Episode 29: Band Aid Covers the Bullet Hole

CHIEF: "Yang, what is that smell?"
CRISTINA: "That's feces, sir. Baby feces."

CHIEF: “Are you having trouble with that diaper, Yang?”

CRISTINA: “No, sir. I have an MD from Stanford and a PhD from Berkley. I can handle this diaper.”

Yes, this was a stinker of an episode. This stinker of an episode only increased my annoyance with my worse stinker of a day.

Everything I touched today turned to, well, feces. Among other things, I: spilled a pan of boiling oil all over my girlfriend’s kitchen (she’s OK, but her leather boots and kitchen rug are ruined. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking: Get your minds out of the gutter. It was a cooking accident.); dipped the sleeve of my sweater into a pint of ice cream; dropped my phone and shattered the screen; got into an argument with every member of my family; and, after an unfortunate “women in medicine” dinner last night where a reproductive endocrinologist repeatedly asked me questions like, “You’re how old?”, I spent the day fretting about my conflict of career, relationship, and reproductive future.

I also have some fancy degrees, Dr. Yang, but I’m not sure I can handle this diaper.

MEREDITH: [narrating] "As doctors, patients are always telling us how they'd do our jobs. Just stitch me up, slap a band-aid on it and send me home. It’s easy to suggest a quick solution, when you don’t know much about the problem or you don’t understand the underlying cause or just how deep the wound is. The first step toward a real cure is to know exactly what the disease is to begin with. But that’s not what people want to hear... We're supposed to forget the past that led us here, ignore the future complications that might arise and go for the quick fix."

Let me first say that I’m not sure that this in any way true-maybe it’s true for surgeons, but for the most part, nobody except the most simple of patients ask for a quick fix from me. Most know it's more complicated than that.

Among the Grey’s crew, attempts at “quick fixes” include:

1. George cuts his hair to combat his emotional turmoil:

ALEX: What’s with O’Malley’s hair? He looks like a hobbit.

 

Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo?

2. Because she can't figure out another childcare option, Bailey brings her baby to work and forces Cristina to babysit:

Yeah, I'll back you up if you go to the ACGME over this.

She gives advice over the phone from the OR:

MIRANDA: "Let me hear him cry!"
CRISTINA: "What?"
MIRANDA: "Let me hear him cry! That's cry number four. He's hungry."

Bringing a one-month old to the hospital violates federal law, common sense, and standards for professionalism

OK, I must comment here that this baby is less than two months old and any good doctor knows that babies younger than two months have no immune systems. If they get a fever, they get a full “sepsis workup,” including a lumbar puncture. Bringing him to the hospital was not very responsible, Dr. Bailey. Of course, the hospital is required by law to give you three full months of maternity leave, which I’m pretty sure you didn’t get or didn’t take.

3. A couple who choose to ignore the woman’s possibly fatal aneurysm so they can run off to Paris.The result? The patient presents with “fork in the neck” sign (don't even ask) and gets a subsequent off-the-wall neurosurgical escapade by McDreamy.

So, how long ago did you notice that you had a fork sticking out of your neck?

4. Izzie seems to be dating her patient, Denny the heart failure guy. 

He can date, but he can't breathe. And soon he won't have a pulse.

Aside from the fact that her attendings should take her off this case immediately and prevent her from engaging in further inappropriate behavior, Izzie offers Denny’s “quick fix:” the placement of a left ventricular assist device, which is a device that helps the heart circulate blood. Such devices are considered a “bridge to transplant.” Other famous people with LVADs? Well, there aren’t many, but there is Dick Cheney. According to ABC, the device means that he “no longer has a pulse” because his heart now works more like a fish tank's continuous pump rather than an intermittent pump:

Jon Stewart says this indicates that “He’s more machine, now, than man.”

On the Grey’s front, Alex is the only one to correctly assess Izzie’s situation:

ALEX: You’re his doctor and he’s your half-dead, soon to be all-dead patient.”

IZZIE: “I can’t believe you said that”

ALEX: “Someone’s got to.”

5. George is in a plotline with that orthopedic surgeon and a hockey player who cuts off his own finger. Whatever.

6. Addie is told she resembles a “young Catherine Deneuve.”

I’m not sure what this has to do with anything, and I don’t think it’s even true.

Catherine Deneuve. She was hot in that lesbian vampire movie.

And then the moral:

MEREDITH: [narrating] "As doctors, as friends, as human beings, we all try to do the best we can. But the world is full of unexpected twists and turns. Just when you’ve gotten the lay of the land, the ground underneath you shifts. It knocks you off your feet. If you're lucky, you end up with nothing more than a flesh wound, something a band-aid will cover. But some wounds are deeper than they first appear, and require more than just a quick fix. With some wounds, you have to rip of the band-aid, let them breathe and give them time to heal."


OK, I'm ready to feel better now. Shouldn't the reading of the moral confer some degree of stress relief? 


Waiting.