Did they ever find out what happened to Carter and Kem’s baby?
Is it normal to deliver a stillborn naturally? I would think a C-section while the mother is under sedation would be kinder to her.
Sam is so stupid. You’ve got Luka in love with you, and you’re falling for some deadbeat musician who was basically guilty of statutory rape when you were 15? Hell, girl, what IS your problem?
Noah Wyle is an incredible actor. The way he went to pieces…that was chilling.
So Abby went through the graduation ceremony, but until she passes her boards, she doesn’t get her diploma? And Pothead Doctor…he took his boards six months before graduation? What’s the big deal about that?
The baby’s umbilical cord had gotten wrapped in a knot, closing it off. It was an unavoidable accident.
Kinder to have a c-section? That’s major surgery. True, she could be totally sedated while it happened, but then there is a difficult recovery from abdominal surgery. She would carry the scars the rest of her life to remind her. I agree, though, that the thought of having to go through labor and delivery of a dead child would be nightmarish.
I missed about half of the show so I’ll be watching here for a recap, but a question came up at work during the Friday AM discussion that I figured the ER crowd can answer.
Has Michael Gross always played Carters father, or did another actor handle that role in earlier episodes?
The point I got from the pothead doctor saying he took the boards 6 months before graduation was that Abby did too, but didn’t pass the first time so she had to take them again a week before graduation. Abby and the others who knew she had failed looked embarrassed after he said it.
From what I remember, Michael Gross has always played Carter’s dad. I really liked how he was there for Carter (for a change), and was supportive of his relationship with Kem. It was a total turnaround from last week. On the other hand, I hope Kem just goes back to Africa. I really haven’t liked this character at all and had a hard time feeling sorry for her about the baby, though I do feel bad for Carter of course.
At the end, the big kid came back in, having hard time breathing. Chen and another doctor (the pothead?) were there and one recognized him as Pratt’s patient. Pratt said “don’t worry he just has blah blah blah” and Chen said “no, he has congestive heart failure.” Whoopsie!
A former boss of mine had a baby die in utero at about six months, IIRC. She had to deliver naturally, just like last night’s episode. My understanding is that could be one of the most difficult and devastating experiences one would ever have to endure.
Although I can’t stand Kem’s character, I felt for both characters during that part. That said, let’s all hope this terrible thing destroys their relationship and Kem goes back to Africa and Carter finds someone with whom he actually has chemistry. 'Cause it’s been a while since they had a love interest for him where there really seemed to be a spark.
Can anyone clarify exactly what Kerry was trying to imply to Abby? My take on it was: if you don’t pass your boards, you can’t match here and you’ll have to take your second choice or maybe the second choice won’t take you either. I was unclear about the actual threat, although very clear about what Abby’s intentions would be if Kerry followed through.
Who thinks Neela will match at County? But will she be in the ER? I’m quite certain Abby will match in County’s ER.
Throughout the season they’ve been making the point that Neela is book smart, but not cut out to work with patients. This event was designed to show Neela’s diagnostic chops, and thus convince her and others to be in the ER next season, and not in the lab.
Could someone explain the “hypothetical” conversation Kerry and Abby were having?
No, Abby doesn’t officially graduate until she passes the Step 2, which I think is pretty standard for real-life med school. (Or maybe it’s that you can’t start your residency till you pass it, I don’t remember for sure.) Most places would still let her walk, though, like most high schools would let a senior who had to go to summer school to graduate walk. Morris probably did take the Step 2 six months ago, it’s left up to the student to decide when to take them, and most of Dr.J’s classmates did take it in the late fall or early winter so they’d have time to retake them if needed. It’s not really relevant, but it’s pretty unusual for med students to leave it as late as Abby and Neela did. I think the comment was in there as further evidence that Morris is too socially unaware to have any clue when to open a tall, frosty can of STFU.
The big thing that jumped out at me was their conflation of Match Day and graduation, which is neither realistic or internally consistent. IRL, the Match letters go out in late March, so everyone knows where they’re going a couple of months before graduation, which gives them about three months to find housing, move, and get settled in before residency starts on July 1. In previous seasons, med students have always gotten their Match letters well in advance of graduation. I think Gallant got his in late March, just like real life. I’m not sure what they’re going for here, except maybe to add dramatic tension with Abby.
I’m also not sure what was the point of having Kerry try to wheedle Abby into telling her how she’d ranked County. For one thing, programs and candidates are NOT allowed to discuss their respective rankings of one another. Telling Abby they ranked her top 20 is a direct violation of the Match rules, as is trying to get Abby to tell where she ranked County, and it’s a damn good way for Kerry to get her ass in a rather large sling. For another thing, it’s just poor strategy. If you’re going to show yourself to be willing to drop her like a hot potato to cya, why in the world would she be inclined to do you any favors? It makes me wonder how stupid Kerry thinks Abby is, anyway.
I think Michael Gross has always played Carter’s dad, but I don’t really remember.
As for Elgin, the big kid, Neela was right. The hypertension workup they did showed that he had congestive heart failure. Pratt didn’t believe that he could possibly already have CHF that young, even though the kid was having respiratory difficulty when they went to check on him. (The way he was talking, that wasn’t a fat person winded from some exertion, that was someone who cannot breathe, and any ER doc worth pissing on ought to have caught that. 'Course, Pratt ain’t worth pissing on, but that’s a whole other discussion.) The kid came back in because he had CHF exacerbation, where so much fluid and swelling had built up in his chest that his lungs couldn’t expand enough to keep him oxygenated.
Thanks, Crazy Cat Lady. Just one question… I thought I heard something about if Abby couldn’t match, she wouldn’t be able to do her internship.
I thought the order went: med school, internship, then residency ('Cause Lewis, Carter, Chen, Luka are all residents, right?). Don’t Abby and Neela have to do their internships… then they get to be residents? Or is it residency, then internship?
Not quite. The match works like this: residency programs turn in a list of candidates they would be willing to accept as residents, ranked in the order they’d prefer to have them, and candidates turn in a list of programs they’d be willing to work for, ranked in order of preference. All these lists are fed into a computer, which goes through and matches them up. If your first choice program has ranked you (and there aren’t enough higher-ranked candidates with the same first choice to fill the program), that’s where you match. If that hospital hasn’t ranked you, or there were too many higher-ranked candidates who wanted to go there, you go through the same thing with the second choice, and so on down the line.
What Kerry was getting at was that they’d ranked Abby high enough that if she’d put County as her first choice, she’d be matching there. If she matched there and didn’t pass her Step 2, she wouldn’t be able to start her intern year, and that would leave the program short-handed. Of course, if they altered their ranking list to exclude her (I don’t think they can even do that once the list is turned in), then she’d match elsewhere, and it would be somebody else’s problem if she didn’t pass. In essence, Kerry was saying, “Hey, break the rules and do me a favor so I can screw you over.”
Dogzilla, in most programs internship is just a name for the first year of residency. There are some specialties, though, where you have to an intern year in a more general program before starting the residency. Dr.J’s program has a couple of these every year, so the usual makeup is that they’ve got 8 interns, 6 second-years, and 6 third-years. The job title on all of 'em is “resident physician.” I believe that in the past, though, internship and residency were seperate programs, and everybody did a year of general internal medicine or general surgery before starting the more specialized residency program.
The big deal about Abby’s boards is that she can’t start practicing until she passes the Step 2. Medical licensing is in three steps–you take one test late in the second year of med school, and you can’t start clinical rotations till you pass it. You take the next one in the fourth year of med school, and you can’t start residency till you pass it. The last one you take sometime later in residency (depends on the resident and the program when, exactly), and you can’t practice on your own till you pass it. There may also be state boards on top of that, but we haven’t gotten that far in the process yet.
I only recently started re-watching ER, so I’ve missed a lot of what was going on. I don’t know about lack of chemistry between Carter and Kem, because I think this is the first or second episode I’ve seen her in. But, I really like Thandie Newton from her other work, so I wouldn’t mind her sticking around.
As for the Abby and Kerry situation, that really had me confused. Thanks for explaining it!
Oh, and Dogzilla? Luka, Susan, et al, aren’t residents. They’re all attendings. They’re doctors who have completely residency (Carter did his there, and Chen finished hers there, and they split a year as Chief Resident), and act in a supervisory capacity to the students and residents, as well as seeing patients. One of them has to sign off on a chart before the patient can be released. That’s why you see the students and interns waving charts at them all the time.
Then Gallant was a resident? Because he authorized Neela giving that patient medicine without finding out if it was contraindicated? And Carter was nowhere to be found? No wonder things are slow at a hospital, if you have to chase down attendings all the time.
Yes, Gallant was a resident. He’s a second-year, I believe. The details vary from hospital to hospital, but residents can sign orders for students. He didn’t exactly authorize Neela to push that drug, he just signed the order after she’d already given it and then lied to cover her ass. The interns supervise the students, the upper-level residents supervise the interns, the chief resident supervises the residents, and the attendings supervise them all.
Remember that episode where Chen and Malucchi killed the Marfans patient? He was a resident, and she was the chief resident, so she was supervising him. However, Kerry was the attending, and was supposed to be supervising both of them. The fact that she wasn’t available to do that is part of why that patient died, and that’s why she was so eager to throw Chen to the wolves over the incident.
Same here. Did the show run late for some reason? It seemed to start on time, but Carter tells Kem that they’re about to be moved to another room, and that the baby would be taken away at that time, and <pfft!>
:mad: :smack: :mad: :eek:
And, isn’t it rather macabre that the dead baby was just left in the room with the mother as if it were alive?
Oh, special thanks to **CrazyCatLady ** for explaining the match scheme!
:mad: :eek: