Tuesday 8 May 2018

The Resident, part 2

I can't remember if I promised I would never watch an episode of The Resident ever again, but if I did, I am officially rescinding that promise.  Don't worry, it's for a very good reason.

If you have no idea what "The Resident" is, I urge you to click here and read this.  In short, it is a very terrible TV show written by a very terrible writer about very terrible doctors doing very terrible things.  I got into a bit of a feud with the show's creator and writer, Amy Holden Jones (which is detailed in the post linked above), regarding the blatant and rampant anti-doctor rhetoric that suffuses the entire first episode.  As bad as the pilot was, I told myself I would never watch another episode.

Until now.

Amy seemed to take great offence at my twitter profile picture (if you're not familiar with it, it's right over there).  She seemed to think it was an example of patient shaming and that its use would somehow prevent people who inserted a foreign object into their rectums from seeking medical care.  I have no idea if Ms. Holden has ever had any foreign objects impacted in her rectum, but in my experience with many patients who have, they do not tend to wait long, nor do they allow profile pictures from anonymous trauma surgeons on the internet from finding someone to remove the offending object as quickly as fucking possible.

But I digress.

During my little tiff with Amy a few months ago, she threatened to write an episode of her soap opera that related to shaming of rectal foreign object patients and/or an incompetent trauma surgeon (unfortunately I believe that was in a series of tweets which have since been deleted or which I otherwise cannot find).  I laughed it off at the time.

And I'm still laughing it off, because she did.

Dr. Mark Hoofnagle is a general surgeon in Philadelphia, and he has taken it upon himself to fall on his sword and watch The Resident each week, live tweeting as he does.  It is a very amusing take on the show, and it has also gotten him blocked on Twitter by Ms. Holden.  According to Dr. Hoofnagle's assessment, his past week's episode appears to feature, well, me.  Or at least a very poorly done spoof of someone like me:
Of course I had to check this out.

Literally 14 seconds into the "Previously, on The Resident" recap, someone says "York, what did you shove up your rectum this time, and this flashes on the screen:
Hmmmmmmm.  Does this look familiar?  No, I can't possibly be seeing what I think I'm seeing.  I'm sure this is just an unfortunate coincidence, right?  Let's move on.

On second thought, let's temper my torture (and yours) and move way on.  In fact, let's skip all the regular soap opera bullshit and just get to the scenes in question.

A woman is struck by an ambulance and brought to the trauma bay, and the trauma surgeon, Dr. Nolan, somehow diagnoses a ruptured diaphragm from a pelvis X-ray.  I'm trying my best to ignore the pseudo-medical bullshit, so I'll simply say that while this is a major injury, we see this regularly and repair them routinely.  Dr. Nolan, however, appears confused by the diaphragm rupture, so instead of, you know, fixing it like a trauma surgeon, he calls in Dr. Austin, a cardiothoracic surgeon, to do it.  "He'll probably . . . save her life", he says.

Wait, what??

During the surgery, the trauma surgeon stands on the opposite side of the room looking at the monitor while Drs. Austin and Bell (the dangerous surgeon from the pilot) perform the trauma surgery.  Sigh.  Austin finds a lacerated spleen.  "Do you need a trauma surgeon, or . . . ?" the trauma surgeon meekly asks.  "NO", Austin replies while Nolan pathetically holds his hands in front of him, turns around, and wanders away like a chastised child.  He then stands idly by as Austin and Bell do . . . something to stop the spleen from bleeding.

I had to skip about 30 minutes of routine soap opera bullshit to get to the part I was seeking.

Dr. Austin is doing an aortic valve replacement on a nice old lady (who happens to be the mother of York, the rectal-foreign-object patient from earlier) and who, of course, codes on the table and appears to be in imminent danger of dying.  Austin coolly stands in the corner with his arms folded during the code and calls for . . . Nolan, the trauma surgeon.  When asked why he's calling for a trauma surgeon when there is no trauma, he replies gruffly, "I have my reason".  Nolan comes in a few seconds later, hands scrubbed, ready for surgery.  "I'm here.  What's going on?  What do we got?" he asks as he bursts through the doors.  He looks around confused.

"Am I needed for this surgery?" he asks hesitantly.

"No you are not needed for this surgery, Dr. Nolan", Austin chides.  He doesn't need a trauma surgeon, he merely makes him look like an idiot and uses him as an example of "someone who listens, who learns, and who understands", whatever the hell that means.  Understands what?  I have no idea, even after watching the scene five times.  Nolan then starts to quote Nietzsche before Austin cuts him off with, "You've served your purpose.  Now get out."  Nolan again turns pitifully and leaves.

Cut to advertisement.  That's the end of our trauma surgeon experience on The Resident.

I  have no idea what this scene was supposed to represent or what the message here was other than "HAHA, look at this idiot!  Trauma surgeons are totally lame!"  The scenes seem to have been poorly cobbled together for the sole purpose of making the trauma surgeon look bad, and by extension to make me look bad.  It is yet another glaring example of Amy Holden's utter contempt for doctors.

I find it amusing and rather pathetic that Amy Holden would go to these lengths to prove a point.  What that point is, I'm still trying to figure out, but I strongly suspect she watched the episode back and said, "There!  I sure showed him!"

Perhaps I'm over-reading this.  Maybe I completely misread the message being delivered.  Maybe I'm just really egotistical and this has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever, and the bottle-in-the-rectum X-ray and the feeble trauma surgeon appearing in the same episode just a few months after our spat are nothing but a huge coincidence.  Maybe Ms. Holden had this episode written years ago and has just been biding her time, waiting for the opportunity to present it.

But I somehow doubt it.

44 comments:

  1. A Mrs Butterworth's syrup bottle????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She's head and shoulders above the rest.

      Delete
  2. Is there any way you can shame soap-authors into not submitting their scripts? Any X-rays of women with pens inserted into their noses that you could use as your Twitter picture? Just wondering.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shes a soap opera writer. She has no shame.

      Delete
  3. SEE IM SAYING SOMETHING CLEVER! COMMENTARY!
    I swear thats all that feels like to me. Someone standing in front of the camera yelling that. Its just about as meaningful.

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  4. Hello from Paris , France ,

    Dear DocBastard , you are on your way to GLORY !

    Massive thanks to Ms Holden Jones without whom any of this would have been possible .


    ReplyDelete
  5. Does anyone actually watch this show? From the way the trauma surgeon storyline is presented, it seems like there is no concept of a storyboard or basic logic for this writer.

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  6. Uhh I don't think I follow. If he is an example of "someone who listens, who learns, and who understands", how does this make him look bad?

    The first scene (where the trauma surgeon does nothing and is useless) I understand, but I'm really lost on the second one.

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  7. I have faithfully avoided this show like pretty much every other medical 'drama', fire and rescue 'drama' police 'drama' .
    The only soap i have ever watched and these are soap is Soap, my favorite episodes when the baby was possessed by the devil and the dad abducted by aliens.

    Perhaps she thinks you are not a trauma surgeon, you are a very naughty boy.

    Perhaps one day she will turn up in your ER, if she does i will provide my own popcorn and watch the fun unfold.

    In the meantime keep using the pointy stick, she will keep biting :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. at this point I have stopped bothering to watch Station 19, the Gray's Anatomy spinoff. the inaccuracies were getting more and more egregious.

      Delete
  8. I see someone beat me to the Mrs. Butterworth's comment. And really looks like a bad photoshop job too, not even close to an actual foreign body in an actual pelvis. Really nice detail on the film, but why does this person have no femoral necks?

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    Replies
    1. Don't think Pinnacle Foods will be advertising on this program...

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    2. IANAD, but I can almost see a perspective such that someone grabbed this poor person's femurs while they were writhing in pain from their traumatic butterworthitis and rotated them at a berserk angle, such that the trochanters are now in front of the pelvis but there is no dislocation. I'm surprised Dr. Perfect on the show didn't write a paper on this person's weird femoral rotation syndrome. Anyway, it's a pretty good Photoshop other than that, but I think it's a valid bone to pick. This person is just not hip to what films look like. It's almost like they pulled this art right out of... I dunno, somewhere.

      Delete
  9. Maybe that's a real life X-ray of Ms. Holdens object in her bootie.

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  10. Is there a medical consultant listed for the show?

    Maybe ask them "would a cardiac surgeon really waste a trauma surgeon's time by asking them to scrub in when there's no trauma to fix?"

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  11. I don't watch medical shows, so I'm confused.. Whoever this woman is sounds angry with everything.. She will probably be on your page pulling ideas Dr..
    This is why I don't watch tow reality shows, lizard lick is retarded drama, and so is south beach tow..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. if you haven't, give Highway Through Hell a try. (you can find it on the weather channel and on netflix) it is more procedural and less drama.
      I don't have much patience for reality TV, but I like the crews on that one. it follows heavy tow companies up in BC.

      Delete
    2. Yeah that one is more accurate to what tow ops deal with.. I watched one episode that was a semi roll over fatality and I think they found the truck drivers wallet, it kinda hit too close to home..
      I now dispatch for a couple heavy companies so it's interesting to offend them aholes by calling them tow ops, I don't come from heavies so it's a learning experience..

      I got a story for the Dr. When he posts an article about fat, depressed, blood pressure, death and death denying doctors.. I'll be waiting patiently for one of those subject matters..

      Delete
    3. Just got home from vacation. did you happen to dispatch the truck vs pickup on I-84?

      I kind of bristle a bit when they call them heavy rescue. a heavy rescue crew cuts things apart to get the occupants out.

      Delete
  12. I will not watch stupid medical shows pretending to be smart. I am thankful for trauma surgeons and their teams every day because they saved my nephew from multiple stab wounds this year. Without your kind of skills, my good Samaritan nephew would have died. Today he is engaged to be married and is back to work. So happy there are doctors and nurses who do what you do so very well! Screw Hollyweirds!

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  13. I come here to read your stories because they're infinitely better than anything unReality TV can come up with.

    I will admit, for a while, I enjoyed shows like House, but I enjoyed them about the same as I enjoyed a good fantasy novel. I knew full-well it was all fake and that hospitals were nothing like that.

    And yet, I haven't watched TV in over 10 years because it's nothing but garbage unless you pay for expensive channels that aren't worth it. I'd rather sink the money into better internet and good books, and the occasional video game.

    So no, it doesn't surprise me that a reality TV 'writer' is having a hissy fit over her work being criticized. After all, when you can't cut it as a book author, or any reasonable script-writer, you write reality TV. I'd say it's ground-level, but that'd be insulting the ground.

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  14. Dr. Nolan was that old school surgeon who wrote the classic "The Making of a Surgeon." The show hijacked his good name.

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  15. Does anyone actually watch this show that I have never heard of in any context outside your blog?

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    Replies
    1. I had an ad show up on youtube a couple days after this was posted. Does that count?

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    2. I laughed out loud a little too hard at that Connor..

      Delete
  16. Doc, I'm afraid I have some very bad news. (Or good news, if you like having more blog fodder, I guess.)

    http://tvline.com/2018/05/07/the-resident-renewed-season-2-fox/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fox: renewing bad shows and canceling good shows.

      Delete
    2. They cancel Lucifer but keep this crap?
      In other news the closest thing to a medical show i watch, izombie, has thankfully been renewed

      Delete
  17. Alas, I cannot log in at work, but my comment still stands; Why would I avoid a surgeon with that profile picture?

    First, anyone who would use that image has a sense of humor. As life is devoid of it many times, any "serious" professional displaying signs of it is a mark in their favor.

    Second, (not that we have any way to know who you actually are) seeing an xray of a foreign object in someone's rectum on the profile of a trauma surgeon makes me want to look this person up. If you have the xray, you've dealt with it before. Honestly, the last thing I need if I've gotten something stuck up my ass is someone who's wasting time going "hmm, what am I supposed to do with this?"

    There is no name. There is nothing identifying. How in the hell is this shaming??

    --Seamus

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    Replies
    1. ...and apparently Ms. Holden is not just a writer; she's an Executive Producer!!

      Seamus

      Delete
    2. not with the average viewers' abysmal lack of good sense.

      Delete
  18. out of curipsity, I looked it up on rotten tomatoes. it seems the audience doesn't take it seriously.

    "Critics Consensus: With sporadic amusement and a handful of decent performances, The Resident​ drifts between medical melodrama and hospital horror with often unintentionally funny results."

    ReplyDelete
  19. Doc, the X-ray above with the glass bottle into his anus and the RFB (Rectal Foreign Body) story written in 2011 by you on this blog actually belonged to a Serbian farmer attacked by two Albanian men in the field of Kosovo in 1985. Dorde Martinovic was a farmer and a family man who went to the hospital complaining of being attacked by two Albanians leaving him with a bottle wedged in his rectum. However, the Pro-Albanian Yugoslav People's Army wantd to ridicule him by making claims that his injuries were self inflicted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C4%87_incident

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That’s funny, because I could have sworn that the story I wrote is true and the picture of the X-ray is an actual photograph of an actual X-ray of my actual patient.

      Apparently you didn’t actually read the story of Đorđe Martinović, because 1) his was a beer bottle while my patient’s was a Coca Cola bottle, 2) his bottle was broken while my patient’s was intact, and 3) his bottle was inserted large end first while my patient's was inserted neck first.

      Perhaps you should have read the stories fully before accusing me of plagiarism. Now, do you have anything else stupid to say, or are you all done making yourself look foolish?

      Delete
    2. Doc, Your profile pic belonged Dord Martinovic. You were using his x-ray before until you changed them to a Coca Cola bottle after beigng called out.

      Delete
    3. You still seem confused. I’ve been using that picture as my profile picture since I took it in 2007. That one was posted to that forum in 2016, probably stolen from my fmylife.com profile. Again, the bottle in Đorđe‘s case was a beer bottle, and it was inserted the opposite way.

      But please do continue.

      Delete
    4. and a quick google search confirms that the bottle was a beer bottle, that it was the other way around, and that it was broken.
      and that there don't seem to be any xrays consistent with that description online.

      Delete
  20. https://goo.gl/images/4m7QSv

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uhuh. They look exactly the same with his name written on it.

      Delete
    2. They look exactly the same because they are exactly the same. Someone posted my picture. Do I need to explain that again to you?

      And I’m not sure where you see his name on the picture. Perhaps you could point it out, because either my aged eyes are failing me or you’re fucking lying.

      I know which one my money is on.

      Delete
    3. Here's your link again liar. https://goo.gl/images/4m7QSv

      Delete

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