A Pediatrician Reviews: Chicago Med S1E5

On today’s episode of Chicago Med, none of these doctors went to medical school.

Plot Summary

We open on the team dramatically rolling a patient into the OR as a group of family? Friends? watches in horror. As they start to move him to the OR table, we see that it’s one of the firefighters from Chicago Fire (#crossover). Rhodes says he’s bleeding too much and needs to open him up. The anesthesiologist is struggling to intubate so Rhodes says he’ll thread a wire up through the neck to guide him (huh?? what about, like, a CMAC or fiberoptic??) and he’s successfully intubated. Rhodes starts packing the abdomen.

Zanetti comes in. Rhodes tells her firefighter man has gotten 4 units of blood and 4 of plasma and they’re going to send 6 more to angio (angiography). Zanetti makes some snide comments about “if there’s any left” because he’s type AB, and how she bets Rhodes is kicking himself for not taking him to angio when he first came in (uh, girl, you’re the attending, you could have overridden him). Rhodes finishes repairing the diaphragm and they pack up for angio. Cut to the title sequence.

A Pediatrician Reviews: Chicago Med S1E4

On today’s episode of Chicago Med, we encounter my least favorite type of storyline in all of medical television.

Plot Summary

A family with an adorable toddler in a bear hat is on their way in to the movie theater when shots ring out. In the ensuing stampede, mom and kiddo get trampled.

Dr. Rhodes is buying the ED staff lunch when the page comes through and the ambulances roll in. The shooting is a mass casualty event. We see a bunch of patients roll in, including our little family. Kiddo is unharmed, mom is in a bad state. After arriving in the trauma bay, she codes.

A Pediatrician Reviews: Chicago Med S1E3

On today’s episode of Chicago Med, I’m actually pretty bored.

Plot Summary

We open on a Chihuly piece being installed in a fancy store…when it falls and impales a dude (freaky). Halstead asks for a set of vitals, a gas and a chest x-ray as Rodes reveals he knows this dude (Russel) – and the girl he came in with (Claire, his sister). Rhodes presents the patient to a new blonde lady doctor – he’s placed a chest tube, given him blood and fluids, and sedated him with Versed.

Manning comes in to work, and she’s mad at Halsted about the “pregnant woman” comment from last episode (fair). He’s trying to get her opinion on a dizzy 24 year old (Dylan) who fell and hit her head. She’s a musician at a local conservatory with nystagmus and hearing loss in one ear. Meanwhile Choi is seeing an army dude who was in a minor “fender bender” and he’s got a blood sugar of 350 – he’s super upset at the idea that he might have diabetes which would preclude him from being deployed.

A Pediatrician Reviews: Chicago Med S1E2

And we’re back for round 2! On today’s episode of Chicago Med, my eyes have rolled completely out of my head.

Plot Summary

Manning and Halstead arrive at work together. Maggie invites Manning to girl’s night, saying her pregnancy hormones will “lure all the guys in” (ew).

Meanwhile Choi has gone out to his car because he forgot his badge, only to be handed a bleeding young woman. The dude who brought her to the ER says he found her on the ground a few blocks away. They work on stabilizing her – only to realize she just delivered a baby and the baby is nowhere to be seen. Trauma Fellow Man runs down the street to look for the baby and finds it (the fakest looking doll I’ve ever seen) in a backpack.

We come back from commercial break to find Choi insisting he can deliver a placenta because “he’s done it before” and OB is in a delivery. Manning dramatically says “I’m on the baby” which…I’d hope so, because she’s supposed to be the pediatrician (where’s the NICU fellow, is what I want to know).

A Pediatrician Reviews: Chicago Med S1E1

Some day (probably after residency and fellowship, if I’m being honest) I’ll starting blogging about writing again (have to be doing some writing first, lol). But for now I’m home sick with COVID – it finally got me after 3 years of unbelievable luck – and so I’m instead reviving this old thing to do something I’ve been saying I would do for years.

Namely, review terrible medical shows.

Let me preface this by saying I realize that some of the inaccuracies I’m going to mention are there to make for compelling television – the true day-to-day functioning of a hospital is a lot less glamorous (and a lot less sexy) than Shonda Rimes would have you believe. All of the action of Chicago Med takes place in the ED and hardly anyone gets admitted because then you’d either not see the resolution of the storyline or have to add a bunch of characters. April Kepner yanks off her mask in the OR (she would be summarily murdered by a scrub tech in real life) so that we, the audience, can see her face as she emotes. Whatever.

I’m still gonna bitch.

Now, I might eventually include some other medical shows in this series (shout out in the comments if there’s a show or episode you’d really like to see) but we’re going to start with Chicago Med because it’s one of the more palatable variations on this theme…most of the time. Reviews will be in three parts – a summary of the plot (spoilers galore, you have been warned), a non-comprehensive list of the medical inaccuracies that most annoyed me or were most amusing, and finally a “who’s getting fired this week” feature, because on Chicago Med at least one character commits an enormous ethical violation per episode (fun!). (If you want to really set me off, come to Happy Hour, wait till I’ve had a margarita, and then ask me how I think the proliferation of medical shows is eroding trust in the real medical system).

So let’s get to it!

“It’s Gay and it Slaps”: A Recommended Reading List

There has been an explosion of LGBTQ+ – and particularly F/F – SFF lately, and I for one am eating it up. So I present to you a recommending reading list with snapshot reviews.

Novels

• A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine: Empire, colonization, memory, assimilation, political intrigue
• Gideon the Ninth/Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir: What the actual fuck, so weird, slaps so hard. Space goth Catholicism and necromancy and biceps and dysfunctional broken young women and unreliable narration.
• The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson: Economics and empire; will break your heart into a million pieces
• The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson: Parallel universes, Haves and Have-Nots, if Mad Max met Fringe
• Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee: Math = magic, this actually broke my brain
• Belladona U series, Tansy Rayner Roberts: College students at magical uni, shenanigans ensue
• The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling: A claustrophobic horror movie of a book; caves and secrets and atmosphere for days

Novellas

• The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo: an exiled queen, her loyal servant, the power – and revenge – of the overlooked
• Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey: librarians, rebellion, the postapocalyptic American West, everyone is queer
• This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: Poetic, epistolary, a love story between agents on opposing sides
• A Taste of Honey, Kai Ashante Wilson: lush, romantic, gods and mortals, nonlinear narrative

10 SFF Works by Black Authors

Much of what has been shared so far in the wake of George Floyd’s death has been petitions, donation links, education materials for people to understand the impact of systemic racism in this country and fight it. That is, of course, so important.

I think it is also important to celebrate the achievements of black people, and the art they have put out into the world. I get asked quite often to share book recommendations, and I really enjoy doing it. To that end, I thought I would share a list of 10 science fiction and fantasy short stories, novellas, and novels by black authors that I found particularly enjoyable and/or impactful.

Please look through and consider reading one of these books (purchase if you are able, or request from your local library if you are not) and writing a review (reviews are the lifeblood of publishing, especially on Amazon).

Please also share any other books (don’t have to be SFF) by black authors that you have enjoyed in the comments! And if you do end up reading any of these, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

On Heroines

(Spoiler Warnings Various)

I was very fortunate that, growing up, I was able to find books in which girls were the protagonists, the chosen, the ones who saved their homes or their worlds. Particular thanks to Tamora Pierce, who practically codified this as a subgenre, but the truth is that between my school’s surprisingly large collection, given the number of students, and the vast resources of the New York Public Library, my books were full of people like me.

Where I was more lacking in representation was in films, although I never thought it was an issue. Sure, I had some complaints — Leia is undoubtedly awesome, but I wanted to wield a lightsaber goddamnit — but for the most part I accepted that the protagonists of my favorite movies were mostly male. Or that even if the main character was a woman, she would be surrounded primarily by men.

I didn’t think it was a problem.

Then, I learned I could have something different.

A Hugo Award Recommended Reading List (2017 Edition)

For Tami, because she asked.

Best Novel

• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager US)
• Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris Books)
• The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit Books)
• Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (Tor Books)*

Yes, I am recommending that many. It was a really strong field!  A Closed and Common Orbit is a worthy sequel to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, with quite a bit more in the way of actual plot, while still retaining the charm and character focus of the first book. Ninefox Gambit is brilliant military science fiction that kind of messes with your head. The Obelisk Gate is a sequel that meets or even surpasses The Fifth Season, and that set a high bar. The final book in the trilogy is coming out within the next month and I am so excited.

A Recommended Reading List (2016)

I am occasionally asked for book recommendations, which I LOVE doing although I am always baffled to be asked. I prefer to tailor recommendations toward the asker (if I know of two or three books or authors previously liked, I feel much better pulling recs from my “library”, so to speak), but I’m also happy to do a “best of the best according to Faith”, and so here is such a list for books I read in 2016*.