Streaming along at night, my wife and I have found ourselves transfixed by the Netflix hospital drama, “The Resident.” If even a small portion of the series is true, hospital care is open to serious scrutiny for its goodness as well as its flaws.
The series is absorbing. The casting is excellent. The operations seem realistic. The frantic nature of the emergency room commands attention. Hospital politics, inflated by egos, is discouraging.
The make-believe hospital is Chastain Memorial in Atlanta, GA, inhabited by medical professionals fighting their own demons. It is a modern hospital that considers itself top echelon.
An evening without “The Resident” seems empty and unfulfilling to us. We are captivated by the fictional expertise and compassion.
We watch as patients on the verge of death live because of the highly skilled doctors and nurses. Operations are complicated; a mistake is deadly. When a patient dies on the operating table, the doctors are distraught. Tears are common.
The relationships between the doctors and nurses often become romantic. When the relations become romantically strained, medical business becomes a balancing act. Not all connections turn out happily.
At times, I wonder if the drama, both medical and personal, is comparable to watching the proverbial hot dog being made and thinking it just might be inedible or unhealthy. But tasty.
One of the doctor’s brilliance is matched by his troubling ego. He undertakes surgeries he shouldn’t. He works too quickly—and recklessly. He has one major objective: make money, gain glory, and destroy the reputations of colleagues who rightfully question his methods and morality. His hubris does diminish.
Another doctor, a resident equipped with extraordinary diagnostic skills—who is rarely wrong—breaks rules to save lives. For those who supervise him, he is an acquired taste. For viewers, he is heroic; his patients and co-workers respect and trust him.
Interns, residents, attending doctors and nurses form an alliance, though not always a comfortable one. One thing is abundantly clear: the nurses, unafraid to speak up, are invaluable. They can sense when doctors are acting irresponsibly, driven by ego rather than common sense.
A common theme of “The Resident” is money. After a hospital chain buys Chastain, its management is ruthless. Compassion is in scant supply. It demands surgeries and more surgeries, even when unnecessary. Its concern about saving lives is secondary to the bottom line. A chief executive officer brought in by the chain is portrayed as heartless and merciless; the actor playing this character captures his role in all of its mendacity.
To be fair, the series offers multiple examples of incredibly caring and effective treatment. The medical professionals go to great lengths to overcome the possibility of death. They work under severe stress. They are selfless.
In almost every case, the characters are fully developed. Viewers get to know them as vulnerable, insecure individuals driven to reassemble medically broken patients. They also pay close attention to their patients’ personal quirks and flaws.
When we all arrive in a hospital for a procedure, we trust the process. We also lose control. Tests and more tests. Constant questions. Waiting. Fear. Decision-making. It’s real. No celluloid drama and underlying music. Most of us have experienced surgery. More times than not, we applaud the skill and concentration for which we owe our health.
“The Resident” brings home the complicated, fraught world of a hospital and its mission and undercurrents. Tough to absorb at times and deliberately designed to stir our emotions, it provides a glimpse into the harried pulse and pace of a modern hospital in a major city.
It is well worth watching.
Columnist Howard Freedlander retired in 2011 as Deputy State Treasurer of the State of Maryland. Previously, he was the executive officer of the Maryland National Guard. He also served as community editor for Chesapeake Publishing, lastly at the Queen Anne’s Record-Observer. After 44 years in Easton, Howard and his wife, Liz, moved in November 2020 to Annapolis, where they live with Toby, a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel who has no regal bearing, just a mellow, enticing disposition.
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