- Hey guys, you've been asking for me to make more content.
So let's do it!
Every Wednesday 8 p.m.
we're gonna have a new episode for you,
where I'm gonna tackle the newest headlines,
the craziest articles,
maybe touch on some research,
and give you some updates on what I'm up to.
To kick off this Wednesday's show,
I decided to watch a medical drama
that just came out last night.
You've been asking for it,
and you got it.
New Amsterdam, let's go.
Bee-woop!
- Dr. Bloom, she's dead.
No pulse, no BP, cyanotic, rigor mortis.
- I need a defib ventilator, ALS,
and resuscitation team. Now.
- That's impossible, she's dead.
- Well, at least you didn't kill her twice.
- If she wasn't dead,
you need to start doing chest compressions
if you're getting a defibrillator.
So, I'm not sure what happened in that scene.
- [Max] Going somewhere?
- [Helen] I have to tape segments
with The Morning Show and Megyn Kelly,
then give the keynote address
at the Oncology Conference in Vail.
- [Max] I'll take that for you.
- [Helen] Thank you. - I've done a couple segments
on Megyn Kelly.
- [Helen] (laughs) You're funny. I'll be back next week.
We'll lunch at the tavern. My treat.
- [Max] Unlike the previous medical director,
I actually expect you to practice medicine
at this hospital because, I don't know,
that's your job?
- You're funny.
- You said that.
- I'll tell you what, I'll continue giving speeches
all over the world because you can't afford
the kind of publicity I give this hospital.
- I understand what they're trying to set up.
One doctor actually wants to practice medicine,
the other doctor's trying to be more media savvy.
This is something I have to reevaluate sometimes,
like how much time am I spending
practicing medicine versus doing media and social media?
I think it is important to do media,
as long as you're doing it the right way.
Because you can deliver a very meaningful health message
to millions of people instead of the 30-40
that you may see in your office.
Plus you can get notoriety and funding
for your hospital, for a non-profit,
for disease research.
I think those are very useful uses of social media
and media in general that sometimes go overlooked.
While I don't necessarily agree
with how she presents herself,
I kind of understand her message
and where she's coming from.
- Will everyone in the Cardiac Surgical Department
please raise your hands?
Don't be shy, just get 'em up there.
Great.
Great, thank you. You're all fired.
(crowd murmurs)
Any department who places billing above care,
no matter how much money you make this hospital,
you will be terminated.
Oh I am serious.
- Whoa, I doubt that that's what happens.
Just because, number one, people have contracts.
And number two, you're gonna be hurting a lot of people
who need cardiac care that won't be able to get it
from your hospital because you just fired everybody, so--
- [Iggy] Can we do something about healthy food?
- What do you wanna do about it?
- Uh, have some.
(laughter)
- That's so true.
If you walk into any hospital cafeteria,
it's all wings, burgers, fries,
and it makes no sense
because they just walked out of their meetings
with their doctors and maybe are even out of surgery
and we're telling them, "You need to eat healthy food."
And then when they walk into the hospital cafeteria,
they're bombarded with fried stuff.
It makes no sense.
- [Max] So just tell me what you need,
what your patients need.
and I don't care if it's not covered,
I don't care if the board said no.
Let's get into some trouble.
Let's be
doctors again.
- It's incredibly dramatized.
Unfortunately a medical director
can make all those decisions,
because as much as we want to be self-righteous
and help everyone and change the system,
it takes work, it's a step-by-step process,
it's not, "Let's have one meeting,
"and I'll change everything because I'm Superman."
- I read your files, you have the lowest billing rates
in the department.
What's wrong, you don't like surgery?
- I love surgery.
- [Max] Then why did you perform
half as many procedures as your colleagues?
- Because my patients didn't need them.
Because there's other ways to help people
than by cutting them open.
- It's a very important statement to make.
One of the things I try encourage my patients to do
when speaking with their surgeons is to ask a question,
"Do I actually need this procedure or surgery?"
Because a lot of times, as the saying goes,
"If you're a hammer, everything's a nail."
When you're a surgeon, you're meant to operate,
and this isn't to down-talk surgeons,
because what they do is amazing and incredibly necessary.
But there are times where there are unnecessary procedures
being performed.
The first procedure that comes to mind
that's been statistically probably over-performed
in our society is cardiac catheterization,
where they put a stent in your heart.
And I'm not talking about putting a stent in
when someone's actively having a heart attack,
that's obviously crucial.
But I'm talking about in patients
where there's not a clear benefit,
or at least not a clear benefit
over doing just medical therapy, giving them medications,
changing their lifestyle, that sort of thing.
And cardiac catheterizations are a huge moneymaker
for hospitals.
So you see hospitals shift their focus
on performing these procedures
and not focus on prevention,
on focusing on lifestyle factors.
- Stop.
Everyone, back away from the patient.
Masks on. Now.
(faint speaking)
- Does he have tuberculosis?
(phone ringing) - [Nurse] Check.
- Ebola? - [Nurse] Nothing left here.
- What's going on here? - This is Max.
- We have a patient in the ED from Liberia,
presenting with all the signs of malaria,
Lassa Fever, TB, or--
- Ebola.
- Oh no!
- [Max] The first thing we do is call the mayor's office
and the CDC if we even suspect Ebola virus.
Now, the patient is in isolation chamber
with negative pressure air flow.
That chamber is equipped with every available medicine
should the patient need himself medicated.
- [Team Member] What about us?
- Ebola isn't airborne, but if you develop symptoms,
you will join him.
Until then you will help him.
Everyone interacting with the patient
is required to wear personal protective equipment
at all times, no shortcuts, ever.
- So this is interesting because Ebola is a disease
caused by a virus.
It causes a high fever.
It actually causes you to bleed internally,
which leads to organ failure.
It doesn't really present with any unique symptoms:
abdominal pain, headaches, muscular pain, fevers,
low blood pressure.
So it's difficult to understand
if someone has Ebola or something else.
You have to rule it out.
The reason why they suspect it in this gentleman
is because when they opened his documentation,
they saw where he came from.
And in an area where you have high rates of Ebola,
like in West Africa,
you automatically wanna assume that someone has Ebola
so that it doesn't contaminate everybody else.
We don't have evidence of it spreading through air,
but we have evidence, a lot of evidence,
of it spreading through blood, mucus, semen,
basically bodily fluids.
And why Ebola's dangerous?
It has a death rate of basically one in two.
And even higher in some circumstances.
- You know pens and pencils aren't allowed
outside the classroom.
- The pen's attached to my journal.
- Okay, you'll have to give me the journal then.
- No.
- [Teacher] You'll get it back in the morning.
- It's mine.
- Jemma, give me the journal.
Jemma, don't do this.
Jemma, please--
- [Jemma] It's mine!
(Jemma screaming) (bystanders murmuring)
- So when you have a patient
who has a psychiatric condition,
it's important to not be provocative
in any situation because the situation can escalate
a lot quicker than it would with someone
who doesn't have that condition.
In this case, perhaps some more conversation,
maybe calling up the doctor,
because she has such a great relationship with him,
could've fostered better communication
and had her give up the pen
without causing that much of a scene,
and her actually hurting a healthcare provider.
So, it was handled poorly,
but obviously healthcare worker abuse
is not welcome in any situation.
- Jemma?
- Keep it.
Like, what's the point?
(slams book)
- Return them to baseline and put them through the system.
That's my job.
- Well,
if you can't help Jemma as a doctor,
then just help her as a human being.
- Am I allowed to do that?
- You are now.
- Well I always say be a human first.
One of the most overlooked parts of being a doctor
is helping someone human to human.
A lot of times, because we have so many patients
to take care of, we lose ourselves in the job
and focus on checking boxes, and making sure
that we write our notes carefully so that we don't get sued.
But in reality we have to not forget
that we're taking care of another human being.
- [Max] Mrs. Marteen, you could stay here.
But in this case, the treatment is worse than the disease.
And with so little time,
maybe there's someplace else you'd rather be?
- Not every patient wants to spend
their last few months or years in a hospital
going in and out of treatments,
so it's good that he's doing that,
although this is very, very, very simplified
because she should have an evaluation by an oncologist,
who's a professional in that specialty
who can decide whether or not the patient
would benefit or would not benefit from treatment.
She should maybe even get a second opinion,
because, as it's shown before,
doctors make mistakes.
Maybe this doctor's mistaken.
So, I agree with the idea of giving patient options,
but I do not agree with the way he's going about it.
(helicopter whirring)
(machine beeps)
- Oh no. - Hemoptysis, he's crashing!
- It looks like Ebola because he's bleeding out.
Hemoptysis, meaning that he's coughing up blood.
I'm not sure if that's more he's vomiting blood
than coughing up blood.
But I wouldn't say he's crashing.
Crashing means his heart's stopping.
So, I would call this more of a rapid response.
So this is very dangerous because protocol is now gonna say
that she has to be kept in observation and isolation.
Because who knows if she contracted Ebola,
and if she did, then she will bring it
to other people in the United States,
and it could start an epidemic.
(machine beeps)
- [Max] Lauren?
- [Lauren] I know what you're gonna say, that was--
that was stupid, I violated protocol.
- (clears throat) Lauren,
your glove.
- [Max] Alaim, that shot they gave you in Liberia,
they might have thought it was Ebola,
but it wasn't.
It was the Lassa virus, which is just as deadly.
Except, as Dr. Bloom can tell you,
the Lassa virus can be treated
with antiviral medication, which we gave you.
- You still probably should have him in isolation,
just because you don't want the rest of the staff to get it
and need antiviral medication.
- [Helen] You need to slow down.
- Yeah.
I get that a lot.
- You have cancer.
Squamous cell carcinoma.
- How does she know that? - But you knew that,
didn't you?
How can I help?
- I applaud this show for taking a stance
on showing all of the difficult things
that can happen within medicine,
how we definitely need to switch things up,
and it gets me excited that people are talking about this.
This show obviously has a lot of dramatic twists and turns.
All in all, I'm pleased with this show.
I think it was fun to watch,
I wanna see more episodes.
I wanna know what you guys thought.
So jump into the comment section,
tell me what you thought,
tell me if you want me to watch more of this show,
because I think I'm a New Amsterdam fan right now.
And I like the acting.
I think it's well acted and well written that's for sure.
This is the first video for my little video series
that's gonna happen every Wednesday
at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
I think I'm gonna call it Wednesday's Checkup.
Let me know if you like that title
or if you want something different.
Again, jump in the comment section.
And as always, stay happy and healthy.
(light music)