It’s a New Year, but the same Chicago Med, and that’s a good thing. Only five episodes into its third season, and these tight, compelling stories are only getting better. This week offered up the best hour of the season. It wasn’t because the medical cases were flashy, or due to some mass event that pulled the staff together. Everyone had their own stories, everyone had their own emotions, and the level of depth given to each was superb. If the emotional revelations of this week were any indication, things are kicking up a notch as 2018 rolls forward. The one to keep an eye on is the doctor who has been traumatized just a little too much that she is slowly unraveling.
First, we now know the name of the busybody nurse who feels the need to make judgments on everyone else’s lives-Doris. No doubt she’ll spend that birthday party she felt compelled to invite people she didn’t like complaining about them. But comradery is comradery. Dr. Choi doesn’t have time to fret about his girlfriend’s coworkers not liking him. He has actual problems to worry about. An HIV infected patient counts as one. Dr. Stohl isn’t going out of his way to admit the patient to the hospital because her condition is so advanced. However, their efforts to use Dr. Charles to say the Toxoplasmosis is affecting her judgment don’t work. The argument he uses for her condition is not much different than many HIV-infected patients in impoverished parts of the world. Despite all we now know about the disease, the stigma towards HIV-infected people is still strong. There are those who would rather die than live alone for the rest of their lives, and forcing pills down their throat is not only illegal, it does no good in the long run. You can’t make someone fight for their life. They have to want to. It is ultimately Ms. Goodwin and her tragic experience treating HIV in the 80’s that convinces this girl to get over the fear. She might be surprised at the support she receives.
For as tough as these problems are, this is a condition that the doctors know how to handle now. Diagnosticians have come such a long way in medicine. Sometimes we take for granted that it’s all just deductive reasoning. When the problem is atypical, the fear grows. Who could predict that the contagious spread of paralysis from a patient to Dr. Halstead was because of a tick? Yes, an Australian tick bit a young girl, then latched onto Halstead, creating temporary paralysis for both of them. Scary in the moment, but we can laugh about it now right?
You know what’s not funny? The fact that Reese has spent the past couple of weeks petrified to go near actual patients. The closest she’s come to a legitimate psychiatric case is the paperwork. To be fair, the girl has been through a lot in the past few months. She’s been assaulted more than once by a patient and she’s had her car trashed as well. She’s been given plenty of reason not to feel safe. Under that kind of pressure, she can’t handle the unpredictable nature of the E.D. That won’t stop her from pushing her limits, but if she pushes anymore she could hurt herself or someone else.
Noah has put a lot of hard work into being a doctor. He’s come quite a long way from the kid who let his sister handle his workload. He has grown up and wants to learn to do things the right way. The problem, he has to learn that this is the one job where you don’t make promises that things are going to be okay. That’s exactly what Noah did, because he genuinely thought his patient would recover. There is no way he could have predicted his patient would die of a brain bleed, but it happens. Noah Sexton loses his first patient. He faces informing the family head-on with true compassion. Unfortunately, the kid’s brother doesn’t take it well and throws Noah through a glass door. Reese is more upset about the whole scene than Noah is. Noah doesn’t want to hurt a grieving family, but Reese isn’t thinking clearly right now. She actually says that she doesn’t feel safe in the E.D. What more does she have to do to get someone’s attention that she should not be practicing medicine right now? Dr. Charles took the time off that he needed. Reese should be made to do that, instead of going off on her own to try to buy a gun.
Can Reese be pulled back before her fear causes her to do something dangerous?
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