Which is why she should be on someone else’s care. Oh wait, there is no one else in the hospital.
As long as this isn’t the next plot twist.
“Ripped from today’s headlines!”
Regarding the ethics of the doctors at Seattle Grace, I’ve long ago concluded that the hospital is actually some dark corner of Hell and the patients unfortunate enough to wind up there are specifically there to be punished by incessant chatter and a total lack of accountability on the part of their doctors.
The surgery in the stuck elevator was actually George’s first big success. It was the earlier botched appendectomy that got him the nick name (although the patient didn’t actually die – Burke took over and saved him at the last minute).
In case we had forgotten, 007 was referenced earlier in the episode. When Alex found out George was joining the army, he said “007? He’s the guy who gets killed!”
My brother-in-law worked in a large hospital in a public relations capacity for several years.
When I’ve had the chance to watch the show with him he’s just shuddered and gasped his way through with an occasional “Oh my lord!” He used to try and expain what would really happen if a doctor, particularly and intern, did [insert whatever ridiculous thing they’ve done here].
I don’t like the way it’s changed form season one and I absolutely hate the surgery and trauma closeups - so why oh why do I still watch?
Another bit of foreshadowing: When Bailey first walks into the room with Jon Doe, she yells “What have you done to George O’Malley?!” (She’s actually chewing out Dr. Hunt for talking George into joining the army.)
This issue really isn’t portrayed well on tv, or maybe I just don’t understand it. I can understand “do not keep me alive with machines indefinitely if there’s little hope of a full recovery”, but why “do not resuscitate”? If your heart skips a beat and needs a quick jumpstart how is that a quality of life issue? That’s like saying “if my stitches accidently come undone don’t redo them”. Her heart going into defib doesn’t make her a miserable vegetable for life. If she were already in a coma or her brain was screwed up it’d be a different story, but her surgery was a success and she was lucid.
Yeah, it didn’t make any sense to me why she’d sign the DNR. Isn’t it already the family’s decision whether to keep someone on life support? Surely she could have made clear to Alex that she didn’t want to be kept alive on live support if she were a vegetable. In fact, I think she did make that clear.
But it is a quality of life issue. Unlike Hollywood, where your heart stops and starts and you end up none the worse for wear, you can be brought back to be seriously f***ed up because your brain was damaged by the whole temporary death thing. Such as the case listed here. And Izzy’s brain was in really dodgy shape to being with!
My uncle had a DNR in the latter stages of his cancer. There were to be “no extraordinary measures” taken if his heart stopped, and both my parents have/had a “no extraordinary measures” clause in their “living wills” as well.
Yes, but she also didn’t want to be brought back from the dead if there was the very real risk that she would end up not needing life support at all, but living life with frakked up motor skills, drooling, and with only the residual IQ of a hamster.
Point taken.
Personally, I see this as a good argument for euthanasia. It seems crazy that you can’t even try to save someone’s life without risking them being stuck living a life they’ve made clear they’d never want.
Is there a way legally that there could be an “if/then” sort of DNR?
Bring the crash cart is okay, but prolonged ventilator is not… Does it have to be all or nothing?
And whichever of them doesn’t make it - will there be a poignant organ donation story?
And who decides which measures are extraordinary?
They are different but often related clauses. One is “do not resuscitate” the other thing is “please pull the plug”. My mom’s living will has both. For example if she just gets really sick so that she has to be kept alive by artificial means (like a ventilator and feeding tube), she wants to be unplugged.
In Izzy’s case is that her brain may turn to porridge, but she could survive without artificial means. So she may be a drooling idiot who is slightly less intelligent than a dog, but still be able to breathe on her own and eat baby food that’s spooned into her mouth. For a vibrant, intelligent, young newly-wed woman to face that kind of fate, it’s reasonable to say: “Yeah, if my heart stops, just let me go, because I don’t want to come back like that.”
ETA: The surgery itself could mess her up, but surgery and heart stoppage, is much more likely result in oatmeal for brains for her.
Personally, I’d hate for my fiancee to have to take care of me if I was just going to be a giggling piece of meat, who occasionally squealed like an infant, for the next 50 years.
I think that George’s accident was perfect for the “moral of the story”, that none of us can predict how our life will end. The common expression, “you could get hit by a bus” is quite literally what happened to him…juxtaposed against Izzy’s tragic illness. Obvious, but I still didn’t make that connection until later.
I think that, myself, everytime I have a post-cancer health scare. Rather than worry that cancer might have returned, I remind myself that none of us knows whether a bus will get us.
What I don’t get is the way George and Izzie looked at eachother in the elevator… It’s almost as if they are going to fall back into love.
I really hope they don’t die 
It will just set a really sad/negative tone over the next season like when Denny died.
I noticed that too… as though George were about to extend an arm, and they were going to spend the rest of eternity together.
Now that would be a twist.
I initially stopped watching Greys for the simple reason that the Denny hallucination was just too unbelievable. When the writers kept writing him back in and wrote that Izzie was going to accept the problem, I gave up.
I’m glad there’s a reason (even if it’s so farfetched), in the end.
I got pissed off at Bones for the same reason, although given the forensic science nature of the show, it was an even worse mistake there. I’m glad they took the same route (brain tumor) to explain it.
Nadavy ans Casserole I didn’t see it that way. It looked to me like two friends that ran into each other unexpectedly in a place neither thought they’d see each other.
I just wonder who else is still wandering the halls of the afterlife version of Seattle Grace.
Those two aren’t the same actor. The ER guy is Mekhi Phifer, and the House guy is Omar Epps.