Well, 2022 seems to be the year of annoying hospital administrators.
The Good Doctor and New Amsterdam have been dealing with idiots in charge for a while, and now it’s Chicago Med’s turn.
On Chicago Med Season 7 Episode 11, Randall showed his true colors, demanding the hospital break ethical guidelines in the name of publicity. That was hypocritical and seemed to risk opening the hospital up to a second lawsuit.
Randall’s position made no sense, considering he insisted Will fill out extra paperwork because the hospital was “under a microscope.”
Surely breaking the transplant guidelines, which are not set at the hospital level, is more trouble than the extra publicity would be worth.
And Randall went out of his way to bend the rules, too, lining up a doctor who wasn’t as committed to ethics as Marcel and Blake and manipulating a man with an anxiety disorder into agreeing to become a living donor.
In what universe was any of this a good idea?
Marcel and Blake eventually decided they had no recourse and that the best thing to do was for them to do the transplant instead of Dr. Jones. But if something went wrong, wouldn’t they be the ones to be held accountable?
Blake: How long have you been an alcoholic?
Tucker: You don’t beat around the bush.
Blake: How long?
Tucker: As long as I can remember.
Randall took over for Archer in the manipulation and breaking ethical rules department. All he cared about was the short-term optics, and he didn’t seem to consider the consequences either to the patients or the doctors here.
Mr. Shaw only agreed to the surgery because he felt he couldn’t say no to helping someone as famous as Wes Tucker. But he might have buyer’s remorse if he has any complications that worsen his anxiety. Plus, he nearly died on the operating table because no one knew he had taken beta-blockers before the procedure.
And what happens when Tucker’s transplant fails because of his continued untreated alcoholism? How will that look for the hospital when the press finds out he had a transplant that he wasn’t supposed to have?
Speaking of which, Marcel and Blake did have one weapon they didn’t use: they could have threatened to make what Randall was doing public, and then his beliefs about good optics would go away.
They also could have pointed out that Blake’s daughter is the woman currently suing the hospital and that Blake could easily let something slip to her about what was going on.
Fighting dirty might not be their style, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So when trying to get Mr. Shaw to withdraw his consent didn’t work, why didn’t they go there?
Sharon’s decision to take full responsibility for the VAS-COM scandal is going to come back to bite her in a thousand ways, too, and it might not protect her doctors.
Undercover or not, Will recommended the machine to Stevie and attended events to learn more about the kickback scheme, so Avery still has a case against him.
Sharon’s decision seemed impulsive, too. She made it when she learned Randall was making Will fill out extra paperwork.
I don’t think her shouldering the burden in this lawsuit is going to get Randall out of her hospital.
Elsewhere, Charles and Stevie had one of the more interesting cases. Nadia’s reluctance to tell them who performed her surgery didn’t seem like a psychiatric issue, but I was willing to overlook that because Charles’ indignation was so amazing.
Man: I know you judge me, but in my country I was persecuted. I had to flee.
Charles: That doesn’t give you the right to do surgery out of a garage.
Man: Those girls would have gone to someone else. At least I know what I’m doing.
Charles: Do you?
Man: I’m a surgeon. Show some respect.
Charles: No. You WERE a surgeon. You worked in a hospital with proper medical equipment. What you’re doing is not legal or safe. Those two girls will be lucky if they make it. Do you understand that?
It’s not often that Charles gets this way with people he sees in the hospital. He usually stays calm unless he’s dealing with his wayward daughter.
But what this surgeon did was so unsafe that Charles lost his cool, and I was glad he did.
The surgeon’s excuses for working illegally didn’t justify his behavior at all.
As Charles pointed out, getting persecuted in Russia didn’t give him the right to perform underground surgeries that seriously risked people’s lives in America.
And his claim that someone less qualified would have done the back alley surgery if he didn’t doesn’t fly when at least two women almost died.
I’d have had more sympathy if the man had taken precautions to try to ensure the implants he used were high quality even though they were bought illegally and one slipped through the cracks. But no, he had to act like he was some sort of hero who “couldn’t help” doing things the cheap and illegal way because he was forced to leave Russia.
He didn’t as much as acknowledge that his back-alley surgeries could have killed his patients. Telling Charles about another patient who might be in danger wasn’t enough to make up for that, especially when the surgeon wouldn’t admit that he caused the situation in the first place.
Will’s long-distance surgery was the kind of gimmick that belongs on Royal Pains. This kind of medical Macgyverism has been happening too much on Med lately and isn’t dramatic anymore. It’s silly and over-the-top.
Nevertheless, Will’s dedication to saving this patient’s life demonstrated why the VAS-COM scandal should not derail his career. Although Will’s made plenty of mistakes, he’ll do just about anything to save patients’ lives, and his only involvement with the scandal was his attempt to take the bad actors down.
Stevie was surprisingly tolerable throughout this misadventure, too. She needs to stick to medical cases and leave her opinions of how people should live their lives out of it.
Stevie wasn’t the only one whose character seemed to improve overnight. Archer was less obnoxious than usual, too.
He hangs around too much, though. It often seems like he’s waiting for there to be drama between a patient and a doctor so that he can jump in to give his two cents.
Still, though, he pried into Scott’s affairs a lot less than I expected and even his insistence that they didn’t need to get consent for an extra procedure during surgery wasn’t THAT bad.
In a way, it made sense. They were supposed to be fixing Darius’ arm, and removing the tumor fell under that category, even if it wasn’t quite what the parents expected.
Still, though, Scott made the right call. They’d have to give Tyrell and Carmen the diagnosis eventually, and if they told them they’d removed the tumor before they shared the news, there would have been hell to pay.
As it was, Tyrell was letting his grudge against Scott interfere with his judgment. It would have been twice as bad if Scott had followed Archer’s advice and quietly removed the sarcoma first.
Scott’s past as a cop seems to always come back to haunt him, though. Will he ever have a patient that he doesn’t know from his days on the police force?
I’m also curious about the backstory with Archer and his estranged son. When he told Tyrell he had consented to a similar surgery for his own kid, I assumed he made up a non-existent son to get the patient to cooperate. But apparently, his son does exist but doesn’t talk to him.
Archer is neither warm and fuzzy nor accepting of others’ points of view, so there are a million reasons his son could have cut ties. The only question is whether the guy will end up in the hospital or whether we’ll learn more about this some other way.
Speaking of parents and children, Maggie looked so uncomfortable with Vanessa’s adoptive parents at that dinner. I’m not sure where this is going, but it wouldn’t be dramatic if they all got along, so I’m guessing that Mom and Dad will disapprove of Maggie somehow.
Your turn, Chicago Med fanatics. Hit that big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought about Chicago Med Season 7 Episode 11! And if you missed the episode, make sure you watch Chicago Med online so you can join in the conversation!
Chicago Med is part of the Wednesday One Chicago block on NBC. It airs at 8 PM EST/7 PM PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.