Yeah, Nathan’s a jerk-“Oh, come on, get this surgery! Sure, you’ll be miserable-but you’ll live longer!”
And um, can someone with Parkinson’s really become a SURGEON???
Guin, he doesn’t want to be a surgeon, he just wants to pass his mandatory surgery rotation without special treatment. I think he’s not so much a jerk, really, as someone with good intentions who’s letting his own issues cloud his judgement about his patients.
We don’t know that he doesn’t want to be a surgeon. He has never said, to my knowledge, what specialty he intends to pursue.
Last night’s bit was one of the more unrealistic things I’ve ever seen on ER; any surgeon who would do a Whipple on that man should be run out of the profession on a rail, followed closely by the psychiatrist who would try to talk him into it.
I thought Corday’s compromise was a fair one (she would pass him if he would promise to go into a specialty that did not involve actual physical patient contact, like radiology or psychiatry). Nathan is in tremendous denial about the extent of his own disease; given the progressive nature of Parkinson’s, it’s likely that a lot of basic patient care responsibilities will just not be possible when he graduates in two years.
When I started med school, I had to sign a statement of physical capability, or some such document; it essentially listed the bare minimum physical tasks I needed to be able to perform. It said, in effect, “There are many physical handicaps that we can make accommodations for, and of course we will do so, as we are required by law to do. However, there are a few things you just have to be able to do, and if you can’t do them, we just can’t give you a place in the class.” I agree with that.
Nathan started med school after his diagnosis was made; one gets the feeling that his was a “Make-A-Wish”-type situation, in that it was a favor for a man in declining health and was almost entirely symbolic. One has to admire his courage, but at the same time, it’s also courageous to admit to one’s shortcomings. It’s courageous to stand up and say that you want to be treated just like anyone else, unless you then proceed to whine when you’re not treated like anyone else.
I was going to start a GD thread about some aspects of this character, and I may yet. All in all, his odds of having a meaningful future in direct patient care are about like that man’s odds of getting better after that Whipple–practically nil, but he doesn’t see that as any reason not to do it.
Oh, and Luka–yeah, this did come out of nowhere. But between the car, the accent, and the “Dr.” in front of his name, it’s a wonder he can walk anywhere without women falling down in front of him with their legs in the air. (Hell, I’m a profoundly heterosexual guy, and I find myself oddly attracted to him.) I can see how that might lead to a rather cavalier attitude toward women, especially rebounding from the relative repression of his youth. I hope they go somewhere with it, and don’t just have him realize the error of his ways and go back to being Mr. Sensitive.
Dr. J
Forget Ross. A change this radical, they seem to be setting him up as Mark Greene #2: early-stage brain tumor!
Does anybody else remember how he killed a mugger who attacked, uh, one of the nurses? Or doctors. I don’t remember who it was anymore. But he smashed him up good.
Yeah-the guy attacked him and Abby.
Hell, I’d throw myself at the guy! But there has to be a purpose to the jerkdom-because if it’s just random womanizing, it gets old fast.
Really, does Luka have to pay for sex? He’s sleeping with a married woman, apparently plowing his way through the heterosexual female employees at the hospital, and he decides he needs to pay for it?
Bleh. He’s so not cute anymore. I’m very upset at how they are destroying his character.
And Kerry is pregnant. I thought she and the firefighter broke up.
No, they’re still together. She broke up with the psychologist, I know that. (who I didn’t really like, anyways).
Maybe the hooker is going to be rehabilitated or something. Who knows?
And as for believability-do hookers really look like that?
I took the idea of Luka paying the hooker for sex differently. I saw it as more of him deciding that this was one way to have sex without strings attached. He has gotten himself in trouble with the nurses and the married woman’s husband, and this hooker will be just sex with no way of turning on him. He had a bad day, and found a way to relax.
Now that said, I don’t agree with it, or the storyline that they are giving him. He has changed a lot this season, and unless I missed something big, I don’t think it has been explained.
At least he is not taking another nurse home, I don’t think any more of them would go with him after word gets around. At least, I wouldn’t if I were them.
One thing I found interesting is where he appologizes to Chuny, and she accepts, or at least, she smiles and says thanks. Maybe they’re going to have something.
Who knows?
Which heterosexual male doctor at County hasn’t been pursued or outright boffed by Chuny Marquez now? Geez. We know she did dead old Mark Greene and flirted her raspberry sherbet-colored scrub pants off with John Carter and Doug Ross on and off through the first four seasons, now she’s done the deed with Dr. Jekyll Mr. Luka. Round, round, get around, nurse gets around!
Anyway, I agree that this is a weirdo turn for Luka. There’s got to be a big revelation of some major mental stress in his life coming up that will explain all of this. People don’t undergo such a wild shift in their personality without a fairly big impetus. I can’t wait to see what it is.
Meanwhile, I’m really looking forward to Kerry’s pregnancy storyline. It’s hopefully going to mellow her. Watching some of the morning reruns on TNT I can remember that Kerry – despite her bossiness and the fact that she became ER chief for reasons I still can’t remember – was actually a year behind Mark (and Doug) and only a year ahead of Susan. She’s always seemed much older than all of her colleagues and I’m looking forward to her becoming, maybe, happy, younger-seeming, Mommy Kerry.
Of course, she’s far more likely to be raging bitch mommy like Elizabeth or boring-on-a-stick mommy like Carol, but I can dream, right?
Now that we’re hijacking this a little, what was up with the needle that Kerry dropped in the bathroom a few weeks ago? Pregnancy test?
Happy
No, not a pregnancy test, more likely hormone injections. I’m guessing she was artificially inseminated.
And when she burst into tears when Corday snapped back at her…again, hormones?
I guess so.
No, he doesn’t have to pay for it – it’s just part of the “wild and reckless” phase he’s going though right now. His personality would not normally have him pursue a hooker, but after a couple of drinks at a bar and meeting a beautiful woman, the thrill of being “naughty” takes over.
He’s also driving an expensive car (Viper), which ER docs probably can’t afford, but he’s currently in a mode where he needs to look and feel like a playboy. He’s just not making the best decisions lately.
Actually, I felt like he was deciding that a hooker was someone who he could have sex with and there would be no consequences. He slept with some nurses at the hospital, and got suspended. He slept with the mother of a sick child and made that situation a mess. He slept with a married woman and her husband showed up and made him feel guilty and a homewrecker. Who knows which woman called him on the cell phone at the bar.
He still hasn’t figured it out, but I think he’s withdrawing from relationships that might have consequences.
I figured it was Abby calling him about her brother, or asking for his help with something.
When did he sleep with a married woman-you mean the patient’s mom?
I’m wondering if they’re trying to use delayed grief to give Luka a sexual addiction. I don’t think they’ve done one of those plotlines on ER, have they?
So, how bout Weaver’s pregnancy? That was a shocker.
BTW, not to sound like a compleat bastard, but am I the only person who had a guilty laugh when Romano asked Corday “how’s the martini shaker?” in reference to Don Cheadle’s character. There’s the most base part of us that responds to such humor.
No, I’m pretty sure it was the married woman. He told her, “Yes, he came to see me,” (referring to her husband) and said something along the lines of, “You need to work it out with him,” and “Don’t call me again.”