded. Whose do you think made the most personal progress because of a patient?
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