Is Kovac’s lawyer the some one Sam used? He looks very familier.
Is the prosecuting attorney the actress that played Janice on “Friends”? It’s hard to recognize her with a non-annoying voice, but it sure looks like her!
So if Mr. Ames had been sent home with antibiotics, he would have had a stroke anyway, wouldn’t he? Nothing Kovac did caused the heart murmur or the hole in his foramen thing, did it?
That was good, seeing things from a patient’s point of view. I wouldn’t (couldn’t) be an ER nurse.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Ames win, if it meant County would address the staffing problems. But they can hardly do that if their insurance goes up because of a huge award.
The plaintiff’s theory is that the central line Kovac put in caused a blood clot, which the foramen allowed to travel to the brain, thus causing the stroke. Of course, we didn’t see any evidence that any doctor would have not used a central line because a patient had a foramen.
I’ve been saying for some time that County General is located in a universe in which Thor still lives & works in Chicago, only the camera always cuts away just before we’d see him or the other Marvel heroes in battle. This episode clinches that theory, given that
the patient the ER & OR docs were getting territorial over was apparently the Human Torch.
What was his deal, anywhistle? Why’d he
catch fire
I got a kick out of this episode because I’ve been on a jury in a medical malpractice case. The actress that played the attorney hit the nail on the head with her perfomance of a lawyer that really has no idea what they are talking about but hangs onto the buzzwords like tigress defending her cubs.
Great episode, as good as any back in the heyday.
About the guy catching fire, I missed the exposition, but earlier I think Ray mentioned something about handing off a patient that had ingested kerosene.
Y’know, NOTHING that went wrong with the plantiff’s case was Kovach’s fault, yet I can still totally see why he’s pissed and suing. That’s not bad writing, actually. But wouldn’t it make more sense for him to sue “the hospital” as an entity, rather than Kovach as a doctor? It was the overcrowding, the noise level (which made a murmur impossible to detect), and the general chaos that was to blame, not Kovach’s care.
But the jury does have me worried. The Foreman (if that was the woman at the head of the table) was absolutely right, and saying exactly what I would have said: “We’re only supposed to consider what the medical standard is, and if Dr. Kovach didn’t follow it.” It doesn’t matter how unfortunate it is, or what this guy “deserves” or how hospitals are infected with TEH EVIL: Kovach did nothing wrong that directly caused this guy’s problems.
So from a logical, Straight Dope level, this lawsuit is bullshit. From a realistic what people actually sue for and how juries actually act, it’s totally realistic, and not looking well for Our Hero.
That bugged me, too, it seems that Kovach did the best with what he had to work with. The hospital should be sued, not the doctor.
Do you think the hospital and Kovac are co-defendants?
Do doctors who are hospital employees carry their own malpractice insurance, or are they covered under the hospital’s policy?
Yes, I kept expecting her to break out in “OH. MY. GAWD.”
“He was eating a bagel. With cream cheese.” Hey, he has to eat sometime, and a quick snack keeps him around the ER longer than a three-martini lunch out with his rich doctor friends.
I know Kovac was supposed to be nervous, but he did look too stern and cold to really garner jury favor. He needs to tousle his hair and turn his eyes their way and he’ll have the case sewn up. 
But that would make him George Clooney.
Interesting look at how very different things can seem depending on whether you are the doctor or the patient in the E.R.
Is there any way that Luka could have foreseen or suspected that Mr. Ames was about to have a stroke? Given the more dire situations of the other patients, it seems that Luka did what he thought was right by waiting. Numbness could be caused by many things, after all.
This is obviously a “to be continued” story, so we’ll see if it actually gets resolved next week.
But numbness after Kovac messed around with a vein? Maybe that was negligence. I dunno.
I’m guessing the jury will come back in favor of the plaintiff, which would set up some more drama for Luka and Abby as Luka tries to deal with it.
The two 10/19 ER threads have been merged.