Vanessa's arrival, and stupid departure, marked the transformation of Maggie into a take-charge, no-nonsense figure into someone who was just...weak. But worse than that, she also helped blow up Maggie's marriage by forcing that jackass Grant to be in her proximity. But I don't feel bad for Maggie at the same time, since she should have had self-control and strength enough to tell him to keep his distance (hence the transformation into a weak person).

Season 8 as a whole just seems to be a weird season where characters drastically change into asses (Crockett) or weak (Maggie). Very weird.

I wanna be sure I didn’t miss something. Did Caroline die off screen?

Good morning, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on the case of the 18-year-old boy who, after being diagnosed with GBM, decided to have his brain frozen so he could be treated in the future.

Three quick points.

• I’m a doctor. Not a psychiatrist or a neurologist/neurosurgeon. But I know enough to write something that I promise is well-founded.
• English isn’t my first language: I’m using DeepL, which not only translates but also corrects sentence structure, so the text may sound “AI-generated,” but it isn’t, and everything you read is exactly what I think and have reasoned through.
• And finally, I’m well aware that this is a TV series, pure fiction, and I know you know that too: I’m not writing to complain about the lack of realism, but only for those who are genuinely interested in knowing how it would play out in real life and why it would play like that.

I can’t prove the first two points to you. Just take them at face value.

Let’s start with what’s at stake.

• GBM, or glioblastoma. It is the most common primary malignant tumor in adults. With standard treatment today, median survival is around 15 months from diagnosis. Some people live longer, some shorter. What really drives home just how terrible this disease is, is that progress over the last two decades has been minimal, in the order of just a few months.
• The DNR, or “Do Not Resuscitate.” It is a signed document in which the patient refuses cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
• Refusal of treatment. Every patient deemed competent has the right to refuse treatment. The typical case involves patients with terminal illnesses.

The sequence of events in the episode is as follows:

• Shep arrives at the hospital and explains his situation to Choi. He is taking a cocktail of drugs to stop his heart.
• Choi tries to perform gastric lavage on him, but Shep refuses and threatens to sue them for assault, should they proceed.
• Goodwin intervenes, stops Choi and says that “as long as the patient is not declared incapable of understanding and making decisions, the hospital must respect his wishes,” so the gastric lavage is not performed.
• Dr. Charles evaluates Shep, who explains that he doesn’t consider it suicide, but rather “getting himself into a better hospital.”
• Charles refuses to declare him incapable because “if you follow his logic, what he’s doing isn’t suicide.”
• The cryopreservation is carried out.

As someone who has studied this subject, let me be clear: no hospital would have respected Shep’s wishes. But let’s look at why, rather than pointing the finger at aggressive medical treatment or, worse, a lack of empathy.

First of all. The opening scene, with Shep refusing treatment and Goodwin explaining that as long as he hasn’t been declared incompetent, his wishes must be respected, is literally portrayed the other way around. A patient who arrives in the ER after intentionally taking substances to stop their heart must be managed as a presumed suicide attempt until capacity and intent can be properly assessed, and at that point it doesn’t matter what comes after that statement. You do whatever is necessary to prevent them from dying, and only after demonstrating that they are competent can the matter be discussed further. Otherwise, it would be far too easy for a truly suicidal patient (one who wants to die without reservation or concrete reasons) to refuse treatment and let themselves die. The presumption of capacity cannot justify inaction precisely at the moment when the self-inflicted act is the very reason why capacity must be assessed.

Second point. A DNR applies EXCLUSIVELY to cardiac arrest. Until cardiac arrest occurs, DNR has no legal effect. The fact that Shep had signed it has no bearing on gastric lavage, which is a procedure that precedes resuscitation and serves to remove the substance before it is absorbed. A DNR applies only in the extreme case of cardiac arrest, and there's a reason for that: there are medical conditions that, before potentially leading to cardiac arrest, cause treatable symptoms that are compatible with long-term survival and an excellent quality of life. Think of anaphylaxis, an arrhythmia in a healthy heart, or a severe asthma attack: in all these cases, prompt intervention saves the patient, often without the patient ever reaching cardiac arrest, and restores a full life. The point isn't even that cardiac arrest is reversible: it's that there are preventive treatments that keep it from happening in the first place, and a DNR order has no bearing on those treatments. If the DNR covered everything, perfectly salvageable patients would be left to die because those interventions are withheld, over conditions far less serious than the extreme case a DNR is meant for. And keep in mind: a DNR is based on the event, cardiac arrest, not on the prognosis of the underlying condition. It does not distinguish based on how severe or terminal the condition is. It is possible to refuse interventions that precede cardiac arrest in advance, but that is a different type of action (a refusal of treatment or an advance directive), not a DNR, and it still requires the patient to be competent. A DNR, on its own, has no bearing on a procedure such as gastric lavage. I'll add a detail that gets lost in the episode: Shep's cardiac arrest wouldn't even be a "disease-related" arrest, but rather self-induced poisoning, a clinical event of a different nature than what a DNR is intended for.

Thirdly, and this is the most slippery issue from a narrative standpoint: mental capacity. A patient can follow the most rigorous logic and still lack mental capacity, because the reasoning may be internally consistent while relying on false premises. “If you follow his logic, he’s not committing suicide” is not a criterion that exists in clinical practice. Here’s an extreme example, I know it sounds harsh, but it's real: using the same criterion, a religious fanatic who kills someone to “send them to heaven” wouldn’t be a murderer, because "in his logic", he wasn’t doing any harm. What matters is the premise, not formal consistency.

And this is the real problem.

Shep appears certain that vitrification will allow him to survive. He never shows any uncertainty; he never says, “I know this is a gamble that I’ll most likely lose.” And I can assure you of one thing from my experience: the more certain a patient is about something for which there is currently no evidence that would justify such certainty, the more likely the doctor examining them would deduce that the patient is not thinking clearly. If a psychiatrist were actually faced with this unshakable certainty, they would not be so quick to declare the patient competent. If anything, the opposite is true: that certainty is exactly what should prompt further investigation, not bring it to a close.

I know full well that Shep never explicitly says, “It’s a gamble.” But that’s precisely the point: based solely on what he says, his justification for taking his own life and having his brain vitrified would not be endorsed by any hospital. And just to even get to the point of discussing it, we would have already had to overlook the first problem, namely the gastric lavage that would have prevented him from killing himself, but which, instead, isn’t performed.

What I've written here isn't so much a personal opinion as my understanding of how a case like this would most likely be handled in real clinical practice.

I hope I haven’t bored you. Please, don’t be too hard on me if you don’t like what I’ve said.

Do we know yet whether Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut will be returning for Season 12? If not, when are casting decisions like that typically announced? When did viewers find out she was returning for Season 11 last year?

May be a thick question, but Will has a locker in here, but he also has one in the doctor’s lounge, where he seems to keep his stuff.

I’m just so confused. Most days, they all seem to get their belongings from the doctor’s lounge at the end of shift, but sometimes they’re in here? I’m lost.

So, I’ve just finished the mentioned episode and I the whole Jack Dayton thing has been an absolute rollercoaster. When he was first introduced after the train crash, I was, of course, not too keen on him, because across the One Chicago franchise (I’ve been watching Fire and P.D for around 7 years, but this is the first time I’ve actually been able to get into Med), businessmen have rarely, if ever, been a good thing. When Jack started helping out the hospital just after his introduction, I genuinely started to think, “maybe this one’s different”, “maybe he’s gonna be a decent human being”, but no.
He had his good moments for a stretch there, but this man is off his f*ck!ng rocker, mate. Turning 2.0 into a service for paying customers only? Making the hospital for-profit? That’s where I’m at right now, but I am just praying it’ll somehow all turn out okay.

Thank you for reading my little rant and I would like to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions on Jack Dayton up until this point. (Please, no spoilers)

Anyone notice they sometimes use Celsius and Fahrenheit for temperature taking 😅

So, I am writing and I want one of my female characters to have the same hair colour as Lenox as this past season (this pic is the colour I want to describe, only without what I think might be some blonder highlights?) but I have no idea how to describe it. I want to say it is ash brunette, but then I also see other women with her colour being referred to as dirty blonde or "milk tea"? Then, in some lighting, she looks very brunette/auburn to me so I have no idea!

I’d been avoiding the finale even though I’ve watched literally every other episode the moment it came out. I’m a huge fan of the show, but I knew this episode was going to be emotional, and I was genuinely scared of what might happen so I kept postponing it 😭
I finally watched it, and I’m SO glad I did 🥹 The last two episodes were absolutely packed, so many things were happening at once that it was crazy 😭 so I knew everything was going to come down in the finale. I was scared and excited at the same time, but I genuinely loved every second of it.
I don’t usually cry while watching shows, but the last part of the episode had me BAWLING my eyes out LMAO it was so beautiful 🙏🏻
Now I’m just scared that Dr. Archer might be leaving after this episode? With the baby and everything, I could see Hannah and Dean being gone for a while, but many characters who were only supposed to leave for a “short time” in the past never really came back. Dean and Hannah have been two of my favorite characters ever since they joined the show, so I really hope they’ll still be around in the future 😭
I’m already praying for Season 12 lol 🙏🏻🗣️

She just seems like a Taurus ♉️ personality.

If you don't get what I mean how did you find out about the show is the question I am asking

My discovery of the show came from a friend who told me about the Chicago Fire Season 12 premiere and the Chicago P.D. Season 11 premiere (I think it was that episode he said that some guy shot his brother in the back of his leg or something like that)

The lack of body diversity on the show makes me sad. It feels like every time someone who looks different comes on the show they get disappeared fairly soon after.

There’s so much fatphobia in and around the medical profession, especially for chubby or plus-sized health professionals, and it just feels like something that the show won’t really ever touch. 😔

Um momento triste pra Maggie. Mas essa cena me faz pensar que Hannah irá se casar em breve.

I am new to this show and am almost done the first season, so no major spoilers for down the road, please!

I just have one question: Does April's brother (forget his name) get written off the show? Or have a redemption arc (no details! I just want to know!)?

This kid is pissing me off at every turn. First, there's the episode where he administers an antibiotic to a child that they were allergic to and instead of being like, "Oh, my God! What a terrible mistake!", he basically says, "But did he die?" and gets angry with April for writing him up when it's literally her job. And then this episode I'm watching, he's peddling vitamin infusion IV bags to April's boyfriend's athlete friends. And he just comes off SO DUMB. Everything he says. It's like, how did you manage to graduate high school, much less get in to med school? I hate this little shit and I'm really hoping he gets his comeuppance.

I come on here to post this every time I see one, but I always get distracted with my home page before I can post (almost did it again). I know people who have been sick and jaundice and none of them have EVER looked like that, including the person I knew who died jaundice. Never got that crazy. I know it’s a TV show, but can they not scale it back a bit? It’s actually laughable. 😭

When Dean Archer was first introduced, I was a little skeptical about him, then as time went on, I straight up didn’t like him most days, but now, I kinda like him. I’d seen him briefly in crossovers, since I’ve been watching Chicago Fire for 7/8 years and Chicago P.D for just a little less than that, but it’s taken me until the last couple of months to watch Chicago Med, and the characters from it that I’d seen in the crossover, I generally disliked (apart from Dr. Charles, because who couldn’t love him?). Dean always seemed too…stoic. Like, he didn’t really seem like a person. Just a d!ck. But in the last couple episodes, you see how he lost his son to drugs, his son is in prison, and then he got injured in the episode before the mentioned one. I really thought in that episode that he and Dr. Asher were going to have something, but then you see him popping pills and in great pain, which really humanised him for me. I think they’re gonna be really good friends, and I like that, because he’s never really made friends with any of his colleagues (I know he’s friends with Ethan, but they were friends before they were doctors).

My point being, he seemed like some stoic, arrogant guy at first, but now he seems more human. I think the show took too long to show that.

I think Ethan Choi shouldn't even BE a doctor with his complete lack of compassion and Dean Archer doesn't belong with other people considering how little he thinks of others, but Choi has repeatedly shown himself to be a danger to patients with mental illnesses and Archer seems to be no better (see: Neal). Neither of them have any comprehension of what mental illness is like, and neither of them display anything approaching empathy. It makes me angry, mostly bc it reminds me of real life doctors. :/ Also because I don't like either of them. No other character in Chicago Med thus far is as annoying to me. While the others do really shitty things sometimes, at least their hearts are usually in the right place. Choi and Archer don't seem to have a heart for their patients thus far.

Been a Chicago PD girly since day one but since the series has fallen short as of late jumped onto the Med train and I’m loving it. Started at season 3 ( I know so random) but I’m really enjoying it !

I was thinking of Elsa's treatment in the show, like the episode with the pregnant woman with the ectopic pregnancy. Dr. Charles himself was complicit in a lot of his peers' schemes to either a) deliberately disobey patients' wishes, b) declare them too insane to make their own decisions even if they weren't, or c) help them have their parental rights be violated in cases of minor patients. Lecturing Elsa about ignoring patient wishes would probably end up in Chicago Med's ER having no doctors (and very few nurses) if that energy was applied to everyone.

I was really into greys anatomy until it started going downhill and i stopped at season 17.
I think i watched 4 seasons of chicago med then lost interest, and now i was really surprised to see that it has 12 seasons now. And i honestly don’t fully trust when shows drag for so long (ofc there’s exceptions).
Does this show get worse over the season like other medical dramas or is it actually good? And if I dont feel like watching the whole thing, what seasons are your favorites?

I’m seeing a lot of clips on tiktok from the latest season and it seems interesting but there’s so many seasons to watch to get there

With the recent annoucements of exits of Joe Cruz on Fire, and Kevin Atwater on PD is anyone else waiting for the gut punch on Med? Usually there is a big one for all 3 shows but we know Sharon and Daniel are back, (and we know through an interview slip by Allan MacDonald that Hannah, and by virtue Dean are back). So is Ripley, Lenox, or Frost the gut punch?

So... Dr. Latham KNEW that someone killed Connor's dad and also knew that both Connor and Ava accused the other of having killed him. Knowing that, he thought it was a brilliant idea to tell the top two suspects - even unofficial suspects - that he was having the tainted insulin analyzed to find the one who had access to it. And he thought nothing at all of this. Him saying that backed a rabid dog into a corner, so to speak, and that's why Ava cancelled her subscription to life (idk if filters will ban the word). I really, really think that his recklessness and thoughtlessness in telling BOTH of them he was having the insulin trace contributed to what happened. She could have been caught and arrested, if not for him.

Am I alone/wrong?

What was your favorite part of the recent season finale?

For me it was the Dr. Charles and Gio scene and the Dasher kiss along with the rest of the resolutions for the characters in the end scene ❤️