Teaching moment squandered: Show put drama over substance

Observations. By Pam Wood, AMNews staff. June 17, 2002.

Whatever were they thinking? I sympathize with the more-than-stressful lives of Drs. Mark Greene and Elizabeth Corday, but come on.

To pressure a college athlete to give up a chunk of her liver -- seconds after finding out her sister may eventually need a transplant -- was colder than Romano. Maybe the "ER" super-docs were still gloating from their instantaneous diagnosis of poisoning by rare mushroom made from vague symptoms presented by an ambulatory, minimally distressed young woman.

So, moments after the now-reeling, but still healthy, woman and her husband huddle -- before the Drs. Greene and Corday had made much headway on their faltering marriage and his faltering health, and while labs were still pending -- in comes the athlete, sister of the patient. One of the good doctors asks her to sign consent to be a donor for a living partial liver transplant. And in the process learns that the patient hadn't even told her sister she was sick. Much pressure ensues.

"It's only a piece of your liver. It'll grow back."

The athlete has a game to play, can't it wait? Dr. Corday notes the patient is status 3, (the writers must not know about MELD) but ominously adds that she could go into liver failure at any time and if she has to wait for a cadaver donor. ...

I was infuriated. Angry at Drs. Greene and Corday for thundering in where procurement specialists should glide. Angry at the scriptwriters, who know that for many Americans, TV isn't fiction, and medical plots are as vital a source of information as the family doctor. [...]