Grey’s Anatomy: You Should Look Into Who Is Responsible

It is a dark and stormy night. That’s an appropriately cliched beginning for this season of Grey’s Anatomy. This was an unusual episode of the show. I think it’s going to be one of those polarizing, love it or hate it episodes. It worked for me, even if it felt a little more like ‘ER‘ or ‘House‘ than Grey’s. Instead of multiple plotlines, there was only one story. A burn patient died unexpectedly. Everybody was involved in her treatment. The Chief conducts an inquisition to find out what happened. Through flashbacks, we see every character’s perspective. Here is the chain of mistakes:

• Owen hands Christina the patient’s the chart first. She hands her off to April, (Sarah’s Drew’s character) after two seconds.
• The victim is alert and not that seriously injured. She also has a kid who seems fine. April and Reed hand her off to Sloane.
• While tending to a firefighter with an axe stuck in his chest, recent blood donor Charles faints. The axe falls to the ground with him. Blood spirts out of the firefighter’s chest.
• Lexie treats the burn when Sloane is called away. After she finished, she joins others in treating a more seriously burmed patient. Lexie is sickened by the smell, but she insists she can handle it. She claims Reed stayed with the burn victim.
• Reed denies it. She examined the boy, said he could stay with his Mom, then went to help Torres.
• Christina orders morphine after carefully checking her chart. But she did not follow up because her patient came back from CT.
• Lexie realizes the patient has a collapsed lung. Lexie loses count as she works to insert the chest tube. Alex steps slams a needle in her throat without consulting her. He claims Lexie was distracted.
• Charles has trouble intubating her. Reed can’t do it either. Alex steps in and does a blind tracheotomy.
• The Chief asks Alex if he gave blood. It turns out that he was called away right before donating. Alex was on the phone with Izzie before successfully going in blind. Then he stayed with the patient. She was stable until she develops pulmonary edema.
• The woman’s labs are given to April instead of Alex because they have the same initials. Christina joins to help. They have to put a central line in the woman. She goes into multiple organ failure. They shock her. She starts bleeding out.
• Derek tells them to call a time of death but no one will take responsibility for the patient.
• It turns out that April made the mistake. She got distracted and neglected to examine the patient’s throat and did not realize she needed to be intubated immediately. The Chief fires her. I must say most of the residents have made bigger mistakes.
• The Chief tells Derek the inquisition was because he needed to know who was responsible. Derek suggests the problem is too many doctors who don’t know or trust each other. He points out that the merger has created chaos — and that the Chief designed the system. He should look into who is responsible. Thank you! I hate the Chief so much and hope Derek takes over.
• Yang points out that they all made mistakes. They just got lucky.
• Next week Derek operates on an inoperable brain tumor, against the Chief’s orders. Seattle Grace is the worst hospital ever. Patients would do better treating themselves with crazy remedies they found on the internet. Someone ought to revoke their license.

Quotes

In retrospect I should have had a cookie. - Charles

You should look into who is responsible. - Derek

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