Medical Case of the Week

Joel is at a tennis court treating an up and coming tennis star, Ricki (played by Amazing Race Canada contestant Vanessa Morgan), who has a bum knee. Her dad and coach (played by Orphan Black’s Kevin Hanchard) is giving a diagnosis that he doesn’t want to hear. It seems her knee might take her out of a tournament. At the hospital, it seems her knee is in real bad shape and needs extensive surgery that has a 6 month recovery time. Ricki’s dad doesn’t want her to do it as she is supposed to play the French Open in 3 weeks. This case is predictable as I bet the daughter doesn’t want to play tennis. Joel asks some advice of Charlie on his case. He agrees that she needs the surgery and Joel shouldn’t have let her walk away. Ricki later pays a visit to Joel and how other surgeons told her dad that she doesn’t need the surgery. However, Ricki likes Joel because he talked to her. He tells her again that she needs the surgery. Joel obviously has managed to convince Ricki to do the surgery and wne she goes into to do it, her father is there but Joel does not want an audience and the two start to butt heads. The surgery is successful and Ricki is relishing the time off that she will take full advantage of. It seems this surgery has caused a brief strain on her relationship with her father. Ricki ends up writing a donation check to the hospital.

In the ER, a man brings in a young woman with a stab wound to her neck. The man, Doctor Nazir. that brings her in is spouting medical orders. The woman, Halima is his wife but he too is hurt but he ends up stitching himself that impresses Alex. He recounts how his wife got stab -a mugging gone wrong – as asks how she is doing. Alex gives him the update. It seems her wound is not clotting but her husband believes that the trauma is causing this. Miller notices that Alex is letting Nazir treat his wife, she responds that she was given some leniency in treating Charlie. Nazir and Alex have a talk about her medical career and he gives her advice on what path she should follow. Their talk is interrupted when a code white is called and it is Halima who becomes erratic and then starts to have seizures. Nazir wants to treat her but Alex steps in instead.  Nazir and Alex are trying to figure out why she seized. Alex notices her blood alcohol level is through the room and is most likely the cause of her troubles. Nazir and Alex are making a pretty good team. They are trying to find out what is wrong with her and debate what methods to use. Miller comes in to tell Alex that Nazir is not a doctor but a limo driver. Alex is pissed that he allowed a non licensed doctor to perform medical procedures and the potentially liability. She gets her way to do the surgery that she wanted to do. Alex refuses to listen to anything that Nazir has to say. As Alex is readying fur surgery, Halima is bleeding from the nose and is hypertensive. She ends up doing the surgery that Nazir wanted. Reycraft is called in to assist. They are performing the surgery but there is too much blood. Alex is overwhelmed so gets Nazir to come in to talk Alex through the procedure, which he successfully does. Nazir explains how after their son died, he kept on working and after unrest in Syria fled to Canada and blames himself for not seeing what was wrong with his wife. Alex offers some words of comfort. We see Nazir at his wife’s bedise while holding on to his limo driver’s license.

Gavin, Shahir and Maggie are treating two young cancer patients (one played by Degrassi’s Jordan Todosey and the other by Being Human’s Connor Price). When the young man, Jay, asks Arwin how she is she flips out. Shair tells Gavin that Arwin’s tumor has not shrunk even after chemo and goes into to comfort her. She thinks about her morality and is heart broken over breaking up with Jay. Jay asks Maggie how Arwin is but Maggie can’t divulge that. He pushed on asking how Arwin was so she would break up with him, which was her apparent deal breaker. His is that he doesn’t like being touched. Later, Maggie takes Jay to the hospital atrium where it looks like Gavin and Maggie are playing matchmaker for their patient by setting up a very romantic date for Jay and Arwin. Their matchmaking has worked and Jay and Arwin are engaged and both seem to get over their deal breakers.

Maggie is also assisting Charlie with a guy, Kevin, who broke his hip walking his dogs. As Maggie is trying to put his hip back in place, a crack is heard but the look on Maggie’s face indicates that it is not good news. It seems his bones are moth eaten and his blood work indicates that he has leukemia. They want him to undergo chemo and ask for any possible bone marrow match. In the meantime, Charlie will fix his leg. As he is in surgery to fix Kevin, he starts coding and Charlie sees his spirit as he is closing his wound. Kevin is in a coma due to an embolism. Kevin keeps on telling him that he needs to wake up now because it is revealed that Kevin is a bigamist. His first wife Gail is visiting with their two daughters. Charlie tells Kevin that his best shot at a bone marrow transplant his with one of his daughters. Kevin has woken up and Charlie tells him what has happened and asks what is the last thing he remembers and it wasn’t their spirit conversation. Charlie says that they need to test his daughters as a match and tells Kevin that he really should tell his wives his secret as he sees both of his wives meet each other. One of Kevin’s daughter is a match and while his wives hate him, they agree to help care for him.

Charlie and Alex

Apparently, Charlie has not been sleeping well since he has woken from a coma and Alex thinks a new bed would be the key but he is distracted by a young woman speaking French wandering around the hospital cafe speaking French.

Charlie has paged Alex to discuss the bed situation. Things seem a bit awkward and both think each other are mad at each other but assure that they are not.

Alex tells Joel that despite being fooled by Nazir, she was inspired by him. Later on she tells Joel she wants to be in trauma medicine and asks to see what he can do to help.

Back at their apartment, and with a new mattress, the two have sex and when it looks like Charlie might tell her his secret, he plays it up as getting a good night’s sleep. They say good night but it looks like Alex wonders what Charlie really wanted to tell her and Charlie looks on distressed.

Maggie and Gavin

It looks like the two are going strong. They are in love but Maggie was reluctant to move in with Gavin because she isn’t sure about herself. Gavin declares that he is sure and this convinces Maggie to take the plunge and move in with Gavin.

This week was all about the medical cases and very light on the personal lives of our doctors of Hope-Zion. All the cases this week were predictable and seen many times before in other medical dramas. While I do believe that Charlie needed to wake up from his coma, something was lost when that happened. Still on the fence on whether or not I like that Charlie can still see spirits but I guess you need to have that element to make it different from Grey’s Anatomy. Well, it is good thing Erica Durance is on this show or I would have given up on this show pretty quickly.