The Resident is good at tackling the broken health care system in this country. This week, it tackled misinformation and did it so well.
Misinformation was here long before Covid-19, but it seems even more prevalent in light of a deadly disease. This week’s storyline showed what doctors have to deal with when a patient comes in believing false information from the internet. While I get having your own opinion, I don’t think you can have an opinion if you don’t know the facts. And facts are not debatable.
I feel like I would be like Trevor (Miles Fowler). Extremely frustrated that I couldn’t save a patient’s life because of their beliefs. But as Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) showed, you can’t tell the patient that what they believe is false, even if it is.
Matt is so good at playing Hawkins. I love seeing him go above and beyond for his patients to save them, and this was no different. He tried everything he could to get the patient to let him save him, but in the end, all he could do was be there when the patient died. It was infuriating, but Matt hit all the right notes. He was so caring and practically begged the patient at the end. It was such a beautiful scene.
We had the complete opposite of that with Dr. Leela Devi (Anuja Joshi). Her patient had complete trust her, and she had the make the decision for her patient. As Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood) said, that is part of the job. It was a good exercise for her because she needed to believe in herself more. She was able to stand up to her mom. Now she needs to have that same belief in herself when she isn’t standing up for herself.
She was a rock star in that OR. The surgery went sideways, and she didn’t even hesitate. She knew what she needed to do. Sometimes it’s easier when you don’t have time to think about it. You have to act in the moment, so you don’t second guess yourself, but if you have the time to doubt, you will go back and forward. We all can suffer from this.
Devi was only alone in the OR because Bell’s vision got fuzzy, and he had to step out. What’s going on? I’m happy that he left the OR instead of continuing, but he should tell Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves).
He’s gone to the best diagnostician to figure out what’s wrong with him. We know Conrad will figure it out. I just hope it’s not too bad. It will be intense watching Conrad do everything he does for other patients. It’s fun watching him on mystery cases for random patients because we enjoy the journey without worrying about the outcome. But this is different. This is one of our own.
Misinformation wasn’t the only topic The Resident tackled in this episode. It also looked at medical professional burnout. Early in the episode, Kit hired Padma Devi (Aneesha Joshi) to help refresh her doctors and nurses, but they were paged every time Padma tried to work her magic.
While it was a great idea to get them yoga and meditation classes, how do they get that break if they are constantly being called to some emergency? For example, Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal) had a day off, but of course, he was called into the OR. First for an emergency, and then he had to stick around to interview his replacement.
He decided none of them were good enough. Of course, they weren’t. They are not him. But it was interesting that the candidates were either focusing on making the ER more profitable or the fact that the ER isn’t as stressful as other specialties. I have to stop here for a second. The ER isn’t stressful? That is not the kind of doctor I want to take care of me if they don’t feel pressure. I’m not saying I want doctors to be burned out, but this isn’t working in a retail store. This is people’s lives.
Anyways. This leads Devon to note that none of these doctors loved medicine and that half his medical class is no longer practicing.
This is a big issue, and it looks like The Resident will take a closer look at this. This will be an interesting storyline for the season.
What do you think about how The Resident handled misinformation and burnout? Tweet me @PrimetimeDrama or @MandyTTCarr or comment below.
