Episode 5: Shake Your Groove Thing

I believe the show hit a stride for the first time in this episode. Ellen Pompeo, Dr. Grey, establishes herself as a Class A whiner (albeit the worst kind of whiner: a whiner with real problems). In addition to the whining that is written into the script, she clearly has an upper respiratory tract infection the whole episode, which adds to her ability to make herself into a very convincing surgical intern. (I remember, as a medical student, seeing this pale, ghostly, exhausted-looking figure buying a falafel from a Middle Eastern takeout. For a moment, I thought he was a drug addict, but on second glance I realized he had been my surgical intern. I pointed him out to my friends and said, “That sad sack there is what a surgical intern looks like.” (Sorry, Dr. McAwesome. Hopefully the 80 hour work week will prove my understanding of surgical internship to be old-fashioned.)

 A pretty convincing surgical intern, of the anorexic/whiny variety (other options include: angry, over-caffeinated, addicted, exhausted, UNDER CONTROL, anxious, and arrogant)

In addition to the realism added by Pompeo's URI, the episode does a good job of capturing the crazy feeling of being "post-call" (as in, "I'm post-call," meaning that you you've just completed an extremely long shift). Post-call, the likelihood of making bad choices drastically increases. In this episode, Post-call Grey merely gets drunk at Izzie's ridiculous party and then gets caught (by her resident) while making out in a car with Dr. McDreamy. (Interestingly, my previous statement about attendings and interns making out in the hospital parking garage was not so far off: Premonition….) In my case, I completely lost my mind six months into residency and didn’t get it back until 6 months after residency was over. The result was much less glamorous and much more complicated than Dr. Grey: by the time I woke up from my residency-induced haze, I was thirty-five pounds heavier than when I started, newly broken up with my partner of 9 years, and the most depressed I have ever been in my life. And I'm not even a surgeon. (FYI: I've lost 20 of those pounds. The last fifteen, though, are killer.)

But back to Grey's:  Although a good chunk of the episode centers around a party that looks about as fun as those horrible parties I used to go to during high school and medical school (Notice I don't mention college, because college parties were actually fun.), it more importantly asks the question: Does being a doctor mean you are an adult? If this episode is to be believed, it seems like it does, because it changes your priorities in a way you never thought possible (sort of like being a parent, I guess). So, is it so bad to be all grown up? I have honestly struggled with this question my entire adult life, and, like Meredith Grey, I have also finally decided that “Adulthood has it perks,” although, her reasons include “great sex, expensive shoes, and no parents telling you what to do.” For me, great sex is but a memory, I would look ridiculous in expensive shoes, and I totally like my parents and wish they lived closer to me. My reasons for liking adulthood are more like this: in the end, having a job and car and your own house and being able to make what you want to make for dinner, being able to hire people to do household jobs you don’t want to do, and, very occasionally, being able to stay out late, are all worth the pain of paying taxes, having to go to work every day, and dealing with the prospect of single parenthood. (hmm..not so sure about that last one. Will get back to you on that.)

Random notes on this episode:

1. There is more "attending on intern hot hot action." The attending is the horrible Isaiah Washington, a person I can’t even think of a mean nickname for given that his quote on the red carpet at the Golden Globes was a sarcastic, “I love gay. I wanted to be gay. Please let me be gay.” He lost his job over that, but not for ! two more painful seasons. Worse luck, he hooks up with the hottest person on the show (currently) Dr. Cristina Yang, played by Sandra Oh!, who had quite a good turn as a pregnant lesbian who was abandoned by her partner in Under the Tuscan Sun. So disturbing.

2. These surgeons eat more than any surgeons I’ve ever met. My surgical chief resident used to drink a skinny iced latte for breakfast and a diet coke for lunch. Thank god I never ate dinner with him. 

3. Guest star of the week. Kathryn Joosten

Best known for her role as Mrs. Landingham, the President's secretary, on the show The West Wing, in this episode of Grey's, it is revealed that Dr. Burke accidentally left a towel in her chest a few years ago, and she's been feeling crappy ever since. The episode focuses on the fact that he eventually comes clean about that darned towel and apologizes to the hospital and the patient, but I feel obligated to point out that this towel-thing is a surgical Never Event. In other words, it's one of those things that should NEVER happen. A recent New England journal article estimated, however, that there is about one case or more each year of retained surgical objects in a typical large hospital. It's not that towels weren't counted in those cases, either. Most of the time, counts were performed, and 88 percent of the time the final count was erroneously thought to be correct. The authors conclude, "These findings suggest that screening of high-risk patients at the end of operations should be considered even when counts are documented as correct." There are new initiatives being considered to deal with this, such as radiolabeling towels used in the OR. Anyway, sorry Mrs. Landingham. It's no wonder you died on the West Wing, what with a towel in your chest and all. 

4. Have you noticed I'm rocking the screen shots in this post??? This is a seriously important day for me!

5. Best Quotes:

“I’m older than I look”

God, if I had a dollar for all the times I actually said this to patients who have told me that I"m not old enough to be a doctor, I'd be in less credit card debt than I am now.

 "I do research now, and I have a life. A family."

I also do research, but have no family and no life. I don't blame medicine or research for that, though. I'm pretty sure it's my own fault.

“We are workaholics with god complexes”

So true.

“We’re adults. When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?”

 "Responsibility. It really does suck."