ER: "Night Shift" Summary/Review

[Scott Hollifield]

E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
Written by: Paul Manning
Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan

PLOT ONE: ADVICE AND CONSENT
It's the week for tenure review, and Mark is
working from a deficit, not only because he's
competing with the super-ambitious Kerry (see
PLOT FOUR), but he's just been written up for not
co-signing on cases. He starts the night shift
by treating a woman found unconscious in Doc
Magoo's with no ID on her. The woman, who says
her name is Shelly, shows symptoms of meningitis,
but refuses any sort of treatment, especially the
spinal tap she needs. Shelly seems a bit
deranged, constantly speaking in rhyme and being
combative almost to the point of dementia, so
Mark judges her unfit to refuse consent. Consent
disputes must now be run through the legal
department, however, and a hospital counsel
representative refuses to give his okay until a
psych consult is done. The psych intern runs
Shelly through a standard test, which she passes,
but Mark still thinks she can't make an informed
decision, and brings her back in when she tries
to leave. Although she struggles, and cries for
help when the lawyer returns, Mark succeeds in
concluding his treatment. Shelly's brother comes
in, and, told that Shelly will make it through
(but not that she refused consent), he thanks
Mark for his help. The incident causes Mark to
get written up yet again, but this doesn't seem
to deter him; as he tells Chuny (see
MISCELLANEOUS THREADS), he can work anywhere he's
needed, tenure or no tenure.

PLOT TWO: EMERGENCY EXIT
It's such a slow night in the ER, Carter is all
finished with his charts, and eagerly hops for a
suddenly open slot on the emergency "code" team.
Dennis Gant comes along at that point, however,
and invites Carter to join him for a french fry
break, but Carter, tired of hearing Gant's
moaning about his girlfriend situation, lies and
says that he still has charts to do. Later that
shift, Benton, who's looking to renew his pedes
rotation with Dr. Kenner (see PLOT ?), panicks
when Gant neglects one of Kenner's patients, and
rips into him publicly in the cafeteria, while
Carter watches. "You make another stupid, lazy
mistake like that, man, you won't be here" to
make any more, threatens Peter. This pushes
Dennis too far; after some consideration, he
reports this to Anspaugh, who gets the three
doctors together. Benton, of course, defends his
words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
objective eyewitness account. Carter reluctantly
excuses Benton, saying, "I'm not sure I'd call it
inappropriate." He seems to feel awful for
betraying his friend, and tries to get forgiveness
from Dennis a little later. Dennis tells him he
understands, and that they're "still cool".
Carter's redemption is short-lived, however, when
Dennis is brought in as a patient hours later, his
head smashed in from being hit by a train. The
EMT reports that he either fell or jumped,
according to conflicting witnesses, and despite
Carter and Benton's efforts, Dennis flatlines on
the table.

PLOT THREE: HISTORY LESSON
Doug foregoes his New Year's resolution to "resist
charitable impulses" by volunteering for the
scheduled safety check, and consigns Carol to
help. (Their task acquires an ironic tone when
Carol accidentally drops a large clock on Kerry
Weaver's head.) The check is interrupted when
Charlie drops by, asking Doug for money to pay
off a pimp she says is trying to kill her.
Soured on Charlie a little after she split from
the Hathaway home on Christmas with Helen
Hathaway's silverware, Doug brushes her off,
which causes her to explode into a pile of
accusatory invective (including calling Doug a
child molester). The resumed safety check takes
Carol and Doug through some parts of the ER
building that carry memories for both, including a
storage area where they used to rendezvous for
romantic interludes. While talking about old
times, Carol declares that things are markedly
different for her than they were before; empowered
and actively seeking ambition in her life, "I
actually feel good." Doug mentions that he
doesn't much care for his shrink visits because
he doesn't like talking about himself. Carol
advises him to be firm with Charlie. "Sometimes
you gotta say, No, it's over," words which Doug
says are familiar. Their reverie
is cut short again when Charlie returns, badly
beaten and bleeding. Carol's examination of her
reveals that Charlie may have also been raped,
which Charlie privately confirms to Doug, on the
condition that he won't call the cops or social
services. After Charlie lapses into sleep, Doug
tells Carol that he'll do just that, however.

PLOT FOUR: ALL FOR SCIENCE
Angling for the prize tenure slot, Kerry is doing
a quickie study on the effects of exercise on the
circadian rhythms of night-shift workers. The
only such worker she can find to cooperate with
her study, however, is Jeanie, who feels at least
a little indebted to Kerry. After promising that
the exertion in store for her will be "minimal",
Kerry puts Jeanie through the paces, having her
race on an exercise bike, jog around the block,
and finally sit in an enclosed "plethysmograph"
which will measure her lung power. This last one
Jeanie refuses to do, claiming claustrophobia.
Rather than let her study fall to pieces, Kerry
grabs her assistant, Wendy Goldman, and puts her
in the box in Jeanie's place.

PLOT FIVE: LET THE GAINS BEGIN
The hospital budget is out, and the re-engineering
committee has scheduled a "crisis conference" for
the morning. There's a decision to be made in
the meantime, however. Out of a pool of three
nurses -- Malik, Conni and Chuny -- two must be
let go, and Carol has to decide which two.
Unhappy with this responsibility, Carol is poring
over the budget figures later, which Randi has
taken a peek at. Randi, who's had accounting
study as part of her fashion-company training,
offers a free suggestion to Carol: cut the nurse
shifts down to eight hours, which will eliminate
overtime and save the department $100,000 a
year. Carol writes this idea up as a proposal
and enthusiastically tells her nurses the good
news. They react negatively to the notion of
their precious overtime being cut, however, and
express skepticism that any of them would be
fired. Lydia mentions that the nurses have
contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]
management pulls this, we walk," she says.

MISCELLANEOUS THREADS:
With his job security in doubt, Mark has something
in common with the nurses, particularly Chuny,
who takes a militant stance ("They ain't cuttin'
out my OT") and assists Mark as he treats Shelly
Risse (see PLOT ONE). Chuny and the others joke
at one point about a personal ad in the paper
fitting Mark's description; Mark retorts that he
hasn't actually been getting many dates lately.
This spurs Chuny to write a real personal ad for
him, although he asks her to omit mention of his
bike, to avoid attracting "motorcycle chicks".
Chuny resembles this remark, so Mark apologizes,
and invites her to breakfast after the shift is
over. She accepts, and the sunrise finds the two
of them in bed together.

Even though Abby refused to recommend him for it,
Peter is still vying for a second pediatric
surgery rotation, and petitions Anspaugh about
it, who advises him to talk to Dr. Kenner, the
attending pedes surgeon who would be supervising
Peter. Kenner knows that Keaton refused to
recommend him, which Peter tries to discount by
explaining his and Keaton's "stylistic
differences". Kenner suggests that Peter discuss
the rotation in the context of these differences
with Keaton once more. Eager to do this, Peter
bursts in on Keaton, who's spending time
snuggling with Carter in her office hours before
she's due to leave for Pakistan. Privately, Abby
talks to Peter and cautiously ensures that he's
not going to blackmail her in order to get his
recommendation (Peter rebukes, "If your
recommendation is based on anything other than my
skill as a doctor, I don't want it"). Assured
that Peter harbors no such motives, Abby
regretfully tells him that she simply can't
recommend him. "You've got the makings of an
excellent surgeon. But not a pediatric surgeon."

Before and after being slotted for the code team,
Carter and Maggie keep up an elbowing competition
while on shift, which usually breaks down along
ER vs. surgical lines. This continues even with
a patient whom they soon realize is Dennis Gant
(see PLOT TWO).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

All I can say is, thank God I succeeded in
missing the spoilers about this episode.

There were two fairly significant
bombshells this week, both of which I'll get to
in a bit. First we have Mark Greene in a by-now
familiar rerun of "The Ends Justify The Means".
I was hoping that Paul Manning would have written
this a little more complexly than it played out.
It was nice that Shelly's case did indeed seem
"borderline" (although whether that was a natural
happenstance or a script contrivance is another
issue), but the effect of the debate was muted by
the apparent policy by the show in general that
yes, the end does justify the means. I can take
comfort, though, in the fact that Mark isn't
simply getting away with stuff like this; it
actually does seem to be affecting his job rating.
(And I hope he was written up bigtime for pulling
Jeanie's file last episode.) Careful, though,
guys -- the show is usually first-rate when it
comes to stuff like this, but this week you
slipped a little too close to a good-guy/bad-guy
scenario.

So... Mark and Chuny, eh? Okay, maybe
it's not really a "significant bombshell" in the
sense of the show's plot developments, but it
sure made me stand up. I'm not really sure what
to think about this. On the one hand, Chuny is
one of the more annoying members in a cast of
increasingly obnoxious nurses. On the other
hand, she's kind of cute, actually, and I think
she and Mark tend to mesh pretty well
professionally. I think what surprised me most
was the barrier crossed between Mark's main
character position and Chuny's status of
regular-but-de-emphasized character. After last
season's brief bop in the bed with Iris the
director, I hope that Mark's relationship with
Chuny gets a little more play. More than
anything, though, I think the idea here is to
show that Mark may be transcending his
tightly-wound work personna to a sort of
laissez-faire "aw, screw it" Doug Ross type
attitude, which sounds less healthy the more I
think about it.

The other bombshell was of much more
serious import, of course, and that was Dennis
Gant's death at the end of the episode. I hope
I'm not "spoiling" anyone on this particular
fact; while the camera does zoom out on
continuing efforts to revive Dennis, I'm almost
positive that we're meant to assume that Dennis
won't make it, and the previews for next week
bear this out. As for the story itself: well,
alt.tv.er denizens have been predicting something
like this for weeks, and thinking that it would
be too predictable, I generally dismissed the
idea, meaning that I was caught completely
off-guard. So it was unpredictable after all.
:) And I do mean completely off-guard -- I didn't
even take the obvious hook of that scene where a
black man with no face is brought in having
possibly committed suicide; gee, who could it
be? I sort of hope I wasn't the only one who was
blindsided by that, but I'm glad I didn't "know"
about it in advance. The previews for next week
indicate that there will be a certain amount of
soul-searching on the part of the survivors, and
they have been lined rather neatly up: Benton is
to "blame" for professionally abusing him, and
Carter for neglecting him as a friend. Of course,
whether or not "blame" can actually be assigned
is something that is definitely up for debate. It
could be that Dennis Gant, like the first
season's Deb Chen, simply wasn't cut out for a
life like this. It's also true that he had rotten
luck to land a supervisor like Benton and a
"friend" like Carter. I was almost ready to
forgive Carter, anyway, in a couple of places
this week, but I'm not entirely convinced.
Carter's attitude has been increasinly one of
someone who really doesn't want a good friend per
se; he just wants a professional buddy. He's
always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
reassurances that things are "cool", a little too
eager to get back to Abby. Obviously, Dennis
needed more than that. Goodbye, Dennis; your
death will have been made worthwhile if and only
if these other two insensitive yoyos get sent off
in more positive directions because of it, and
that train hasn't pulled in just yet.

Nothwithstanding my perverse enjoyment at
seeing Mark and Chuny get together, I think the
Doug and Carol subplot was my favorite this week
-- not because it looks like they may be renewing
their romance, but because it was a well-written
relationship between two characters, both of whom
have evolved considerably since they were last
together as a couple. The show invites us to
explore the differences between then and now,
given form in the shape of Carol and Doug's
remembrances, and then asks us, wouldn't they
make a good couple -- now? My answer is a
tentative maybe, but as with Mark and Susan, the
writers will be throwing away a really good,
strong platonic friendship if they resort to
redoing the romance thing. Of course, we can
rest easy in the knowledge that Carol probably
won't skip town and leave Doug at the station.
The thread about Charlie was effective if
open-ended; I'm not sure if we're meant to
believe that Doug is going back on his word to
Charlie, or lying to Carol about calling the
authorities. Regardless, I am gratified that
Charlie isn't simply a good-hearted kid who got a
bad break; she really is manipulative and witchy
when she wants to be. I've got no clue what the
show has in store for Charlie, but I've got a
pretty good idea about Carol and Doug, and I'm
still making up my mind about it.

The Kerry/Jeanie story was pretty silly
from beginning to end, superfluous at best and
sadistic at worst, if you'd rather not see Jeanie
put through all the motions that Kerry had in
store for her. The one highlight was the moment
where Kerry is persuading Jeanie to assist her
with her test, and there's that small, awkward
moment when Kerry vaguely alludes to the times
when she's helped Jeanie in regards to her
HIV-condition, and lets that sit in the air for
just a second. As compassionate as she's been
with Jeanie this season, Kerry isn't above
exploiting that relationship to get her study
done, and I do find that refreshing. The ending
takes a ninety-degree turn when Jeanie suddenly
drops out due to a bout of claustrophobia (where
did that come from?) thus causing shrill Nurse
Wendy Goldman to be stuffed into a box -- and
seeing that is worthy any amount of prior
torture.

Carol spends another round grappling with
her dual role as nurse and management, at first,
I thought her decision to fire two nurses might
turn out to be easier than planned. The slow
night shift seems to spark bouts of slackerness
among the nurses in particular (plus Randi), and
after a few scenes of them playing cards, reading
paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,
last minute solution (just like with the
floaters). I hope she gets more of a challenge
next time; so far, this job has been too easy for
her.

So Peter finally finds out about Carter
and Abby. I really liked the way this played
out, because instead of a one-sided reaction
scenario, we're seeing it from both sides. Peter
is pre-occupied with getting his recommendation,
he almost doesn't care about finding his
supervisor cuddling with his intern. Abby, for
her part, is just impure enough to suspect Peter
of underhandedness -- and we know from his
handling of Jeanie's secret that Peter sits
unsteadily on the borderline between being a
self-righteous whistleblower and being
self-devoted to the point of apathy. Still no
real evidence as to exactly why Peter is so hot
to pursue this pediatrics rotation; it's almost
like the writers forgot to show his motivation
and are now pretending as if they already have.
Maybe there've been hints, but I think it's been
far too subtle. Anyhow, as I said already, it'll
be interesting to see how, if at all, Dennis's
death will affect his attitude. He and Carter,
as peers this season for once, have been thrust
into another boat together, as fellow witnesses
to Dennis's disintegration; maybe they'll use
this to survey more common ground.

Some assorted comments:

-So I misspoke in the last review; I really did think it
was Glenne Headly's last episode. I guess this time
she really is leaving.

-I found it interesting that the selection of nurses
to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

-Regarding Gant's death: Well, now we know what next
week's episode title -- "Post Mortem" -- refers to.

-In case you haven't heard yet, yes, "ER" is going on a
five-week hiatus in March so that NBC can showcase
"Law & Order" as well as launch a new series, "Prince
Street". And yes, this is a good thing. If you don't
want to watch the other shows, find something else to
do with your time.

-It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
didn't take long, did it?

-There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
that was about, I think all we can see is her
writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
accompanyment for the drawing.

-Sorry, no line of the week (again!) this week -- feel
free to come up with your own.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Hollifield ** sco...@cris.com ** http://www.cris.com/~scotth

[Mike Sugimoto]

Scott Hollifield (sco...@cris.com) wrote:

: is something that is definitely up for debate. It

: could be that Dennis Gant, like the first
: season's Deb Chen, simply wasn't cut out for a
: life like this. It's also true that he had rotten
: luck to land a supervisor like Benton and a
: "friend" like Carter.

In another post I read earlier tonight on the newsgroup, someone was
making a comment about how there was no one for Gant to turn to, and about
how fully unrealistic that is. Not really. In your intership year, they
work you hard enough that all you want to do on your days off is sleep,
and if you've been accepted into a program on the other side of the
country, you're not going to know many people. There's simply no
opportunity for it.

Gant's character was, unfortunately, something of an amalgamation of all
the rotten things that happen to you in PGY1, and now that he's dead, I'm
starting to understand the point that the writers were trying to make
with him: asshole supervising residents who think the interns are their
personal servants, department chairs that don't want to hear about their
problems, co-workers and fellow interns who are worried enough about
saving their own butts without having to worry about saving someone
else's. A lot of people don't make it through med school. Plenty quit
after their internship year.

And some.. well..

We've always been shown different facets of medicine on the show, the
difficulties the docs and the nurses face on a daily basis, and with the
exception of Dr. Cvetic, we there hasn't been a single medical-related
suicide in three years. It's a fairly well-known fact that doctors have a
very high suicide rate compared to the general population; I thought it
was.. interesting to see it portrayed on ER. So.. go hug your local
physician. He or she probably needs it.

What touched a nerve, though, was Anspaugh's reaction to Gant's concerns:
"Don't come whining to me again." This is *exactly* what's wrong with
conventional medical education, and unfortunately, it's an attitude that
permiates the entire structure. It also isn't going to change any time
soon - deptartment chairs have "better" things to do with their time than
worry about the emotional stability of their underlings. (Sometimes, I
wonder if the entire MedEd system wasn't invented by Dilbert's boss.)

MedEd is teaching, and part of being a teacher is being able to deal
effectively with your student's concerns. Anspaugh's "go bug Benton"
remark sounded vaguely like something you hear in the military, where
jumping the chain of command is a definitive no-no. But this isn't a
military unit, this is a hospital, and as a result, my feelings about
Anspaugh remain.. Mixed, at best.

(It was at this stage of the episode the people I was watching it with
started throwing popcorn at the TV, booing Anspaugh, and trying to nail
Carter with empty Coke cans.)

: So Peter finally finds out about Carter

: and Abby. I really liked the way this played
: out, because instead of a one-sided reaction
: scenario, we're seeing it from both sides.

I liked Carter and his Pakistani travel guide. A very "Carter" moment. :)

: -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around

: merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
: didn't take long, did it?

No, but what was the progression time? Susan left a couple weeks before
Christmas; mid-to-end of November, right? Well, we're now in the middle of
January, so two months..

Not *great*, but not awful either. These things happen.

: -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name

: of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
: that was about, I think all we can see is her
: writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
: accompanyment for the drawing.

Remember the "whups!" accident in Trauma One? Carol drops the clock on
Kerry's head - and Jeanie goes to suture. Randi was following procedure
there. :)

---
mike sugimoto gat/md/t/s, dreamer, shaper, singer, maker
phl...@fumbling.com http://www.fumbling.com/phloem
"to cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always."

[Mike Chary]

Scott said:
>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
>Written by: Paul Manning
>Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan

spoilers


PLOT ONE: ADVICE AND CONSENT

>help when the lawyer returns, Mark succeeds in
>concluding his treatment. Shelly's brother comes
>in, and, told that Shelly will make it through
>(but not that she refused consent), he thanks

Yeah, that;'s really going to be an interesting court case. "You didn't
get consent." "She wasn't competent." "The psych intern said she was."
"The psych intern might have change his mind if he'd known she had
spinal meningitis."

Consent, shonsent, she was gonna die. Even if he gets fired, he did the
right thing this time. (Yes, he was scum for looking in Jeanie's file,
but not he happened to be right this time. :))

>PLOT TWO: EMERGENCY EXIT
>It's such a slow night in the ER, Carter is all
>finished with his charts, and eagerly hops for a
>suddenly open slot on the emergency "code" team.
>Dennis Gant comes along at that point, however,
>and invites Carter to join him for a french fry
>break, but Carter, tired of hearing Gant's
>moaning about his girlfriend situation, lies and
>says that he still has charts to do. Later that
>shift, Benton, who's looking to renew his pedes
>rotation with Dr. Kenner (see PLOT ?), panicks
>when Gant neglects one of Kenner's patients, and
>rips into him publicly in the cafeteria, while
>Carter watches. "You make another stupid, lazy
>mistake like that, man, you won't be here" to
>make any more, threatens Peter. This pushes

To be fair, while a public berating probably wasn't too helpful, Gant
*was* supposed to be up there, and the one piece of informatin Peter
needed wasn't on the chart and Gant wasn't working on getting
it. Remember first season when Carter complained to Greene about Benton?
Green said, "Benton had supervisors like Benton. I had supervisors like
Benton. Deal."The resident they met in the first show this season warned
them about how much he hated Benton, but he was still breathing. We
simply don't know how tight Gant was run. We haven't seen Gant whine at
Carter for five straight hours, but I bet it happened. We *have* seen
Carter try to help Gant and get firmly, almost rudely, rebuffed.

>Dennis too far; after some consideration, he
>reports this to Anspaugh, who gets the three
>doctors together. Benton, of course, defends his
>words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
>objective eyewitness account. Carter reluctantly
>excuses Benton, saying, "I'm not sure I'd call it
>inappropriate." He seems to feel awful for
>betraying his friend, and tries to get forgiveness
>from Dennis a little later. Dennis tells him he

This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons words
inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told Gant to
shape up.

>beaten and bleeding. Carol's examination of her
>reveals that Charlie may have also been raped,
>which Charlie privately confirms to Doug, on the
>condition that he won't call the cops or social
>services. After Charlie lapses into sleep, Doug
>tells Carol that he'll do just that, however.

Oh, yeah, a 14 year old girl makes you promise not to call the police or
a social worker if she tells you her pimp beat and raped her, so
naturally you keep your promise to the frightened child despite being a
thirty five year old pediatrician. Yep, that would be the smarter move. :)

While I don't like lying to kids either, sometimes there's no
help for it.

>talks to Peter and cautiously ensures that he's
>not going to blackmail her in order to get his
>recommendation (Peter rebukes, "If your
>recommendation is based on anything other than my
>skill as a doctor, I don't want it"). Assured

I thought there was a faint air of disgust from Peter at that point as
if to say, "You are a stupid idiot aren't you?" Peter really needs to
work on his rep a little if people think of him that way.

>Before and after being slotted for the code team,
>Carter and Maggie keep up an elbowing competition

This is one thing I didn't understand. They came into the room and a
*janitor* is applying CPR, and they say "Okay, what's up?" ASnd the
janitor says, "Nevermind, I've got it." *THE* JANITOR??!!!! If a
*DOCTOR* walks into the room, Mr CPR class should probably just stand
aside in most hospitals and let people with medical degrees take over,
doncha think? Just maybe?

>to think about this. On the one hand, Chuny is
>one of the more annoying members in a cast of
>increasingly obnoxious nurses. On the other
>hand, she's kind of cute, actually, and I think
>she and Mark tend to mesh pretty well

Yeah, I didn't know if she was the "surprising romance" either, but she
did seem better looking in this episode. I wonder if they made her up
differently.

It was nice to see Mark taking aggressive action for once.

>tightly-wound work personna to a sort of
>laissez-faire "aw, screw it" Doug Ross type
>attitude, which sounds less healthy the more I
>think about it.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

>they have been lined rather neatly up: Benton is
>to "blame" for professionally abusing him, and
>Carter for neglecting him as a friend. Of course,
>whether or not "blame" can actually be assigned
>is something that is definitely up for debate. It
>could be that Dennis Gant, like the first
>season's Deb Chen, simply wasn't cut out for a
>life like this. It's also true that he had rotten
>luck to land a supervisor like Benton and a
>"friend" like Carter. I was almost ready to
>forgive Carter, anyway, in a couple of places
>this week, but I'm not entirely convinced.
>Carter's attitude has been increasinly one of
>someone who really doesn't want a good friend per
>se; he just wants a professional buddy. He's
>always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
>reassurances that things are "cool", a little too
>eager to get back to Abby. Obviously, Dennis
>needed more than that. Goodbye, Dennis; your

Well, yeah, obvious to us the viewers. I thought there was a clear
implicatiopn here that Carter had walked the full mile with consoling
Gant about the girl, his job, and his life. Remember that the one time
Carter was shown helping Gant, Gant was hardly grateful.

>if these other two insensitive yoyos get sent off
>in more positive directions because of it, and
>that train hasn't pulled in just yet.

What *should* Carter have done? What should *Benton* have done?

Okay, suppose Carter did say, "Benton was out of line in berating him in
public like that." All Benton has to say, "What was he doing in the
cafeteria to begin with?"

>open-ended; I'm not sure if we're meant to
>believe that Doug is going back on his word to
>Charlie, or lying to Carol about calling the
>authorities. Regardless, I am gratified that

If he didn't go back on his word to Charlie, he's a total blithering moron :)

My only decision would have been whether to call the cops before or
after I got done running the pimp over with my car :)

>pretty good idea about Carol and Doug, and I'm
>still making up my mind about it.

While I am pretty sick of tv telling me that men and women can't be
"just friends" (when we get past the inherent absurdity of "just" a
friends. Friends aren't a terribly common commodity in my experience.) I
think Carol and Doug would be good together, and while I still think she
and Carter would make a cute couple, she and Doug are destiny :)

>paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
>would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
>them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,

Agreed. My lord, I have never seen such a whiny group of layabouts in my
entire life.

>he almost doesn't care about finding his
>supervisor cuddling with his intern. Abby, for

Peter was priceless.

> -In case you haven't heard yet, yes, "ER" is going on a
> five-week hiatus in March so that NBC can showcase
> "Law & Order" as well as launch a new series, "Prince
> Street". And yes, this is a good thing. If you don't
> want to watch the other shows, find something else to
> do with your time.

Why is this a good thing? I like Law and Order on Wednesdays right where it is.

> -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
> merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
> didn't take long, did it?

Yeah, so is Mark a slut, or is Susan just so offputting that he didn't dare?

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.

No, it was because she was a patient and Randi was putting her name on
the board. Carol hit her with clock, yes?
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~fchary
French silk pie: Beat 1 cup sugar into 3/4 cups butter till fluffy. Stir in 3
oz melted unsweetened chocolate and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix in on high speed 3
eggs one at a time. Pour into pastry crust. Chill 7 hours or until set.

[Tom Bellucco]

sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) wrote:

>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
>Written by: Paul Manning
>Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan
>

[snip snip]
>Some assorted comments:

>
> -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses
> to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
> omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
> learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

Carol was told to eliminate two of the three "junior RNs" Malik,
Chuny, and whats-her-face.

> -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
> merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
> didn't take long, did it?

"Sleeping around"??? One chick? He *is* a man, isn't he?

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.

She wrote Kerry's name on the board because at the time, Kerry was a
patient, in Suture room 2, getting stitches from Jeannie after having
been "clocked" in the head.

[Michelle Best]

Bryan Douglas wrote:

>
Scott Hollifield wrote:
> > -Sorry, no line of the week (again!) this week -- feel
> > free to come up with your own.
>

> I liked the line they read out of Mark's alleged personals ad. The one
> about making up for thinning hair with passion...
>
> ( I myself have thinning hair, a motorcycle, and passion. So girls, does
> this combination = sexy??? Just kidding. I'd rather not know).

I liked the exchage between Mark and Chuny discussing Mark's upcoming
tenure review:

Chuny: Is the competition tough?

Mark: About 5'4", red hair, and a limp.
Immediate cut to Kerry with a determined look on her face, looking
for study participants.

Michelle

[Nicole Anderson]

On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:

<most of message snipped to address one issue>

> Anspaugh, but of course he didn't. Again, I think this scene was a good
> contiunation of the Gant vs Bennet within the "system" (Anspaugh). It's so
> obvious that Peter and Gant should have had a strong rapport because they
> have so much in common. I'm not saying Peter should have shown him job
> favortism; but he shouldn't have been so frightened of favoritsm, and so
> jaded towards the system, that he ended up treating Gant with a rather
> bizarre form of discrimination.

i'm sorry, but i have to ask what is it that they have in common? just
because they are black and are both surgery residents, they are supposed
to have an instant "hey bro" best friend relationship?

we know very little about gant, and from what i've seen he has nothing in
common with benton besides skin color. not all black people are best
friends nor do they come from the same backgrounds.

nic

[Lisa Brown]

In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,

Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:
>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
>Written by: Paul Manning
>Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan
>
>
>

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.
>

No, she's putting the patient's name on the board - that is
her job. Kerry is getting stitched up by Jeannie after
the clock fell on her head.

[Ceon Ramon]

In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:

>
> All I can say is, thank God I succeeded in
>missing the spoilers about this episode.
>
> There were two fairly significant
>bombshells this week, both of which I'll get to
>in a bit. First we have Mark Greene in a by-now
>familiar rerun of "The Ends Justify The Means".
>I was hoping that Paul Manning would have written
>this a little more complexly than it played out.
>It was nice that Shelly's case did indeed seem
>"borderline" (although whether that was a natural
>happenstance or a script contrivance is another
>issue), but the effect of the debate was muted by
>the apparent policy by the show in general that
>yes, the end does justify the means. I can take
>comfort, though, in the fact that Mark isn't
>simply getting away with stuff like this; it
>actually does seem to be affecting his job rating.
>(And I hope he was written up bigtime for pulling
>Jeanie's file last episode.) Careful, though,
>guys -- the show is usually first-rate when it
>comes to stuff like this, but this week you
>slipped a little too close to a good-guy/bad-guy
>scenario.

These ethical dilemmas, that seem to focus largely on Mark and his
judgment, are of course very interesting as I'm sure they reflect certain
realities faced by medical personnel. From the ambiguity, or murky
quality of this kind of choice very clear-cut moral positions can arise,
and it's an exercise in exploring one's own philosophy to weigh both sides
of such issues. I kept trying to find a parallel to Shelley's
life-threatening condition, her borderline dementia that brought her
ability to make decisions into question, and her refusal of treatment, and
the only one I could come up with was an alcoholic with liver damage that
is approaching a terminal stage. Either of these conditions can cause
dementia and impair the ability to make good decisions about treatment,
but would a doctor have legal or moral rights to impose detox or
appropriate treatment against the person's will?

I agree with you that the writers went too far toward an easy
justification of Mark's actions (it was the disease that was causing her
to act against her own best interests; when she recovers she will be
grateful; her brother is grateful, etc.). It's not so much that I mind
Mark going against hospital policies, although he certainly should set
aside some time and think seriously about what the policies are and why
they exist -- they're not just dreamed up from some venal lawyer's brain;
hospitals have ethics committees for a reason -- but in my opinion Mark is
going in a dangerous direction by forcing treatment on people against
their stated wishes. Doctors are in a position of power relative to those
who are sick and in pain, and to bully such people into acting against
their will is bordering on the abuse of this power.

I do like the fact that these issues tend to constellate around Mark, as
it makes him a more complex and interesting character than if he were a
stainless blameless hero.

> The other bombshell was of much more
>serious import, of course, and that was Dennis
>Gant's death at the end of the episode. I hope
>I'm not "spoiling" anyone on this particular
>fact; while the camera does zoom out on
>continuing efforts to revive Dennis, I'm almost
>positive that we're meant to assume that Dennis
>won't make it

I hope so. I was virtually praying for him to die, after Maggie's tart
response to the medic's evaluation of the patient's status ("He has a
broken this and a fractured that"), "Now all he needs is a face."

and the previews for next week
>bear this out. As for the story itself: well,
>alt.tv.er denizens have been predicting something
>like this for weeks, and thinking that it would
>be too predictable

Well, Dennis Gant was a very puzzling character. He was obviously being
set up for _something_, and his increasing isolation, his lack of
professional support, his personal disappointments were all clearly aiming
him toward depression. But I just didn't want him to be a suicide, so I
tried to find alternate ways for him to handle his situation. I'm really
very unhappy that the writers did this to him.

, I generally dismissed the
>idea, meaning that I was caught completely
>off-guard. So it was unpredictable after all.
>:) And I do mean completely off-guard -- I didn't
>even take the obvious hook of that scene where a
>black man with no face is brought in having
>possibly committed suicide; gee, who could it
>be? I sort of hope I wasn't the only one who was
>blindsided by that

You weren't. I thought Dennis might be off somewhere in the hospital
doing something terrible to himself, but it never _occurred_ to me that he
was this patient, not until that very confusing instant when EVERYONE
realized it, and my mental "Oh CHRIST!" was so loud that I didn't actually
hear what Carter said.

but I'm glad I didn't "know"
>about it in advance. The previews for next week
>indicate that there will be a certain amount of
>soul-searching on the part of the survivors, and
>they have been lined rather neatly up: Benton is
>to "blame" for professionally abusing him, and
>Carter for neglecting him as a friend. Of course,
>whether or not "blame" can actually be assigned
>is something that is definitely up for debate.

The fact is that they were contributing factors, and to that extent both
Benton and Carter are blameworthy as far as I'm concerned, but Carter more
than anyone. Why didn't he see that Gant was lonely and depressed?
Because he didn't want to see it, he didn't want to accept the
responsibility that acknowledging it would have entailed. His refusal was
a deliberate one, and this is a grievous fault in my opinion. Carter
needs to do some serious soul-searching about his selfishness and
disregard for other people, not only for his own sake but because it will
make him a mediocre healer. This should be a challenge to him to become a
better person. Too bad it had to be at the expense of a life.

[Carter has}

>always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
>reassurances that things are "cool", a little too
>eager to get back to Abby.

Gant's assurances that everything was all right, both in this episode and
the one in which Carter ditched him on Christmas eve, were so patently
false that only the most deliberately obtuse person could have
successfully accepted them. Epps' portrayal of Gant was a model of a
completely realized character. His gradual descent into despair, his
small acts of defiance and periodic efforts to stand up for himself, were
completely absorbing. The actor is to be congratulated.

[re. Doug's assurance to Charlie]

>open-ended; I'm not sure if we're meant to
>believe that Doug is going back on his word to
>Charlie, or lying to Carol about calling the
>authorities.

Doug isn't prone to soul-searching when it comes to establishing ethical
priorities insofar as it concerns the best interests of his patients, so
I'm sure the police and social worker will be contacted. Interesting how
this is a parallel to Mark's similar decision, although I think it differs
in that Doug's patient is a minor and as a pediatrician he is accustomed
to think only of the patient's best treatment rather than issues of
consent. Of course this doesn't involve medical treatment per se, but
it's not only in Charlie's best interest that the man who beat her up get
taken off the streets but it's time that someone, even if it's only
someone in a state agency, start to look out after Charlie.

>
> The Kerry/Jeanie story was pretty silly
>from beginning to end, superfluous at best and

I'm not sure it was superfluous. Did we actually see Kerry Weaver
fiddling her research data by substituting Wendy for Jeanie in the final
stage of the test? Are we going to see her entering the Vucelich Realm,
where ambition ovewhelms good ethical decision-making?

>store for her. The one highlight was the moment
>where Kerry is persuading Jeanie to assist her
>with her test, and there's that small, awkward
>moment when Kerry vaguely alludes to the times
>when she's helped Jeanie in regards to her
>HIV-condition, and lets that sit in the air for
>just a second.

I really liked this, I thought it was warm and funny. It seemed to me
that Kerry was deliberately putting on a kind of whiny "Ohhh all
riiight,,, never mind, after all I've done for you..." and that Jeanie was
recognized the playfulness and responded to it.

> Carol spends another round grappling with
>her dual role as nurse and management, at first,
>I thought her decision to fire two nurses might
>turn out to be easier than planned. The slow
>night shift seems to spark bouts of slackerness
>among the nurses in particular (plus Randi), and
>after a few scenes of them playing cards, reading
>paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
>would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
>them.

I've been wanting to give the nurses a good shake apiece for a long time
now. It's obvious that Carol is so green at her new and largely unwelcome
management role that she is unable to say forcefully to them, "Shut
up, sit down, and listen. These are the realities." Why did she just let
them get up and walk away like that? Grrrr!

--My computer is complaining and issuing menacing warnings to me that if I
don't get off I'll be sorry. I have more responses to make but they'll
have to wait. God but you're good, Scott! Your summaries/reviews always
add 50% to my pleasure in the show.

--Barbara

P.S. The Best Line surely ought to come somewhere among all the exchanges
between Mark and Chuny about warming up his engine.

[dcchavez]

Lots of snippage!

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.
>

> Scott Hollifield ** sco...@cris.com ** http://www.cris.com/~scotth

Sorry, I don't agree. The writing of Weaver's name happened right after
the clock split her head open. Randi was just putting her name according
to which room she was in, since technically, she was a patient at that
moment. The drawing was just something Randi did because she was bored.

Plus: There was someone in an earlier post who mentioned that the slowness
of the night was unrealistic. Yes, it was, but the point was made very
early in the show that it was FREEZING, so no one was leaving their
houses. So, if there is no one on the streets, no accidents are happening,
and no patients going to the ER. It makes perfect sense actually.

[Elizabeth Darling]

Michelle Best wrote:
> Mark: About 5'4", red hair, and a limp.

^^^^
^^^^
^^^^
Did we ever find out what caused the limp? Is it ever going to go
away? I like the idea of a role model with a physical disability
in such a high stress and often physical job, though.

[Elizabeth Summers]

"-There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
that was about, I think all we can see is her
writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
accompanyment for the drawing."

Scott, I think this had to do with the fact that she became a patient
who had to get her head stiched up and when the procedure was done,
her name could be erased from the board.

[Shawn Hill]

Scott Hollifield (sco...@cris.com) wrote:

: PLOT FIVE: LET THE GAINS BEGIN
[anti-nurse rhetoric snipped]
: contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]

: management pulls this, we walk," she says.

Wouldn't you react negatively at a paycut timed to INCREASE your work
hours? What's fair about that?

: With his job security in doubt, Mark has something

: in common with the nurses, particularly Chuny,
: who takes a militant stance ("They ain't cuttin'
: out my OT") and assists Mark as he treats Shelly

You really do have something against the nurses, don't you?

: So... Mark and Chuny, eh? Okay, maybe

: it's not really a "significant bombshell" in the
: sense of the show's plot developments, but it
: sure made me stand up. I'm not really sure what
: to think about this. On the one hand, Chuny is
: one of the more annoying members in a cast of
: increasingly obnoxious nurses. On the other

Obnoxious because they want to protect their jobs and incomes? Have we
ever once see the nurses refuse to do a job-related task, or do it poorly,
or leave the doctors and patients who depend on them hanging? The nurses
seem to do a pretty good job of knowing who is where in the ER and what
they need, consciously monitoring all patients and informing the
appropriate superior when a crisis occurs. They were doing less on
"night shift" because there was less to *do*. And I didn't notice them
having long depressed meals in the cafeteria when they should be on duty,
like Gant, either.

: hand, she's kind of cute, actually, and I think
[Chuny = another annoying nurse rhetoric snipped]
: attitude, which sounds less healthy the more I
: think about it.

Not less healthy for Mark, though, at least as a post-Susan phase.

: "friend" like Carter. I was almost ready to

: forgive Carter, anyway, in a couple of places
: this week, but I'm not entirely convinced.

[Carter and Benton suck wisdom snipped]
: if these other two insensitive yoyos get sent off

: in more positive directions because of it, and
: that train hasn't pulled in just yet.

Amen to that, they are both "to blame." Not for causing his death, but
for contributing to an environment where Gant did not value himself.

: did that come from?) thus causing shrill Nurse

: Wendy Goldman to be stuffed into a box -- and
: seeing that is worthy any amount of prior
: torture.

I swear, it's an ongoing theme with you and this anti-nurse thing. What'd
they ever do to you? Did you receive poor care at some point?

: Carol spends another round grappling with

: her dual role as nurse and management, at first,
: I thought her decision to fire two nurses might
: turn out to be easier than planned. The slow
: night shift seems to spark bouts of slackerness
: among the nurses in particular (plus Randi), and
: after a few scenes of them playing cards, reading
: paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
: would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
: them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,
: last minute solution (just like with the
: floaters). I hope she gets more of a challenge
: next time; so far, this job has been too easy for
: her.

Easy and last minute "solution?" Not if you listened to the nurses, who
found her answer far from acceptable. I think the heart of this story is
not Carol dealing with those higher than her in hospital hiearchy (say
that 3 times fast), or her personal rise in power, as you seem to see it.
Rather, it's the story of her rising higher in the hiearchy than her
former equals, whom she may just leave behind (and, in their minds,
betray). The sad thing is, rather than help her nurses do their jobs, she
has been co-opted by upper management as a cost-cutting tool.

: -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses

: to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
: omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
: learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

Well, it must be a character defect, mustn't it? I never knew what a
reprobate, immoral band of layabouts I was watching until this week. One
wonders how the ER functions at all.

: -Sorry, no line of the week (again!) this week -- feel

: free to come up with your own.

I'll go for Carter's self-serving refrain to Gant "So, we're cool, then?"

Shawn
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
= +
+ "UUUUHHHHHH!!!!!!! -- said the man =
= to the lady" +
+ --los pixies =
= +
+=+=sh...@husc.harvard.edu+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

[William December Starr]

In article <5bopnu$7...@earth.alpha.net>,
rb...@earth.execpc.com (Ron Bean) said:

> but no, she's OK and Weaver just needs a few stiches (I didn't
> think the clock looked that heavy, and it couldn't have fallen
> more than a couple of feet-- it was just above the door at 7'6",
> and she's 5'4".

And her skull's made of steel-reinforced concrete...

-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>

(Sorry, but I * just * don't * like * Kerry * Weaver, okay?)

[Jim Griffith]

rb...@earth.execpc.com (Ron Bean) writes:

>When the nurses say "they have the money", I wonder what Cook County's tax
>base looks like these days. It's not like they work for some huge
>corporation. And who says you're entitled to OT if you work less than 40
>hours per week? (although this would be negotiated in their contract).

Back when I last worked at an hourly wage, I was told that overtime
was defined as both "more than forty hours per week" and "more than
eight hours in a day". I don't know if that definition was legal or
corporate, but it at least seems to be common.

Jim

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Griffith /--OO--\ | Two great powers are on our side: the power of
grif...@netcom.com | Love and the power of Arithmetic. These two are
BEWARE BATS WITHOUT NOSES! | stronger than anything else in the world.

[Bryan Douglas]

Of course this has spoilers in it, being a reply to Scott's message.

Sorry, gotta say it: excellent Summary/Review, as always!

> Shelly seems a bit
> deranged, constantly speaking in rhyme and being
> combative almost to the point of dementia, so

Fascinating character. Nice elements of suspense. Is the dementia truly
caused by the illness (as her brother later hints at) or does she have some
sort of mental disorder? It will be very interesting to see what happens
with Mark's continuing legal problems. This is almost a rerun of "Love's
Labor Lost" only not nearly as intense & emotional. It was also a little
bit more founded on Mark's decisions and not so much on tragic
circumstances.

> "You make another stupid, lazy
> mistake like that, man, you won't be here" to
> make any more, threatens Peter.

The writers haven't dropped the original Benton vs Gant confrontation where
they discussed "checking the race box". This was a strong follow-up scene.
Does anyone else notice a slight similarity between Benton and Green when
it comes to perfectionism and ethics? Obviously Peter is more extreme
where Mark has good days and bad days. It's interesting to watch the
parallels.

> words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
> objective eyewitness account.

Another very dramatic scene. As other posters have already noted, Carter
was truly caught between a rock and a hard place. I have no doubt in my
mind that Carter would have taken Gant's side 100% if he hadn't been caught
with Abby on the couch prior to this. Carter has been a lackluster friend
and hasn't thrown much support to Gant lately, but I actually think he had
an excuse here. I know a few viewers are mad at Carter, and he has been
selfish lately, but this caught him completely off-guard and at a very
vulnerable time. I was hoping he would sneak away successfully from

Anspaugh, but of course he didn't. Again, I think this scene was a good
contiunation of the Gant vs Bennet within the "system" (Anspaugh). It's so
obvious that Peter and Gant should have had a strong rapport because they
have so much in common. I'm not saying Peter should have shown him job
favortism; but he shouldn't have been so frightened of favoritsm, and so
jaded towards the system, that he ended up treating Gant with a rather
bizarre form of discrimination.

> Carter's redemption is short-lived, however, when

I semi-excuse Carter for being a poor listener to Gant's problems. He's
wrapped up in his own romance with Abby. And with her leaving, even more
so. Also, he couldn't discuss his relationship problems with Gant, for
obvious reasons, so these one-sided conversations must have been torturous
for him. There's really no way he could have known Gant was suicidal while
being so distracted. I haven't been reading the spoilers or rumor posts,
so the suicide was a complete shocker to me. I figured he would just quit
& leave like Carter's first pal did. (Sorry, forgot her name, you remember
the attractive Asian actress). I used to live in MS, and I think Gant came
from Ole Miss (isn't that right?). I have a brother in Pharmacy school
there. So, I had a particular fondness for this very likable character.
He will be sorely missed.

> While talking about old
> times, Carol declares that things are markedly
> different for her than they were before;

The independent growth of these two characters has been riveting to watch.
I find I like Carol more and more with each episode. I am ambivalent
towards Doug from a like/dislike perspective. He's an excellent character,
however, and his chemistry/past with Carol is best when left in the past,
in my opinion. It was a nice touch for them to come across their old
nookie nook and not fall into something. This episode was already loaded
with emotion and yet one more scene might have been over the top. I like
Carol's firmness with Doug (did you notice her shock when she misread
Doug's line, "shall we?"). She is not one to send mixed signals or to not
know what she wants. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure Ross wasn't
testing the water, and then made a good recovery when he saw she didn't
like the idea of fooling around.

Did anyone else find Doug's laugh during this scene to be disingenuous?
For such a handsome and interesting character, he has one of the phoniest
smiles and laughs, in my opinon. Maybe it's because he hasn't had much to
laugh about in his life. Hmmm...I feel the subject of another post coming
on, "Best smiles"...(probably been done before)

> Angling for the prize tenure slot, Kerry is doing
> a quickie study on the effects of exercise on the
> circadian rhythms of night-shift workers.

This was OK for much-needed comic relief, and additonal insight into
Weaver's character. I thought it interesting that she stuck Wendy into the
experiment at the last minute. It reminded me a little bit of another
doctor skewing experiment results in an earlier show....

> Unhappy with this responsibility, Carol is poring
> over the budget figures later, which Randi has
> taken a peek at.

This was neat because it reinforced the fact that Randi has a lot of
smarts, in spite of her obnoxious bimbo appearance and behavior. I don't
think the writers can figure out what to do with Carol's brains, however.
Sometimes she is brilliant and industrious, other times she doesn't seem to
have a clue. I think they are shooting for Carol having a lot of _wisdom_,
and maybe not as much _intelligence_ as some of the other characters. She
definitely has problems with math, physics, and money. But she is one of
the better folks to go to for relationship and life-outlook type problems.
A little bit like Edith Bunker, who was very wise and very ditzy. Carol
may have been suicidal in the early days, but recovering from this
experience has given her a special perspective that she probably only
shares with Jeanie.

> contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]
> management pulls this, we walk," she says.
>

I liked this because it took some of the simplicity out of Carol & Randi's
quick-fix.

> recommend him. "You've got the makings of an
> excellent surgeon. But not a pediatric surgeon."

I really loved this happening to Benton again. I felt bad for Abby getting
stuck into a horrible situational ethics dilemma like this. Benton wants
to do peds for entirely the wrong reason, and that's the bottom line.
Bless Abby for sticking by her guns under potential blackmail. Not that
she had too much to fear. Peter is honest to a fault, and she knows this.

> Before and after being slotted for the code team,
> Carter and Maggie keep up an elbowing competition
> while on shift, which usually breaks down along
>

Maggie is becoming another favorite of mine. I like the low-key
competition she had with Carol, and now with Carter. I think she will have
an even more important role in future episodes. Unless she becomes
Carter's next pal. Apparently, being his friend is the kiss of death (the
Asian actress, Harper, and now Gant all gone).

> All I can say is, thank God I succeeded in
> missing the spoilers about this episode.
>

Amen!

> slipped a little too close to a good-guy/bad-guy
> scenario.
>

I don't follow you here. I thought it was fairly gray with the lawyer and
psych guy thrown in there to contradict. No doubt Mark came out looking
more "right" than everyone else, but not 100%. We are living in a time of
"right to die" vs Hippocratic oath so it wasn't very cut and dried to me,
anyway. I took Mark's side, but I bet some viewers didn't...

> So... Mark and Chuny, eh? Okay, maybe

>...

>I think the idea here is to
> show that Mark may be transcending his
>

I love it. I've always thought Chuny was a fun minor character. She can
get a 'tude on every now and then under stress, but who doesn't? I hope
this graduates her to major character, as she is a very attractive actress!
I really like the fact that Mark has a life again, and has adopted a more
cavalier attitude. Like your observation, maybe Mark and Doug are passing
each other in life in a "Bartlesby the Scrivener" type plot. Having
recently winterized my own Honda motorcyle, I of course had to grin at the
Kawasaki-induced romance the two of them developed. The "suddeness" of it
didn't alarm me at all. They've worked together for a long time and Mark
is on the rebound from Susan. It may have not been totally wise, only time
will tell, but I'm happy for him right now. I suspect the Susan thing may
come up again as a ghost for Mark, causing problems between him and Chuny.
Either that, or the writers just want us to forget about Sherry (not
likely).

> The other bombshell was of much more

>...

> idea, meaning that I was caught completely
> off-guard. So it was unpredictable after all.

I think so, too. I think if you were insulated from rumors and spoilers,
that the writers meant to shock you. Suicide often is shocking, and points
out the lack of compassion the person was getting in the first place.
Nobody was paying much attention to Gant, so of course it was a terrible
surprise when it happened. The writers did a good job of pulling me into
this guilt complex, as well. I liked Gant a lot, and I did pay attention
to his character, but I also had no idea he was suicidal. After it
happened, I looked back at all the girlfriend & job stress factors, his
depressed mannerisms & body language, and the lack of support he was
getting and then it made sense. You could only see it coming if you
weren't distracted by the other characters and subplots (just like Carter
himself was distracted). Maybe this is a major stretch and it's too
subtle for a show like this...but the desire to eat "cheese fries with
gravy" sounded like something a person feeling empty might want to do.

> :) And I do mean completely off-guard -- I didn't
> even take the obvious hook of that scene where a
> black man with no face is brought in having
> possibly committed suicide; gee, who could it
> be?

With just a couple of minutes left in the show, the only trauma victim for
the episode (other than Charlie) HAD to be significant, but I didn't see it
until it was too late, either. The pacing was very fast, so I don't feel
too dumb. Also, we are so used to seeing messed up people rushed in and
hastily processed on this show, that it's easy to forget that on most other
shows somebody doesn't get hurt unless it's "important" to the cast.

> if these other two insensitive yoyos get sent off
> in more positive directions because of it, and

Yoyo is a perfect term for Carter. He tends to yoyo between being Mr.
Compassion and Mr. Caught up in his Career/Romance/whatever. It usually
takes some kind of slap to get him back into compassion mode. Peter, on
the other hand, seems to always miss his queue, failing to learn any lesson
other than "life is hard so I must work harder".

> omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
> learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

LOL.

> -Sorry, no line of the week (again!) this week -- feel
> free to come up with your own.

I liked the line they read out of Mark's alleged personals ad. The one

[Jerry B. Ray]

In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.

Well, I figured it was because Weaver got "clocked" in the head and
had to get stitches from Jeannie, so they wrote her up on the board
as a patient...

JRjr
--
%%%%% vap...@prism.gatech.edu %%%%%%%% Jerry B. Ray, Jr. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
"Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
The innocence slips away..."--Rush, Time Stand Still

[James Pavlovich]

Scott Hollifield wrote:

>Still no
> real evidence as to exactly why Peter is so hot
> to pursue this pediatrics rotation; it's almost
> like the writers forgot to show his motivation
> and are now pretending as if they already have.
> Maybe there've been hints, but I think it's been
> far too subtle.

I assumed his motivation was to prove to himself and Dr. Keaton that he could
do it after she told him he wasn't cut out to be a peds surgion. It is typical
Benton behavior trying to overcompensate when he doesn't excell at something.
Suddenly pediatric surgery is out of his grasp, so he convinces himself that is what
he wants to do because it is a challenge thrown at him. When has Benton ever
taken the easy road?

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.

Nope, she was entering a patient on the board like she is supposed to do. Weaver
was the patient after the clock fell on her head.

JGP

[Michael Kwun]

In article <griffithE...@netcom.com>, grif...@netcom.com wrote:

) rb...@earth.execpc.com (Ron Bean) writes:
)
) >When the nurses say "they have the money", I wonder what Cook County's tax
) >base looks like these days. It's not like they work for some huge
) >corporation. And who says you're entitled to OT if you work less than 40
) >hours per week? (although this would be negotiated in their contract).
)
) Back when I last worked at an hourly wage, I was told that overtime
) was defined as both "more than forty hours per week" and "more than
) eight hours in a day". I don't know if that definition was legal or
) corporate, but it at least seems to be common.

The relevant federal law is the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. section
200 et. seq. The general rule of the Act is time-and-a-half for hours over
40 per week. Section 7.3(a). There is not generally a federal requirement
for daily overtime, but there are apparently some differences for hospitals
and residential care facilities. Id. These differences are obviously
relevant here, but unfortunately I do not have the Act if front of me, only
an employment and labor law guide.

State law, however, is followed whenever it establishes a higher (more
employee favorable) standard. F.L.S.A. section 18(a). For example, in
California working over eight hours a day OR forty hours a week generally
entitles one to overtime. BUT health care workers can work up to 12-hour
days without daily overtime so long as they receive time-and-a-half for
hours over forty a week and DOUBLE time for hours over twelve per day. See
generally Cal. Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders.

Upshot is in *California* most workers can get daily overtime, but the ER
nurse shifts would *not* qualify for overtime (12 hours a day, 36 hours a
week).

Oh, and of course all of this goes out the window if you have a CBA
(collective bargaining agreement--if you're a working in a union shop).

--
Michael Kwun Boalt Hall Class of 98 http://www.igc.org/kwun/
Berkeley Tech. L.J. Web Editor http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ
Berkeley Women's L.J. Production Ed. http://coming.soon/I/think

[S. Davies]

On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:

> Did anyone else find Doug's laugh during this scene to be disingenuous?
> For such a handsome and interesting character, he has one of the phoniest
> smiles and laughs, in my opinon.

I don't think it is a real smile/laugh (a reaction to something funny or
otherwise pleasant). Rather, I think it is a reaction to situations that
Doug finds uncomfortable, as though he is trying to defuse the situation.
It may also be a Dorian Gray thing, (present a nice face to the world and
no one will know you're a shrivelling, greying, disintegrating piece of
humanity).

Thanks for pointing this out though, I had noticed and had been meaning to
say something about it.

-Sandy
W.W.

[Nicole Anderson]

On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:
>
> I thought the two of them being surgeons working together would at least
> be a foundation for a more civil relationship. After re-reading my own
> words, I can see why you might interperet as a they should have a "hey
> bro" thing going, but it's really NOT what I meant. I don't think
> acting semi-human towards Gant, is a "hey bro" situation. It's Benton
> overreacting, out of fear of such a "hey bro" situation, that caused his
> extremely severe treatment of Gant to surface, that was the point of my
> remarks. What I'm trying to say is that BENTON has a problem with an
> imagined "hey bro" issue, not me. Maybe I didn't illustrate that very
> well in my post. Benton should have acted as a tough mentor towards
> Gant, not a drill sergeant. Even though he was a real jerk at times, he
> took a much more decent approach (the tough mentor approach) to Carter
> than he did to Gant. Treating Gant severely for no other reason than
> the fact that he is black is just wrong. I'm sure we can all agree on
> that one....?

i agree with your last point. it was illustrated much better here.

>
> The truth is, the characters ARE similar in some admittedly minor
> respects. Both are hard-working and very private individuals. Both are
> very talented and intelligent. Benton is more of a perfectionist and
> downright meaner than Gant, and that's where they start to separate.
>
> Perhaps you were looking for inflamatory remarks where none were to be
> found? I agree that I could have worded my thoughts a little more
> carefully, especially around such a delicate subject.

i wouldn't say i was _looking_ for any inflamatory remarks, they just
struck me as limiting and i had to comment on them. i'm not an angry
black person. thanks for further explaining your point, it cleared up
what was a misunderstanding.

nic

[Bryan Douglas]

Nicole Anderson wrote:
>
> On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:
>
> <most of message snipped to address one issue>
>

> > Anspaugh, but of course he didn't. Again, I think this scene was a good
> > contiunation of the Gant vs Bennet within the "system" (Anspaugh). It's so
> > obvious that Peter and Gant should have had a strong rapport because they
> > have so much in common. I'm not saying Peter should have shown him job
> > favortism; but he shouldn't have been so frightened of favoritsm, and so
> > jaded towards the system, that he ended up treating Gant with a rather
> > bizarre form of discrimination.
>

> i'm sorry, but i have to ask what is it that they have in common? just
> because they are black and are both surgery residents, they are supposed
> to have an instant "hey bro" best friend relationship?
>
> we know very little about gant, and from what i've seen he has nothing in
> common with benton besides skin color. not all black people are best
> friends nor do they come from the same backgrounds.
>
> nic

I thought the two of them being surgeons working together would at least

be a foundation for a more civil relationship. After re-reading my own
words, I can see why you might interperet as a they should have a "hey
bro" thing going, but it's really NOT what I meant. I don't think
acting semi-human towards Gant, is a "hey bro" situation. It's Benton
overreacting, out of fear of such a "hey bro" situation, that caused his
extremely severe treatment of Gant to surface, that was the point of my
remarks. What I'm trying to say is that BENTON has a problem with an
imagined "hey bro" issue, not me. Maybe I didn't illustrate that very
well in my post. Benton should have acted as a tough mentor towards
Gant, not a drill sergeant. Even though he was a real jerk at times, he
took a much more decent approach (the tough mentor approach) to Carter
than he did to Gant. Treating Gant severely for no other reason than
the fact that he is black is just wrong. I'm sure we can all agree on
that one....?

The truth is, the characters ARE similar in some admittedly minor

[Bryan Douglas]

S. Davies wrote:
>
> On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:
>

> > Did anyone else find Doug's laugh during this scene to be disingenuous?
> > For such a handsome and interesting character, he has one of the phoniest
> > smiles and laughs, in my opinon.
>

> I don't think it is a real smile/laugh (a reaction to something funny or
> otherwise pleasant). Rather, I think it is a reaction to situations that
> Doug finds uncomfortable, as though he is trying to defuse the situation.
> It may also be a Dorian Gray thing, (present a nice face to the world and
> no one will know you're a shrivelling, greying, disintegrating piece of
> humanity).
>
> Thanks for pointing this out though, I had noticed and had been meaning to
> say something about it.
>
> -Sandy
> W.W.

Thank you for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense.

[Pat]

Mike Chary wrote:

>
> Scott said:
> PLOT ONE: ADVICE AND CONSENT

> Yeah, that;'s really going to be an interesting court case. "You didn't
> get consent." "She wasn't competent." "The psych intern said she was."
> "The psych intern might have change his mind if he'd known she had
> spinal meningitis."
>
> Consent, shonsent, she was gonna die. Even if he gets fired, he did the
> right thing this time. (Yes, he was scum for looking in Jeanie's file,
> but not he happened to be right this time. :))
>

Hopeful, when she gets better, she will agree with Mark and be grateful
to be alive. I think this would have been a better romantic set-up for
him. I would fall for a someone who risked his career to save my life.

> >Dennis too far; after some consideration, he
> >reports this to Anspaugh, who gets the three
> >doctors together. Benton, of course, defends his
> >words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
> >objective eyewitness account. Carter reluctantly
> >excuses Benton, saying, "I'm not sure I'd call it
> >inappropriate." He seems to feel awful for
> >betraying his friend, and tries to get forgiveness
> >from Dennis a little later. Dennis tells him he
>
> This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons words
> inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told Gant to
> shape up.

Ok, usually I am the first one to back up Carter. But, Carter did tell
Gant earlier that Benton's comments were "inapropriate". I believe he
even used that exact word. So, Gant was expecting to have Carter's
support.

> >paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
> >would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
> >them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,
>
> Agreed. My lord, I have never seen such a whiny group of layabouts in my
> entire life.

Like none of you have ever goofed off, when it's slow at work.

[Mike Chary]

In article <32DFD2...@govst.edu>, Pat <P-Barg...@govst.edu> wrote:

>Mike Chary wrote:
>>
>
>> >Dennis too far; after some consideration, he
>> >reports this to Anspaugh, who gets the three
>> >doctors together. Benton, of course, defends his
>> >words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
>> >objective eyewitness account. Carter reluctantly
>> >excuses Benton, saying, "I'm not sure I'd call it
>> >inappropriate." He seems to feel awful for
>> >betraying his friend, and tries to get forgiveness
>> >from Dennis a little later. Dennis tells him he
>>
>> This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons words
>> inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told Gant to
>> shape up.
>

>Ok, usually I am the first one to back up Carter. But, Carter did tell
>Gant earlier that Benton's comments were "inapropriate". I believe he
>even used that exact word. So, Gant was expecting to have Carter's
>support.

He said Benton was outta line. Possibly because he was supporting a buddy
and trying to make him feel better. You sometimes take a friend's side when
he's wrong just because he's your friend, yes?

[Ron Bean]

Wow, this newsgroup really came alive overnight!

A few things I haven't seen anyone comment on yet:

The ER was slow because of the cold weather, which kept most people off
the streets. In a case of life-imitates art, it was (and is) extremely
cold here in Milwaukee last night, and I assume in Chicago as well
(virtually all schools in the Milwaukee metro area are closed today
(friday) due to extreme wind chill, including most colleges & tech
schools).

One of the older doctors should tell Carter & Doyle to stop fighting over
the patients. Someone's gonna die while they stand there arguing. Of
course, Benton has been known to hijack patients from the ER.

The Mark/Chuny thing was obviously initiated by Chuny, which is probably
why they ended up in bed so soon-- he's not used to having women throw
themselves at him!

A couple of things were hyped that shouldn't have been. The bit about
Benton threatening Keaton turned out to be nothing. Charlie's accusation
of Doug was just some yelling in the hallway, not formal charges. When
Carol dropped the clock, there was a slo-mo shot of her turning and
backing away from the wall, *as if she were falling off the ladder*-- but

no, she's OK and Weaver just needs a few stiches (I didn't think the clock
looked that heavy, and it couldn't have fallen more than a couple of

feet-- it was just above the door at 7'6", and she's 5'4". I assume it
didn't break until it hit the floor).

When Jeannie is on the excercise bike and Weaver says "increase to 90
rpm", it looked to me like she was already doing about 90rpm before they
cranked it up (maybe someone with a tape can check this-- it's hard to
tell because the handlebars are moving up and down). 90 rpm is only 1.5
rev's per second, and is considered the ideal cadence for bicycling
(slower puts more pressure on the knees, which some people find
counter-intuitive, but that's why bicycles have multiple gears).

When the nurses say "they have the money", I wonder what Cook County's tax

base looks like these days. It's not like they work for some huge

corporation. And who says you're entitled to OT if you work less than 40

hours per week? (although this would be negotiated in their contract).

Carter's relationship with Keaton always seemed to be pretty superficial
(when she told him she was going to Pakistan, she asked "Did you have any
long term plans for us?"-- clearly she didn't). I'd like to see them have
more of a real relationship if/when she comes back. They could write to
each other, but it wouldn't make for a very exciting TV show.

Someone's comments on med students who drop out after the first year of
internship makes me wonder-- with all that education, is there something
else they can do that's related to medicine or biology? (like the people
who washed out of pilot training in WWII and were retrained as navigators
& bombardiers). How do they pay off all those student loans?

[Robert Isaac Lee]

> : -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around

> : merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
> : didn't take long, did it?
>
>

Let's see... the man had only slept with his wife until very
recently. Hasn't had a date.
Susan made it obvious at the train scene that she did not feel the
same way about him and their
relationship was totally platonic.

What exactly then, is it that "didn't take long?" More like "it's
about time!!!"

[david joseph kathman]

In article <5bopnu$7...@earth.alpha.net>,

Ron Bean <rb...@earth.execpc.com> wrote:
>
>A few things I haven't seen anyone comment on yet:
>
>The ER was slow because of the cold weather, which kept most people off
>the streets. In a case of life-imitates art, it was (and is) extremely
>cold here in Milwaukee last night, and I assume in Chicago as well
>(virtually all schools in the Milwaukee metro area are closed today
>(friday) due to extreme wind chill, including most colleges & tech
>schools).

We have indeed had the same cold here in Chicago, and all the schools
were closed Thursday and Friday. This morning (Friday) the radio said
the air temperature was 9 below, and the wind chill must have been
40 or 50 below.

Dave Kathman
dj...@midway.uchicago.edu

[david joseph kathman]

In article <5bp7qo$c...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>,
Ceon Ramon <ce...@u.washington.edu> wrote:

>The work hours of the nurses would not be increased. Their income would
>be decreased, proportionately, as they would no longer be collecting
>overtime.

No, their work hours would be increased: Carol was proposing five 8-hour
shifts (40 hours) instead of three 12-hour shifts (36 hours). One of
the nurses remarked that they'd have to work four more hours for less
overall pay.

Dave Kathman
dj...@midway.uchicago.edu

[Brad Martin]

On 17 Jan 1997, Shawn Hill wrote:
Actually, I'm not sure who wrote the comment I'm commeinting on, because
it is unclear who said what, but:

>
> : -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses
> : to be potentially fired were all young nurses but

> : omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's

> : learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

No, not it. Mary, the head of nursing, told Carol that she had 3 *JUNIOR*
RNs. Malik, Chuny, and Connie. *JUNIOR* being the keyword, I think. At
least, that was my impression.

***************************************************
* Brad Martin *
* brad...@iglou.com *
* http://www.iglou.com/members/bradleyd/ *
***************************************************

[Pamela-Marie]

sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) wrote:

>PLOT THREE: HISTORY LESSON

Charlie was stabbed, beaten, and raped. I do think Doug wasn't really
going to call anyone.

>PLOT FIVE: LET THE GAINS BEGIN

>Randi, who's had accounting
>study as part of her fashion-company training,
>offers a free suggestion to Carol: cut the nurse
>shifts down to eight hours, which will eliminate
>overtime and save the department $100,000 a
>year. Carol writes this idea up as a proposal
>and enthusiastically tells her nurses the good
>news. They react negatively to the notion of
>their precious overtime being cut, however, and
>express skepticism that any of them would be
>fired. Lydia mentions that the nurses have

>contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]
>management pulls this, we walk," she says.

Well the proposal means they work four extra hours with less pay ... I'd
walk too. I think that Mary is using Carol as a puppet to do her dirty
work, I hope Carol is bailed from this misery soon.

>(And I hope he was written up bigtime for pulling
>Jeanie's file last episode.)

Me too!

>On the one hand, Chuny is
>one of the more annoying members in a cast of
>increasingly obnoxious nurses.

I don't think the nurses are obnoxious! The nurses were definitely out of
character (except for Haleh) when word got out someone was HIV positive.
Chunie was especially bad, but I'm willing to forgive that.

>I hope that Mark's relationship with
>Chuny gets a little more play. More than
>anything, though, I think the idea here is to

>show that Mark may be transcending his

>tightly-wound work personna to a sort of
>laissez-faire "aw, screw it" Doug Ross type

>attitude, which sounds less healthy the more I
>think about it.

Comparing him to Doug is a bit extreme Scott. and I hope Mark and Chuny
get more coverage as well.

>I was caught completely
>off-guard. So it was unpredictable after all.

>:) And I do mean completely off-guard -- I didn't
>even take the obvious hook of that scene where a
>black man with no face is brought in having
>possibly committed suicide; gee, who could it

>be? I sort of hope I wasn't the only one who was

>blindsided by that, but I'm glad I didn't "know"
>about it in advance.

My mother and sister were completely shocked (my mother was especially
upset). I'm glad I did know about it in advance but I would have probably
caught it anyway (no offense).

>I was almost ready to
>forgive Carter, anyway, in a couple of places
>this week, but I'm not entirely convinced.

>Carter's attitude has been increasinly one of
>someone who really doesn't want a good friend per
>se; he just wants a professional buddy. He's

>always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
>reassurances that things are "cool", a little too

>eager to get back to Abby. Obviously, Dennis
>needed more than that.

I think a key problem is that Dennis and Carter are roomates as well as
workmates, I'm sure Carter had his fill of Dennis' whinning, I probably
would I felt the same. Friends that become roomates often have a hard
time. Another thing is I've never gotten the impression Carter was very
observant. Case-in-point, Carter trying to get Peter together with Jeanie
when it was obvious he was very cool toward her. Another example is
Harper, who was avoiding him after she slept with Doug and who was
avoiding him when they were about to break up. I didn't really expect
Carter to figure out Dennis was having *too* hard a time. I knew that
Benton was rubbing him the wrong way and you and I the viewer knew what
Peter said to Dennis and have seen all of Dennis' pain. Carter probably
hasn't, he was busy with Abby (understandable) and his job. He knew Dennis
was tired and he knew he was stressed and I really don't think Carter
could have helped Dennis. It also depends whether you believe Carter
betrayed his friend, I say no. Anspaugh asked if what Peter said was
inappropriate, it wasn't, it was the berating him in public that was
inappopriate. I really don't think being ditched for Christmas and being
betrayed by Carter really came into play except the fact that he was
suicidal, which of course no one could know. I'm not saying Carter is a
great friend, but I do think that Carter is extremely human and did
something that in other circumstances would have meant nothing but only
the viewers knew these weren't normal circumstances. Every time Carter
tried to help, Dennis bit off his head, every time he tried to fit his
friend in Dennis blew him off. Now if an unobservant friend tries to reach
out and misses completely that you are suicidal then they are going to act
normally.

> -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses
> to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
> omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
> learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)

I caught that too, but Conni is hardly young, she has children and
everything (which makes me wonder why she was drawing to treat the guy
with Mickey a few episodes back). And why didn't Kerry uses Wendy in the
first place?

> -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
> merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
> didn't take long, did it?

I thought about that to, I never thought he loved her, but was merely very
"attached". Personally, I think it was a bit out of Mark's character but
when I watched the tape again I noticed that when Chunie put her hands
around Mark's waist Mark makes a smirkish face.

As for a line of the week, why not the little conversation Doug and Carol
had about her falling asleep and when carol asks about her decision Doug
prentends he didn't hear her? :)

Great review Scott!

Pamela-Marie

[Pamela-Marie]

bell...@netacc.net (Tom Bellucco) wrote:

>sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) wrote:
>
>>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
>>Written by: Paul Manning
>>Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan
>>

>[snip snip]
>>Some assorted comments:

>>
>> -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses
>> to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
>> omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
>> learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)
>

>Carol was told to eliminate two of the three "junior RNs" Malik,
>Chuny, and whats-her-face.

Conni, and it doesn't make sense because Wendy is a junior RN and has been
their less time.

>> -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
>> merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
>> didn't take long, did it?
>

>"Sleeping around"??? One chick? He *is* a man, isn't he?

For a man that before Iris (and after) has only slept with Jen, it is out
of character.

Pamela-Marie

[Pamela-Marie]

rb...@earth.execpc.com (Ron Bean) wrote:

>A few things I haven't seen anyone comment on yet:

>The ER was slow because of the cold weather, which kept most people off
>the streets. In a case of life-imitates art, it was (and is) extremely
>cold here in Milwaukee last night, and I assume in Chicago as well
>(virtually all schools in the Milwaukee metro area are closed today
>(friday) due to extreme wind chill, including most colleges & tech
>schools).

A perfect example is "Snowbound" if it hadn't been for that accident they
may have never had a patient. Same with tonight, patient Shelley found
accross the stree, patient two Kerry, patient three Charlie, patient four
Gant. That means two staff members, one doctor aqquaintance, and one
neigborly drop-off. Had it not been for Charlie, Kerry, and Gant. Shelley
would have been their only patient.

>One of the older doctors should tell Carter & Doyle to stop fighting over
>the patients. Someone's gonna die while they stand there arguing. Of
>course, Benton has been known to hijack patients from the ER.

It's the same the Susan and Carter did, Maggie learned from the best and
so did Carter.

>The Mark/Chuny thing was obviously initiated by Chuny, which is probably
>why they ended up in bed so soon-- he's not used to having women throw
>themselves at him!

I don't think Chunie was throwing herself at Mark, after all when Mark
said, "I'd be lucky to find someone like you," was when I noticed Chunie
really eyeing him. Also, let's not forget, he invited her to breakfast.

>A couple of things were hyped that shouldn't have been.Charlie's
>accusationof Doug was just some yelling in the hallway, not formal >charges.

Boy, what a cop out!

>When the nurses say "they have the money", I wonder what Cook County's tax
>base looks like these days. It's not like they work for some huge
>corporation. And who says you're entitled to OT if you work less than 40
>hours per week? (although this would be negotiated in their contract).

Well who says you have to be paid less when your are going to work for
extra hours.

Pamela-Marie

[Pamela-Marie]

Pat <P-Barg...@govst.edu> wrote:
>Mike Chary wrote:
>>

>> Scott said:

>> >Dennis too far; after some consideration, he
>> >reports this to Anspaugh, who gets the three
>> >doctors together. Benton, of course, defends his
>> >words, and Anspaugh calls upon Carter for an
>> >objective eyewitness account. Carter reluctantly
>> >excuses Benton, saying, "I'm not sure I'd call it
>> >inappropriate." He seems to feel awful for
>> >betraying his friend, and tries to get forgiveness
>> >from Dennis a little later. Dennis tells him he
>>
>> This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons >>words inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told
>>Gant to shape up.
>
>Ok, usually I am the first one to back up Carter. But, Carter did tell
>Gant earlier that Benton's comments were "inapropriate". I believe he
>even used that exact word. So, Gant was expecting to have Carter's
>support.

Actually he said Benton was out of line, and he was, but not because of
what he said but because he publicly berated and in front of his
colleagues.

>> >paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I
>> >would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
>> >them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,
>>
>> Agreed. My lord, I have never seen such a whiny group of layabouts in >>my entire life.
>
>Like none of you have ever goofed off, when it's slow at work.

Exactly! So I'm not the only one who remember "Snowbound"!

Pamela-Marie

[Ceon Ramon]

In article <5bovv4$j...@decaxp.harvard.edu>,
Shawn Hill <sh...@husc7.harvard.edu> wrote:

>Scott Hollifield (sco...@cris.com) wrote:
>[anti-nurse rhetoric snipped]
>: contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]

>: management pulls this, we walk," she says.

>Wouldn't you react negatively at a paycut timed to INCREASE your work

>hours? What's fair about that?

The work hours of the nurses would not be increased. Their income would

be decreased, proportionately, as they would no longer be collecting
overtime.

Here's what Carol should have said.

"Hey! HEY! Stop right there. Lydia! Malik! Come back here and listen
to me, because _I_ know what's going on and _you_ don't. If you're
looking for our [Carol is after all a nurse too] union to protect us, I
suggest you look at the history of the past ten years of hospital
administration in this country and how successful nurses have been in
protecting their jobs. The record is pretty dismal, and that's almost
entirely because nurses are wedded to this idea that there is some
universal bureaucratic recognition that nurses have a value other than
that which economic statistics can prove.

_We_ know that nurses can mean the difference between life and death not
only because because of the way we treat the human beings who are patients
in this hospital, but because the attention we give to each patient
ensures that the orders of an absenteee doctor (who may be a surgeon who
has never seen his patient before and has no idea of how he reacts to
drugs, or what it means if he hyperventilates, or breaks into a rash, or
lapses into a coma) will be evaluated in the context of a whole person and
give continuity to the patient's treatment.

You're fools, and you're living in a fool's world if you think anyone will
support or respect your defiance if you can't come up with good, solid
economic reasons to justify this arrangement of double/triple pay for
overtime, while allowing all three of you to keep your fulltime employment
status *when there are alternatives that make economic sense to those who
write your goddamn paychecks*. If you'd rather see the other two
people in this room lose their jobs, then by all means, walk out. Walk
tall, walk proud. You've kept your discretionary income at the expense of
the lives of two fellow human beings, two colleagues you presumably care
about.

But if you don't prefer this, or if you truly believe that your union,
which has been discredited and overrun by hospital administrations all
across the continential United States for the past 12 years, then ... go.
Cut your throats. And cut the throats of your pals while you're at it.

>: With his job security in doubt, Mark has something
>: in common with the nurses, particularly Chuny,
>: who takes a militant stance ("They ain't cuttin'
>: out my OT") and assists Mark as he treats Shelly
>
>You really do have something against the nurses, don't you?

I for one am completely exasperated with the nurses. They are being
unreasonable, and they appear to be completely unwilling to listen to
anyone who is in a position to acquaint them with the facts of
the situation.

>Obnoxious because they want to protect their jobs and incomes? Have we

Obnoxious because they don't want to face the realities of their
situation, and because they would rather find scapegoats. They'd rather
sneer at Carol at a Tool of Capitalist Management and pay no attention to
what she has to say, than to listen to the concrete realities that govern
their their jobs and lives and actually think about what those realities
are and come to a compromise with them.

>: did that come from?) thus causing shrill Nurse
>: Wendy Goldman to be stuffed into a box -- and
>: seeing that is worthy any amount of prior
>: torture.
>
>I swear, it's an ongoing theme with you and this anti-nurse thing. What'd
>they ever do to you? Did you receive poor care at some point?

I do think Scott is responding to the way these characters have been drawn
and not speaking out of personal experience. I myself have had only
super-good experiences with nurses, but I can still see that Wendy is
shrill, and that Lydia, Malik, and Chuny are being Big Stupids in
contemptuously rejecting what Carol has to say.

>Easy and last minute "solution?" Not if you listened to the nurses, who
>found her answer far from acceptable.

OK, so a few people are going to lose maybe $30.000 a year in overtime.
pay. [Is this a reasonable estimate, given that Randi said Carol could
shave $100,000 from the budget by eliminating overtime, which would equate
to two full-time nursing positions?]

That's a significant amount of money, and I can certainly understand why
these people are irate about losing it. On the other hand, why are
salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay? The restructuring of their pay
scales seems fair, given the alternatives.

I think the heart of this story is
>not Carol dealing with those higher than her in hospital hiearchy (say
>that 3 times fast), or her personal rise in power, as you seem to see it.
>Rather, it's the story of her rising higher in the hiearchy than her
>former equals, whom she may just leave behind (and, in their minds,
>betray). The sad thing is, rather than help her nurses do their jobs, she
>has been co-opted by upper management as a cost-cutting tool.

I think we have to accept the administative budget decisions as reality,
and then take it from there. Which would make Carol not so much a
helpless tool in the service of a greedy administration, but a caring
manager who is finding (with the help of Randi) a workable compromise that
will preserve the jobs (and all the benefits that accrue to fulltime
employment) for everyone.

>: -I found it interesting that the selection of nurses

>: to be potentially fired were all young nurses but
>: omitted Wendy Goldman -- presumably because she's
>: learned to become a Kerry-like suckup. :-)
>

>Well, it must be a character defect, mustn't it? I never knew what a
>reprobate, immoral band of layabouts I was watching until this week. One
>wonders how the ER functions at all.

The nurses are being unreasonable. Whether Wendy is a suck-up or just a
sucker is unimportant.

--Barbara

[Ami J Claxton]

In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>, sco...@cris.com (Scott
Hollifield) wrote:

> E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"
> Written by: Paul Manning
> Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan

> PLOT TWO: EMERGENCY EXIT
> ..... Dennis flatlines on the table.

I saw no previews for this week and had heard
nothing about this plot line in advance, but
I thought the suicide plot was being telegraphed
to the viewers throughout the whole show. I
saw him go from being absolutely miserable about
his girfriend breaking up with him, to being
upbraided by his mean-spirited boss, to being
betrayed and humiliated. Then....he's at peace
looking happy (warning, warning, warning, out of
character, why is he so happy?). When those ER
doors burst open to admit an L-train victim, I
just knew it had to be Gant.

Did anybody else wonder if Gant jumped in
front of a train precisely because he *knew*
he'd be taken to the ER where his colleagues
would work on him? In other words, was it a
last act of frustration and anger? It just
seemed a funny way to choose to die, especially
if you are a physician and have access to deadly
drugs, convenient for overdosing into a peaceful
painless death.... whaddauguys think?

> PLOT FOUR: ALL FOR SCIENCE

> Angling for the prize tenure slot, Kerry is doing

> a quickie study on the effects of exercise...
> Kerry puts Jeanie through the paces.....

This had to be the lamest plot line ever on ER.
What was up with the woozy camera angles from
Jeanie's perspective on the bike? It was totally
contrived - something I'd expect on Seinfeld, not ER!

Oh wait, I actually stand corrected. The
DUMBEST plot line was the one where Maggie and
Carter and running to find the code call, and
they run into a janitor looking for an overflowing
toilet. Only 4 or 5 seconds later - after the
janitor is seen departing from them in the
*opposite* direction - they arrive at
the patient's room only to find the janitor
performing CPR and then saving his life by giving
him a big whollop on the chest. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Couldn't they have found better ways to spend 2 or
3 minutes of plot time (answer: YES).

> ...Privately, Abby talks to Peter and cautiously
> ensures that he's not going to blackmail her in
> order to get his recommendation....

When Abby asked Peter if he was threatening her with
exposure of her affair, without missing a beat, my
husband immediately lept up, pulled his t-shirt up
over his head and said "Are you threatening me?!?"
in his very best Beavis-imitation voice. I nearly
DIED laughing!!!! I didn't even see the rest of the
scene because I was laughing so hard!

That's it for me. Great review Scott, as always.

Cheers,

Ami....from the frozen northlands of Minnesota, BRRR!
cla...@epivax.epi.umn.edu

[Barry Margolin]

In article <E46s5...@midway.uchicago.edu>,

david joseph kathman <dj...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>No, their work hours would be increased: Carol was proposing five 8-hour
>shifts (40 hours) instead of three 12-hour shifts (36 hours). One of
>the nurses remarked that they'd have to work four more hours for less
>overall pay.

An alternative they haven't discussed is four 8-hour shifts. This would
also reduce their total pay, but also reduce their work hours. Then Carol
could afford to hire more nurses -- she could increase the nursing staff by
25% with the same total pay as the five 8-hour shift proposal.

Of course, one thing that neither of these proposals addresses is the
per-employee costs (e.g. benefits). For many low-paid employees at real
companies, these costs are more than their take-home pay, but I don't know
how much a public hospital budgets for benefits. Carol's proposal only
reduces total salary expenses by about 5%, without reducing other payroll
expenses. Mine has the same total salary as Carol's, but increases the
other expenses by 25%, so it might not be acceptable.
--
Barry Margolin
BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA
bar...@bbnplanet.com - Phone (617) 873-3126 - Fax (617) 873-5508
(BBN customers, please call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)

[Scott Hollifield]

jpoi...@nbnet.nb.ca (Jacques Poitras) wrote:
>One big problem with this that I think Scott missed:

>Kerry Weaver, super-anal and by-the-book at all times, would never just
>dump Wendy into the study at the last minute to avoid blowing the study.
>What Kerry has done is a serious ethical lapse -- the same type of thing
>that caused Dr. Benton such fits last season, the same type of thing Kerry
>would *freak out* over if she caught anyone else doing it.

I've stated elsewhere that I think Kerry was just going to trash
Jeanie's results entirely and start fresh with Wendy.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Hollifield ** sco...@cris.com ** http://www.cris.com/~scotth

[Jerry B. Ray]

In article <E46s5...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
david joseph kathman <dj...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:

>No, their work hours would be increased: Carol was proposing five 8-hour
>shifts (40 hours) instead of three 12-hour shifts (36 hours). One of
>the nurses remarked that they'd have to work four more hours for less
>overall pay.

The key to understanding their behavior, I think, is that they think that
the hospital actually has the money to keep things as they are and is just
out to get them, which isn't an unusual attitude.

I suppose proceeding this way is more realistic than having them all
realize that the budget isn't there and then benevolently taking
pay cuts to prevent two of their colleagues from getting axed, which
seems kind of cliched.

[Ceon Ramon]

In article <5br7u5$5...@acmey.gatech.edu>,

Jerry B. Ray <vap...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote:
>In article <E46s5...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>david joseph kathman <dj...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>>No, their work hours would be increased: Carol was proposing five 8-hour
>>shifts (40 hours) instead of three 12-hour shifts (36 hours). One of
>>the nurses remarked that they'd have to work four more hours for less
>>overall pay.

Thanks for the correction; that slipped by me.

>The key to understanding their behavior, I think, is that they think that
>the hospital actually has the money to keep things as they are and is just
>out to get them, which isn't an unusual attitude.
>I suppose proceeding this way is more realistic than having them all
>realize that the budget isn't there and then benevolently taking
>pay cuts to prevent two of their colleagues from getting axed, which
>seems kind of cliched.

Carol was supposed to submit the names of the two who were to be axed
first thing in the morning. Since the nurses refused to even listen to
her compromise proposal and walked out of the room, I wonder what Carol
did? Did she take the proposal to Mary in lieu of the names anyway,
hoping that if the proposal were accepted the nurses would just have to
live with it? (If I were Carol I would have to fight an impulse to go
"eeny-meeny-miney-moe" and just give the damn names to administration.)

--Barbara

[Scott Hollifield]

jpoi...@nbnet.nb.ca (Jacques Poitras) wrote:
>fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) wrote:
>> It was nice to see Mark taking aggressive action for once.

>Wait a minute ... we saw them ride off on a bike together (after she asked
>to hop on), then they're in bed. Why do you assume that it was Mark who
>took the aggressive action?

Because it was Mark who invited Chuny for breakfast. It's possible
Mark didn't have further ambitions than that at the time, but you can
say the same of someone who invites a date in for a drink at the end
of an evening; it's the assertive action that (figuratively or
literally) leaves the door open.

[Tirya]

Jacques Poitras (jpoi...@nbnet.nb.ca) wrote:
<Kerry's Sub-plot Snipped>

: One big problem with this that I think Scott missed:

: Kerry Weaver, super-anal and by-the-book at all times, would never just
: dump Wendy into the study at the last minute to avoid blowing the study.
: What Kerry has done is a serious ethical lapse -- the same type of thing
: that caused Dr. Benton such fits last season, the same type of thing Kerry
: would *freak out* over if she caught anyone else doing it.

: I don't mind a little comic relief, which I think this subplot was supposed
: to be. (Never mind it if it worked or not.) But even comic relief should
: try to be consistent. It's the first time since I've been watching ER that
: a character's actions completely lacked believability.

If I remember right, she's doing the study in order to help increase her
chances of getting tenure - something that important, not to mention vital
to her career, might be enough to make even Kerry "Does Anal Retentive
Have a Hyphen?" Weaver bend the rules a bit.

Just my $0.02,

Tirya
--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The / Tirya \ Kungaloosh! |
| Gryphon's / ti...@wwa.com \ A.C. Open House |
| Eyrie / www.wwa.com/~tirya \ 12/31/37 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
People say believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
Nowhere is that more true than in Cyberspace.

[William December Starr]

In article <5bpqn5$2...@news3.snfc21.pacbell.net>,
Pamela-Marie <pamel...@juno.com> said:

>> PLOT THREE: HISTORY LESSON
>
> Charlie was stabbed, beaten, and raped. I do think Doug wasn't
> really going to call anyone.

When a minor -- and Charlie's only fourteen year old, right? --
shows up at a licensed medical facility showing evidence of having
been assaulted and raped, isn't the treating physician (or somebody
at the facility, anyway) required by law to report the facts to the
authorities, regardless of the patient's wishes?

-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>

[Scott Hollifield]

ce...@u.washington.edu (Ceon Ramon) wrote:
>Carol was supposed to submit the names of the two who were to be axed
>first thing in the morning. Since the nurses refused to even listen to
>her compromise proposal and walked out of the room, I wonder what Carol
>did? Did she take the proposal to Mary in lieu of the names anyway,
>hoping that if the proposal were accepted the nurses would just have to
>live with it? (If I were Carol I would have to fight an impulse to go
>"eeny-meeny-miney-moe" and just give the damn names to administration.)

Good question. Presumably, Carol did the "fair" thing and proposed
the hours change, in lieu of firing anyone. But if I were her, and
had to wield the axe, I'd probably go, "Okay, let's see. Conni, Chuny
and Malik. Who gets to stay? Well, Conni has a newborn baby.
Decision made."

Or substitute some other relevant fact in there. Besides, Chuny is
apparently quite willing to go elsewhere rather than lose her precious
overtime; if Malik feels the same way, then the decision might even be
easier.

[Lynn Lee]

Nicole Anderson <n...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:
>

I'm not saying Peter should have shown him job
>> favortism; but he shouldn't have been so frightened of favoritsm, and so
>> jaded towards the system, that he ended up treating Gant with a rather
>> bizarre form of discrimination.
>
>
>i'm sorry, but i have to ask what is it that they have in common? just
>because they are black and are both surgery residents, they are supposed
>to have an instant "hey bro" best friend relationship?
>
>we know very little about gant, and from what i've seen he has nothing in
>common with benton besides skin color. not all black people are best
>friends nor do they come from the same backgrounds.
>
>
>nic

It seems like you don't understand the reference. Did you see the episode when Gant comes out and asks Benton if the way he's (Bent=
on's) treating him (Gant) has something to do with their race? Benton as good as says, "Yes: because you're black people will assum=
e that that's why you're here." Benton also asks if Gant checked "the little box" marked race, and states that _he_ did not. So ap=
parently he'd been running Gant ragged because he didn't want the guy giving anyone an excuse to think that the only reason he (and =
by association, Benton) was there was because of affirmative action. B.Douglas doesn't think this was fair, and neither do I.

[Tirya]

Scott Hollifield (sco...@cris.com) wrote:
: -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
: of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
: that was about, I think all we can see is her
: writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
: accompanyment for the drawing.

Easy explanation - Kerry was in one of the rooms having her head stitched
up by Jeannie. Technically, she was a patient, so her name went on the
board to show where she was.

Tir

[Tirya]

Ron Bean (rb...@earth.execpc.com) wrote:
: The ER was slow because of the cold weather, which kept most people off

: the streets. In a case of life-imitates art, it was (and is) extremely
: cold here in Milwaukee last night, and I assume in Chicago as well
: (virtually all schools in the Milwaukee metro area are closed today
: (friday) due to extreme wind chill, including most colleges & tech
: schools).

It is as cold as that here, unfortunately. Chicago public schools and
Chicago catholic schools have been closed since about noon on Thursday,
and my high school, which had two snow days in ten years, has also been
closed for a day and a half. (But does work shut down? No... of COURSE
not!! ::grinz::) I'm ready for summer.

: A couple of things were hyped that shouldn't have been. The bit about

: Benton threatening Keaton turned out to be nothing.

I liked the way Eriq played that scene - when Keaton made the insinuation
that he would blackmail her into a recommendation, he looked genuinely
surprised, as if that idea had never even struck him. With what we know
of Peter, I think that's very true, and Eriq conveyed that perfectly,
IMHO.

: When the nurses say "they have the money", I wonder what Cook County's tax

: base looks like these days. It's not like they work for some huge
: corporation. And who says you're entitled to OT if you work less than 40
: hours per week? (although this would be negotiated in their contract).

Don't ask about the tax base. :/

One aside about Mark and Chuny - I noticed Mark got to keep the dog... :)

Tirya

[Tirya]

Ceon Ramon (ce...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
: In article <5bovv4$j...@decaxp.harvard.edu>,
: Shawn Hill <sh...@husc7.harvard.edu> wrote:

: >Scott Hollifield (sco...@cris.com) wrote:
: >[anti-nurse rhetoric snipped]
: >: contract renegotiations coming up. "[If]
: >: management pulls this, we walk," she says.

: >Wouldn't you react negatively at a paycut timed to INCREASE your work
: >hours? What's fair about that?

: The work hours of the nurses would not be increased. Their income would
: be decreased, proportionately, as they would no longer be collecting
: overtime.

They're going from four days of twelve-hour shifts (48 hrs/week) to five
days of eight-hour shifts (40 hrs/week), right?

Not only are they losing 8 hours of overtime (probably at 1.5x their
normal pay rate - and that adds up... not even counting night shift
premiums that may be applicable), they're also being asked to give up one
free day that they had under the old system.

If your boss told you that instead of working eight hours a day five days
a week, you had to work six hours a day SIX days per week, and get paid
less for it, wouldn't you be miffed, too?

I'd like to think that the reaction of the nurses was a gut-level
indignant one, and that once they understand what the alternatives are -
i.e. losing two of their staff - that they'll see reason and be realistic.
Then again, if they're Union, who knows?

Tirya
"There's this thing called a 'life' - I'd like to have one."

[Tirya]

Jerry B. Ray (vap...@prism.gatech.edu) wrote:
: In article <E46s5...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
: david joseph kathman <dj...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:

: >No, their work hours would be increased: Carol was proposing five 8-hour
: >shifts (40 hours) instead of three 12-hour shifts (36 hours). One of
: >the nurses remarked that they'd have to work four more hours for less
: >overall pay.

: The key to understanding their behavior, I think, is that they think that

: the hospital actually has the money to keep things as they are and is just
: out to get them, which isn't an unusual attitude.

At least they didn't get the line of "it's a different budget" like we do
here. We don't have enough money to hire new headcount that we
desperately need, but we can afford to have our President's office
completely remodeled wtih new carpeting, glass doors, new display cases,
etc. etc. etc. It's in a different budget.

Tirya
As Timon nearly said, "Management!! Oy!!"

[William December Starr]

In article <01bc0488$73b90560$0d92b1cd@infosystemsbtd>,
"Bryan Douglas" <bdou...@erols.com> said:

> Of course this has spoilers in it, being a reply to Scott's
> message.

Spoilers in this article too....

> I haven't been reading the spoilers or rumor posts, so the suicide
> was a complete shocker to me.

Confession: I missed the episode, so I've been getting my "facts"
from the reviews and comments here. Keeping that in mind, though,
I've gotten the strong impression that when the episode ended it was
still *extremely* unclear as to whether the fatal injuries resulted
from a deliberate suicide attempt or "merely" from a tragic accident...
accordingly, I'm puzzled as to why you're writing as if you're
certain that it was a suicide.

[ *snip* ]

And, on a completely different topic:

> This was neat because it reinforced the fact that Randi has a lot
> of smarts, in spite of her obnoxious bimbo appearance and
> behavior.

I have to disagree here: I've never noted anything at all obnoxious
about Randi's bimbo appearance and behavior...

[Gail Lucas]

Ceon Ramon <ce...@u.washington.edu> wrote in article
<5bolmo$4...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>...
> In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
> Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:
> The fact is that they were contributing factors, and to that extent both
> Benton and Carter are blameworthy as far as I'm concerned, but Carter
more
> than anyone. Why didn't he see that Gant was lonely and depressed?
> Because he didn't want to see it, he didn't want to accept the
> responsibility that acknowledging it would have entailed. His refusal
was
> a deliberate one, and this is a grievous fault in my opinion. Carter
> needs to do some serious soul-searching about his selfishness and
> disregard for other people, not only for his own sake but because it will
> make him a mediocre healer. This should be a challenge to him to become
a
> better person. Too bad it had to be at the expense of a life.
>
> [Carter has}

> >always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
> >reassurances that things are "cool", a little too
> >eager to get back to Abby.
>

> Gant's assurances that everything was all right, both in this episode and
> the one in which Carter ditched him on Christmas eve, were so patently
> false that only the most deliberately obtuse person could have
> successfully accepted them. Epps' portrayal of Gant was a model of a
> completely realized character. His gradual descent into despair, his
> small acts of defiance and periodic efforts to stand up for himself, were
> completely absorbing. The actor is to be congratulated.

I don't think it is fair to try to lay all the blame (or any of it) on
Carter's shoulders.The impression I got with the Gant/Carter relationship
is that Carter
has spent a lot of time talking with him, off screen. After all, they live
together. I don't know, but I think Carter's response was perfectly human
and rational - no matter how much you care for a person, and want to help
him, you get to the point where you just can't take listening to them
anymore.

Gant's mind certainly hasn't been on his work, and I think Benton's
reaction
was appropriate - sure, it would have been better in private, but Carter
was
mainly right to say that while it was strong, it wasn't necessarily out of
line. After all, I think we've seen Benton chew Carter and other residents
out in public like that, and they took it. Again, Benton couldn't have
seen it coming.And, it isn't that I think that Carter really thinks that
Benton
wasn't out of line - after all, how many times have you commiserated with a
friend, even when you think that maybe the other person has a point?

I came out of this episode with a real respect for Benton - I mean, he
could
have used the Carter/Abby situation to his best advantage, but didn't. He
doesn't even seem all the perturbed by it, and certainly isn't treating
Carter any different - all which would be normal reactions. This is one
point where his ethics actually did some good.

[Not a Whiner]

fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) wrote:

>Scott said:
>>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"

>>paperbacks and fooling around in wheelchairs, I

>>would have been ready to toss out the whole lot of
>>them. Fortunately for her, Carol finds an easy,

>Agreed. My lord, I have never seen such a whiny group of layabouts in my
>entire life.

Have either of you ever worked a night shift? In a hospital?
Criminy between the lack of anything to do and trying to keep your
eyes pried open at 3am you are GRATEFUL for any diversion such as
a paperback or goofing off in the wheelchairs. What do you expect?
These people work CLOSELY together so they are friends. I didn't
hear anyone whining. The FACT is, emergency room work is feast
or famine, and when the trauma case rolled in late in the shift
(Gant), they were all on top of their game and ready to go, and THAT
is the main thing.

If anything was unprofessional this episode it was Carter and I forget
her name arguing over who was going to get the first xray, and arguing
which was more critical to obtain--a diagnosis of anyeurism or a
diagnosis of acute MI. I almost fainted (with laughter) when I saw
the patient sit up and say "I'm feeling better now"

sandy, RN

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5boo1h$p...@dismay.ucs.indiana.edu> fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) writes:

>He said Benton was outta line. Possibly because he was supporting a buddy
>and trying to make him feel better. You sometimes take a friend's side when
>he's wrong just because he's your friend, yes?

Well, no. Not really.
Certainly not in that fashion.

Now graned, I don't have an extreme high number of friends, and this
may be part of the reason why, but I just generally don't do things
like that. It leads to exactly the sort of ethical dilemma that
Carter stumbled into, although I;m sure Carter didn't see it as an
ethical dilemma.

If you tell your friend that he is right, and antagonist X is wrong,
and you don't qualify it with something to the effect of, "But I'll
deny ever having said that," then it is entirely reasonable for your
friend to expect you to hold to those words when called on in front of
a higher authority.

There are more ways to comfort a friend than by being dishonest, and
leading him to believe he has your support when he doesn't.
Alternatively (and this is what I normally do) if I think a friend of
mine is being a whiny git, or is wrong in some other fashion, I will
often _tell him so_. This, too, is what friends are for-- I don't
want my friends trying to make me feel better by telling me things
they disagree with; I won't do it to my friends either.

Carter, in this case, did a Wrong Thing. He took what he saw as the
path of least resistance (as is typical of Carter) and this time it
happened to involve a lie.

However, on the larger issue of who is culpable for Gant's suicide, I
suspect I am going to take an unpopular stance (presupposing that the
writers don't have some grand irony in store for us by revealing,
three weeks from now, that Gant really did trip-- it seems clear to me
that Gant walked down to the train station, while on duty, with the
express intent of committing suicide.)

_Gant_ is responsible for Gant's suicide.

There are factors, situations, and people that may have put the
possibility of suicide into Gant's head, but no one pushed Gant off
the train station ledge. No one walked him down there, and no one
removed his other options from him.

Having just had this discussion in another forum a few weeks ago, I
think the ultimate attempt to assign blame and culpability in
thissituation is going to be futile beyond measure.

Was Carter up to his typical Carterrhoid antics, flowing from stance
to stance as the wind changed? Yes, of course he was. Perhaps he'll
change, perhaps not. Did his actions have something to do with Gant's
decision? Of course they did. Is Carter therefore at fault? Of
course not, no more than, say, Benton.

Was Benton the typical hardhearted blackguard that I've come to know
and love? Of course he was; he could be nothing else. Were his
coments inappropriate? I dont' really know, not being as familiar
with the medical profession as some might be. It _seemed_ to me like
a moderately serious case of laziness and apathy on Gant's part.
However, I don't think that's the central issue.

The central issue is, does it matter whether Benton's actions were
appropriate? I think we can all imagine a situation where a public
dressing down is warranted-- If Gant had done something monumentally
stupid as Benton himself had done just a few episodes ago with the
infant in surgery. Imagine Gant _had_ done something that stupid, and
Benton dressed him down in public. Now imagine Gant had done
something clearly not worthy of such a dressing down, and still been
yelled at. Do his responses change overly much? I suspect not.

Is Benton therefore at fault? Of course not, no more than, say,
Anspaugh.

Was Anspaugh the generic bureaudrone we've all seen? Yes. Does his
brushing off of Gant make him somehow morally culpable for Gant's
death? No. He barely knows Gant. He has a very large number of
people in positions of extreme authority to watch over. Can he be
expected to watch every single employee for signs of suicidal
depression? No, of course not.

Is the system and situation that Gant is stuck in a really shitty
situation in general? Yes. He has no real friends (God knows I
wouldn't count Carter as a friend) a tough boss, and an incredible
workload that leaves him exhausted when he's off duty. Should the
system itself provide for some way to watch out for marginal
personalities like Gant? Perhaps, perhaps not.

If that day had gone even slightly differently, Gant would probably
not have comitted suicide. Had Anspaugh given the boy a pep talk, had
Benton not been quite so harsh, had Carter stood up for him, had
Carter not brushed him off by lying about the charts he had to finish,
had Gant himself not been borderline negligent with the chart he had
to work on, had Gant had a social life, had Gant not had woman
problems, and so forth.

But by the same token, had Gant not gone over the edge that day, how
much longer would it have taken?

I have as hard a time assigning moral culpability to suicides as I do
in people who blame society for crimes of any other sort.

The questions ultimately boil down to few and simple ones:

o How much responsibility do I have to watch out for the
emotional health of my peers and coworkers? Ultimately, my answer is,
not much. I'll watch out for family and close friends, but beyond
that, the wider I extend my circle of vigilance, the less work I get
done, the less I enjoy my life, and the more stress and despair I
bring upon myself. I can't worry about everyone-- that way lies my
own despair.

o Could any one factor in Gant's life, all by itself, have
pushed him over the edge? If the answer is no, then why do any of
those factors suddenly become blameful now?

o How much responsibility does Gant himself have in what
happened? Ultimately, a lot. Most of it. Gant is the one who went
trainfighting without a red cape. Gant made the decision.

Call me a hardhearted blackgaurd. I'll agree with you. Was it a
tragedy? Yes. Should Benton and Carter feel rather shitty for a few
days or weeks? Sure. Is Carter a twerp and Benton a cold bastard?
Always have been. Are they morally responsible? No.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cris.com
The Humblest Man on the Net

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5bp7qo$c...@nntp4.u.washington.edu> ce...@u.washington.edu (Ceon Ramon) writes:

>Here's what Carol should have said.

>"Hey! HEY! Stop right there. Lydia! Malik! Come back here and listen
>to me, because _I_ know what's going on and _you_ don't. If you're
>looking for our [Carol is after all a nurse too] union to protect us, I
>suggest you look at the history of the past ten years of hospital
>administration in this country and how successful nurses have been in
>protecting their jobs. The record is pretty dismal, and that's almost
>entirely because nurses are wedded to this idea that there is some
>universal bureaucratic recognition that nurses have a value other than
>that which economic statistics can prove.

[...]

<Applause>

Exactly the way to handle a borderline unruly mob that doesn't have
the full facts of the situation. Hit then with a double-barrelled
shot full of fact, right between the eyes.

Carol is just fine dealing with single individuals who are angry with
her, but dealing with a whole room of angry people is much more
difficult. (Been there. Done that.)

Lose your momentum, and you lose the game.

>I for one am completely exasperated with the nurses. They are being
>unreasonable, and they appear to be completely unwilling to listen to
>anyone who is in a position to acquaint them with the facts of
>the situation.

Precisely.

They automatically assume that the corporate beancounters are engaged
in a personal conspiracy to make their lives difficult, or to simply
get rid of them. Believe me, I know beancounters can be assholes, but
they're not assholes _all_ the time.

The nurse's attitudes can best be described as, "Don't confuse me with
economic facts."

>OK, so a few people are going to lose maybe $30.000 a year in overtime.
>pay. [Is this a reasonable estimate, given that Randi said Carol could
>shave $100,000 from the budget by eliminating overtime, which would equate
>to two full-time nursing positions?]

Figure there were six nurses on staff, so spread the hundred grand
through six people. Each will lose an average of sixteen thousand a
year, with the more senior nurses losing more, and the less senior
nurses losing less.

>That's a significant amount of money, and I can certainly understand why
>these people are irate about losing it. On the other hand, why are
>salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay?

Beats me. It must be written into their contracts.
I wish to hell it were written into mine.

[John S. Novak, III]

In <E46rw...@midway.uchicago.edu> dj...@midway.uchicago.edu (david joseph kathman) writes:

>We have indeed had the same cold here in Chicago, and all the schools
>were closed Thursday and Friday. This morning (Friday) the radio said
>the air temperature was 9 below, and the wind chill must have been
>40 or 50 below.

Stop, stop, stop!
You're making me homesick!

(Bloody Virginian pansies. Three flakes of snow in Maryland, and they
panic. Mercury dips below freezing, and they hibernate.)

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5bqviu$i...@pasilla.bbnplanet.com> bar...@pasilla.bbnplanet.com (Barry Margolin) writes:

>Of course, one thing that neither of these proposals addresses is the
>per-employee costs (e.g. benefits). For many low-paid employees at real
>companies, these costs are more than their take-home pay, but I don't know
>how much a public hospital budgets for benefits.

Well it's not like they can legitimately cut their health
insurance...! Beyond that, I'm not sure what they could axe and get
away without a squawk. If someone tried to cut my 401K matching or
pension contributions, for instance, I'd be right perturbed.

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5br7j4$2...@chronicle.concentric.net> sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) writes:

>I've stated elsewhere that I think Kerry was just going to trash
>Jeanie's results entirely and start fresh with Wendy.

I'd assumed that Wendy herself had already been included in the study.
Wouldn't Wendy have been the first victim?

[ara...@po-box.mcgill.ca]

John S. Novak, III wrote:
> Was Benton the typical hardhearted blackguard that I've come to know
> and love? Of course he was; he could be nothing else. Were his
> coments inappropriate? I dont' really know, not being as familiar
> with the medical profession as some might be. It _seemed_ to me like
> a moderately serious case of laziness and apathy on Gant's part.

A couple of comments on this issue. First of all, I don't believe that
Gant had done anything wrong. The lab had told him that it would be an
hour. During that hour, Gant got something to drink and took a break.
If the labs came back early with showing high calcium levels, the lab
tech should have paged Gant. Secondly, Benton berating Gant in the
public cafeteria is unprofessional toward his coworkers, negligent of
patient confidentiality and potentially law suit fodder if the kid were
to die (granted a bad way to look at it). He should have pulled him
aside and spoken with him privately. Beside, I don't believe that
berating someone is productive anyway. It is just a tool for the
berators own ego trip.

> Call me a hardhearted blackgaurd. I'll agree with you. Was it a
> tragedy? Yes. Should Benton and Carter feel rather shitty for a few
> days or weeks? Sure. Is Carter a twerp and Benton a cold bastard?
> Always have been. Are they morally responsible? No.

Here I agree. Gant is responsible for Gant. However, Carter is
supposed to be his friend and I thing that if he had been paying
attention he could have been more supportive of Gant's predicative and
possibly prevented Gant's actions indirectly.

[Daniel Rodrigez]

I must say that was the most thorough episode summary I've ever read. It must
have took a while to write. Bon travail -- good work.

[Pamela-Marie]

J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:
>In <5br7j4$2...@chronicle.concentric.net> sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) writes:
>
>>I've stated elsewhere that I think Kerry was just going to trash
>>Jeanie's results entirely and start fresh with Wendy.
>
>
>I'd assumed that Wendy herself had already been included in the study.
>Wouldn't Wendy have been the first victim?

Nope, that was E-Ray who we never saw that night :)

Pamela-Marie

[Scott Hollifield]

J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:
>I'd assumed that Wendy herself had already been included in the study.
>Wouldn't Wendy have been the first victim?

Not necessarily -- not if Wendy had already seen this coming and
volunteered to "help" Kerry by being her assistant, thus avoiding
being a subject.

[Scott Hollifield]

wds...@crl.com (William December Starr) wrote:

>Spoilers in this article too....

>Confession: I missed the episode, so I've been getting my "facts"

>from the reviews and comments here. Keeping that in mind, though,
>I've gotten the strong impression that when the episode ended it was
>still *extremely* unclear as to whether the fatal injuries resulted
>from a deliberate suicide attempt or "merely" from a tragic accident...
>accordingly, I'm puzzled as to why you're writing as if you're
>certain that it was a suicide.

William, the reason everyone (well, nearly) assumes that it was a
suicide was because Gant was meant to be covering the ER. He would
have no legitimate reason to walk to the train station.

I suppose it's technically possible that he just decided to walk off
the job and go home, but I don't think that's what happened.

[Julie Anne Jones]

In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>, sco...@cris.com (Scott
Hollifield) wrote:

> E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"

> Written by: Paul Manning
> Directed by: Jonathan Kaplan

> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
> that was about, I think all we can see is her
> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
> accompanyment for the drawing.

I thought it had something to do with the stitches she needed after Carol
dropped the clock on her head.

--
Julie Anne Jones
jajo...@students.wisc.com
********************************************************
Reach for the Stars ~ Christa McAuliffe
********************************************************
Send me unsolicited commercial email & you will get it back

[Chris Pierson]

In article <5bseru$i...@news3.snfc21.pacbell.net>,

Pamela-Marie <pamel...@juno.com> wrote:
>J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:

>>In <5br7j4$2...@chronicle.concentric.net> sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) writes:
>>
>>>I've stated elsewhere that I think Kerry was just going to trash
>>>Jeanie's results entirely and start fresh with Wendy.
>>
>>

>>I'd assumed that Wendy herself had already been included in the study.
>>Wouldn't Wendy have been the first victim?
>

>Nope, that was E-Ray who we never saw that night :)

Hmmmm ... since we never saw E-Ray after that, do you think he might still
be off doing jumping jacks? :)
--
****************************************************************************
Chris Pierson ** Films to watch for: Swingers, Albino Alligator, Shine,
Game Designer ** Mother, Breaking the Waves, Prisoner of the Mountains
****************************************************************************

[LiveLetDie]

J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:

>>That's a significant amount of money, and I can certainly understand why
>>these people are irate about losing it. On the other hand, why are
>>salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay?
>
>Beats me. It must be written into their contracts.
>I wish to hell it were written into mine.

Nurses are not usually salaried though there is always a push for that
in the name of professionalism.

In the late 80's and very early 90's there was a tremendous shortage
of RN's in this country. Hospitals were offering hire-on bonuses, and
all kinds of creative shift scheduling to attract nurses. One was the
12 hour shift. In some cases those nurses got 4 hours of overtime,
but some only got overtime for over 40 hrs a week, depending on how
the contract was set up. Hospitals who needed nurses desperately
found the overtime cost about the same as hiring expensive temporary
agency nurses. As the shortage eased, hospitals pretty much stopped
renewing those contracts (usally a 6 or 12 month contract) and offer
only the 12 hour shift with OT after 40 hrs in a week. Indeed, it
would be a poorly run hospital that would let itself be roped into
keeping such an expensive program indefinitely, union or not, when
nursing shortages are usually remedied in a few years.

liveletdie

[Nicole Anderson]

On 18 Jan 1997, Lynn Lee wrote:

> Nicole Anderson <n...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >On 17 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:
> >
> I'm not saying Peter should have shown him job
> >> favortism; but he shouldn't have been so frightened of favoritsm, and so
> >> jaded towards the system, that he ended up treating Gant with a rather
> >> bizarre form of discrimination.
> >
> >
> >i'm sorry, but i have to ask what is it that they have in common? just
> >because they are black and are both surgery residents, they are supposed
> >to have an instant "hey bro" best friend relationship?
> >
> >we know very little about gant, and from what i've seen he has nothing in
> >common with benton besides skin color. not all black people are best
> >friends nor do they come from the same backgrounds.
> >
> >
> >nic
>

> It seems like you don't understand the reference. Did you see the episode when Gant comes out and asks Benton if the way he's (Benton's) treating him (Gant) has something to do with their race? Benton as good as says, "Yes: because you're black people will assume that that's why you're here." Benton also asks if Gant checked "the little box" marked race, and states that _he_ did not. So apparently he'd been running Gant ragged because he didn't want the guy giving anyone an excuse to think that the only reason he (and by association, Benton) was there was because of affirmative action. B.Douglas doesn't think this was fair, and neither do I.
>
>
>
can you stop with the selective editing and melodrama? address the
question i presented. at least bryan did that and explained himself in
the process.

nic

[Arman Afagh]

In article <Pine.SUN.3.92.97011...@mizar.usc.edu>,
dcchavez <dcch...@mizar.usc.edu> wrote:

>Plus: There was someone in an earlier post who mentioned that the slowness
>of the night was unrealistic. Yes, it was, but the point was made very
>early in the show that it was FREEZING, so no one was leaving their
>houses. So, if there is no one on the streets, no accidents are happening,
>and no patients going to the ER. It makes perfect sense actually.

Well, not perfect sense. Sure, it can happen. But, if it's *that* cold,
you'd find a lot of homeless coming into the ER of a public hospital to get
out of the cold and for a warm meal. Depending on how the ER is run, a lot
of 'em may actually be allowed in for no other reason than that. That's
how things are at Bellevue Hospital's ER, New York City's flagship public
hospital.

\\\|///
\\ - - //
( @ @ )
+-----------------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo----------------------+
| Arman Afagh New York University |
| afag...@popmail.med.nyu.edu School of Medicine |
| http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~aafagh Class of 1999 |
| |
| "Intel Inside": |
| The world's most widely used warning label. |
+--------------------------------Oooo----------------------+
oooO ( )
( ) ) /
\ ( (_/
\_)

[Anna Lovrien]

Ceon Ramon <ce...@u.washington.edu> wrote:

>
> In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
> Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:
>

>
> but I'm glad I didn't "know"
> >about it in advance. The previews for next week
> >indicate that there will be a certain amount of
> >soul-searching on the part of the survivors, and
> >they have been lined rather neatly up: Benton is
> >to "blame" for professionally abusing him, and
> >Carter for neglecting him as a friend. Of course,
> >whether or not "blame" can actually be assigned
> >is something that is definitely up for debate.

>
> The fact is that they were contributing factors, and to that extent both
> Benton and Carter are blameworthy as far as I'm concerned, but Carter more
> than anyone. Why didn't he see that Gant was lonely and depressed?
> Because he didn't want to see it, he didn't want to accept the
> responsibility that acknowledging it would have entailed. His refusal was
> a deliberate one, and this is a grievous fault in my opinion. Carter
> needs to do some serious soul-searching about his selfishness and
> disregard for other people, not only for his own sake but because it will
> make him a mediocre healer. This should be a challenge to him to become a
> better person. Too bad it had to be at the expense of a life.
>
> [Carter has}
> >always been a little too quick to accept Dennis'
> >reassurances that things are "cool", a little too
> >eager to get back to Abby.
>
> Gant's assurances that everything was all right, both in this episode and
> the one in which Carter ditched him on Christmas eve, were so patently
> false that only the most deliberately obtuse person could have
> successfully accepted them. Epps' portrayal of Gant was a model of a
> completely realized character. His gradual descent into despair, his
> small acts of defiance and periodic efforts to stand up for himself, were
> completely absorbing. The actor is to be congratulated.
>

I feel that you both (Scott and Ceon) make some good points, but think
Ceon's condemnation of Carter is too harsh. Gant does now appear to
have been depressed, and Carter was ignoring the signs. Perhaps it
would have been best if Carter had talked to Gant about it (although
Gant's "I'm fine"s not only communicated to Carter that he was holding
in there but also if he was having problems he didn't want to talk about
them with Carter. It's awful hard to overcome this kind of rebuff).

Nevertheless, I do believe that Carter is a basically good person (or
imaginary character). If Gant had told Carter that he was having
suicidal thoughts, I think Carter would have helped. But in the absence
of concrete evidence that Gant was suicidal, Carter was optimistic,
hoping Grant could hold in there, and (rightly) thinking that Carter
couldn't complete Gant's work for him.

I have struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts myself, and have
had several friends and acquaintances fade away, thinking themselves
unable to help. I could blame them, but I don't, because I don't
believe it's a friends responsibility to help you unless you ask them to
help you. It's just a shame that Gant was too caught in the depths of
his depression to ask for help. Tragically, he seems like one of those
suicides that, if he had gotten treatment, probably could have pulled
out of his negative spiral, like Carol has.
-Anna

[Michelle Morrison]

Tirya wrote:

> One aside about Mark and Chuny - I noticed Mark got to keep the dog... :)
>

*I* noticed the dog was FAKE!

Michelle

[Michelle Morrison]

Ceon Ramon wrote:
>
> In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
> Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:

> > The Kerry/Jeanie story was pretty silly
> >from beginning to end, superfluous at best and
>
> I'm not sure it was superfluous. Did we actually see Kerry Weaver
> fiddling her research data by substituting Wendy for Jeanie in the final
> stage of the test? Are we going to see her entering the Vucelich Realm,
> where ambition ovewhelms good ethical decision-making?

Weaver wasn't gonna tamper with the data -- she was gonna run the whole test over again
on Wendy because Wendy said "But it's almost light out" and Kerry handed her the
sunglasses.

> P.S. The Best Line surely ought to come somewhere among all the exchanges
> between Mark and Chuny about warming up his engine.

Oh! That line about Mark and Chuny (I didn't see the PS until I quoted your message)! I
hated that! That whole Mark and Chuny thing. I think I hated it because I was so much
FOR Susan and Mark that now I'm mad at the writers for giving him another relationship
so soon. I mean, geez, he was mooning over her and whining and pissing around the ER for
a whole episode...and NOW, he jumps in bed with Chuny! We saw this before with his fling
with his ex-wife Jenn and then with Iris. Also, I see this coming : Chuny gets cut. That
could even be the only reason for the relationship. Then we'd see Mark sticking up for
her and trying to get Carol to change her mind. I like the 8 hour thing, anyway.

There was something else I wanted to say, but I just got home from a
mind-blowing youth retreat and I'm tired.

Michelle

"They found your bleeping U.F.O." -- Scully to Mulder, 'Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space''

[Tirya]

John S. Novak, III (J...@cris.com) wrote:

: In <E46rw...@midway.uchicago.edu> dj...@midway.uchicago.edu (david joseph kathman) writes:

: >We have indeed had the same cold here in Chicago, and all the schools
: >were closed Thursday and Friday. This morning (Friday) the radio said
: >the air temperature was 9 below, and the wind chill must have been
: >40 or 50 below.

: Stop, stop, stop!
: You're making me homesick!

: (Bloody Virginian pansies. Three flakes of snow in Maryland, and they
: panic. Mercury dips below freezing, and they hibernate.)

LOLOL!!

::grinz:: guess your blood hasn't started thinning yet, huh? :)

Tirya

--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The / Tirya \ Kungaloosh! |
| Gryphon's / ti...@wwa.com \ A.C. Open House |

| Eyrie / http://www.wwa.com/~tirya \ 12/31/37 |

[Chris Pierson]

In article <5budc4$6...@news2.snfc21.pacbell.net>,

Pamela-Marie <pamel...@juno.com> wrote:
>>>Spoilers in this article too....
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

>To be perfectly honest, I don't think the wirter did a good job of
>portraying Gant. He didn't seem depressed by his actions, but the viewers
>knew that he was having a rough time. I would have like to seen some more
>outward hints to his depression. When we last saw him after he tells
>Carter very calmly, that they are "cool", he doesn't look like a man who
>is contemplating anything or distraught, he is just sitting there. Maybe
>that is because has I not known Gant was going to die, I wouldn't have
>picked it up.

That's odd, because in the very scene you mention, I saw something in Omar
Epps' eyes, and I said, out loud, "aw, shit, he's gonna kill himself." I
didn't think it'd happen so soon, and I can't put my finger on what
exactly it was that tipped me off, but it was like a neon sign to me.

And since the title of the next episode appears to be "Post Mortem", I
think we can assume that he was, in the end, successful (I never had any
doubt, myself), and that things are going to revolve around people dealing
with the aftermath.

One note: amid all the foofaraw about how Carter and Benton are going to
react, I'm surprised no one (that I've seen, anyway) has mentioned the
person who could well be hit hardest of all: Carol. After all, it wasn't
really that long ago that a similar scene played out involving her -- and
what with her wanting to go to med school, and get into the very situation
that made Gant do himself in, this could really shatter her.

[Tim Shippert]

J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) expounds:

>The nurse's attitudes can best be described as, "Don't confuse me with
>economic facts."

Assuming those really are the "economic facts". The only facts we
really know about the hospital's situation is that one of the Suits dumped
a hatchet job on Carol, while claiming abject poverty as the reason. The
nurses really don't know that the hospital has the money, but nobody has
exactly proven to them that it doesn't, and _they're_ the ones being asked
to make the sacrifice.

If a Boss wants me to take an emergency pay cut, I'm going to want
to sit down with him and see the books before I go peacefully. But if they
expect me to bend over for the good of the company solely on the say-so of
a Suit, they've got another think coming - especially if I have the power
to make his life miserable, like the nurses are going to do next week when
they walk out.

--
Tim Shippert ship...@alumni.caltech.edu

The angriest ex-graduate student in the world.

[Matt Ackeret]

In article <1997Jan17.1...@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>,

Lisa Brown <li...@ro.cc.rochester.edu> wrote:
>In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
>Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:

>>E.R., Season 3, Episode 11, "Night Shift"

>> -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name
>> of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
>> that was about, I think all we can see is her
>> writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
>> accompanyment for the drawing.

>No, she's putting the patient's name on the board - that is
>her job. Kerry is getting stitched up by Jeannie after
>the clock fell on her head.

Why the heck are they using a whiteboard for this?! Why isn't it
computerized?
--
mat...@apple.com

[Matthew J. Norris]

Michael Kwun (kw...@uclink4.berkeley.edu) wrote:

[law review-like explanation of tenets of labor law deleted]

: Oh, and of course all of this goes out the window if you have a CBA
: (collective bargaining agreement--if you're a working in a union shop).

And of course the episode dialogue indicated that the nurses did have a
contract, so all that does in fact go out the window.

--
Matt

[Matt Ackeret]

In article <5bopnu$7...@earth.alpha.net>,
Ron Bean <rb...@earth.execpc.com> wrote:
>When Jeannie is on the excercise bike and Weaver says "increase to 90
>rpm", it looked to me like she was already doing about 90rpm before they
>cranked it up (maybe someone with a tape can check this-- it's hard to
>tell because the handlebars are moving up and down). 90 rpm is only 1.5
>rev's per second, and is considered the ideal cadence for bicycling

But what the heck is the deal with this thing? Is it a motorized bicycle, so
your legs and arms are just "following" the pedals/handlebars? I guess the
more logical alternative is that they lower the resistance so Jeannie
can then go faster.. but it was as if they "cranked it up" as in made the
bike go faster..

I walk/run on a motorized treadmill every day (veg & watch TV while doing it,
basically the only exercise I've been able to force myself to do for
any amount of time), and it seems having *this* motorized makes sense, because
the goal is to go for distance, not "fight against the machine"... but for
other types of equiptment, it doesn't seem to make sense.

So that scene just looked weird.
--
mat...@apple.com

[Pamela-Marie]

sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) wrote:

>wds...@crl.com (William December Starr) wrote:
>
>>Spoilers in this article too....

>William, the reason everyone (well, nearly) assumes that it was a

>suicide was because Gant was meant to be covering the ER. He would
>have no legitimate reason to walk to the train station.
>
>I suppose it's technically possible that he just decided to walk off
>the job and go home, but I don't think that's what happened.

My wishful thinking scenario has Gant deciding to visit Monique after all
despite Benton's dissapproval and he wanted to take the L home to pack and
go to the airport and then tripped.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the wirter did a good job of
portraying Gant. He didn't seem depressed by his actions, but the viewers
knew that he was having a rough time. I would have like to seen some more
outward hints to his depression. When we last saw him after he tells
Carter very calmly, that they are "cool", he doesn't look like a man who
is contemplating anything or distraught, he is just sitting there. Maybe
that is because has I not known Gant was going to die, I wouldn't have
picked it up.

Pamela-Marie

[Matt Ackeret]

In article <5bukso$j...@news-central.tiac.net>,

Chris Pierson <cpie...@tiac.net> wrote:
>One note: amid all the foofaraw about how Carter and Benton are going to
>react, I'm surprised no one (that I've seen, anyway) has mentioned the
>person who could well be hit hardest of all: Carol. After all, it wasn't

I expected her to walk by when one of the nurses said the way they'd
rather go would be an OD.
--
mat...@apple.com

[Scott Hollifield]

fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) wrote:
>Consent, shonsent, she was gonna die. Even if he gets fired, he did the
>right thing this time. (Yes, he was scum for looking in Jeanie's file,
>but not he happened to be right this time. :))

Yeah, I agree -- but he only did right if we can say that her death
would be the alternative to giving consent. A lot hinges on that one
variable. In a case where Shelly's fate was less certain, so would
Mark's justification.

>To be fair, while a public berating probably wasn't too helpful, Gant
>*was* supposed to be up there, and the one piece of informatin Peter
>needed wasn't on the chart and Gant wasn't working on getting
>it...
>This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons words
>inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told Gant to
>shape up.

Well, I don't believe (as it might have come across in my review) that
Gant's story was totally one-sided. I think Dennis made the mistake
of bottling up his concerns in a real sense -- by that I don't mean
that he kept quiet, because he obviously did a lot of complaining, but
his griping to Carter was either girlfriend-related or stuff like,
"Man, I'm tired of Benton riding me." He never felt conscious enough
or comfortable enough to say, "Carter, I feel totally alone, and I
don't think I'm going to make it." Of course, I don't think I could
actually blame him for that, but his cries for help were ignored
partially because they were muted.

On the other hand, Carter is far from lily-white even so. Sure he
"walked the full mile" for Dennis as far as being a friendly ear, but
I still feel that Carter's eyes were half-shut the whole while; he
couldn't see that his friend was crumbling and needed support.

>Oh, yeah, a 14 year old girl makes you promise not to call the police or
>a social worker if she tells you her pimp beat and raped her, so
>naturally you keep your promise to the frightened child despite being a
>thirty five year old pediatrician. Yep, that would be the smarter move. :)

>While I don't like lying to kids either, sometimes there's no
>help for it.

I agree about what he should do; him being Doug Ross,
anti-authoritarian and friend to abused kids, I'm not sure he will.

>I thought there was a faint air of disgust from Peter at that point as
>if to say, "You are a stupid idiot aren't you?" Peter really needs to
>work on his rep a little if people think of him that way.

Maybe so. That being said, I really don't think Abby knew him as well
as she thought she did, or needed to, if she made the kind of
assumption she did.

>Well, yeah, obvious to us the viewers. I thought there was a clear
>implicatiopn here that Carter had walked the full mile with consoling
>Gant about the girl, his job, and his life. Remember that the one time
>Carter was shown helping Gant, Gant was hardly grateful.

That's because it was typical Carter-brand help, like when he "helped"
Harper towards the end of last season. He needs to learn what help
really is.

>What *should* Carter have done? What should *Benton* have done?

>Okay, suppose Carter did say, "Benton was out of line in berating him in
>public like that." All Benton has to say, "What was he doing in the
>cafeteria to begin with?"

Not really, because the one has nothing to do with the other. Even if
Dennis is spinning around the lobby in a wheelchair, Benton's public
beratement of him is still unjustifiable.

I'm not saying that Carter and Benton could or should have done
anything obvious, but I think both characters need some positive
development.

>I think Carol and Doug would be good together, and while I still think she
>and Carter would make a cute couple, she and Doug are destiny :)

Bah. No such thing. :)

>> -In case you haven't heard yet, yes, "ER" is going on a
>> five-week hiatus in March so that NBC can showcase
>> "Law & Order" as well as launch a new series, "Prince
>> Street". And yes, this is a good thing. If you don't
>> want to watch the other shows, find something else to
>> do with your time.

>Why is this a good thing? I like Law and Order on Wednesdays right where it is.

It's a good thing because I skip Law and Order for Larry Sanders, and
now I'll be able to actually see it for a few weeks.

[Maria Ana Montalvo]

Because it's big, so eveyone can see it quickly from far away, more than one person can
change it at a time, it's really cheap, the learning curve is small, and it's unlikely to
crash at the worst possible moment? And it gets the job done?

Maria

[Bryan Douglas]

William December Starr <wds...@crl.com> wrote in article
<5brlg3$7...@crl10.crl.com>...
>
> In article <01bc0488$73b90560$0d92b1cd@infosystemsbtd>,
> "Bryan Douglas" <bdou...@erols.com> said:
>
> > Of course this has spoilers in it, being a reply to Scott's
> > message.

>
> Spoilers in this article too....
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> [snip]

> still *extremely* unclear as to whether the fatal injuries resulted
> from a deliberate suicide attempt or "merely" from a tragic accident...
> accordingly, I'm puzzled as to why you're writing as if you're
> certain that it was a suicide.
>

I think Scott summed it up pretty darn well. Gant was flatline, the camera
was panning away, the title of next episode...all pretty strong hints that
the poor guy is now an organ donor.

> [snip ]
> I have to disagree here: I've never noted anything at all obnoxious
> about Randi's bimbo appearance and behavior...
>
>
Well, there I go again with language a little stronger than I intended.
Allow me to say, I actually like Randi. Not that you would know it from
my poor choice in terms. She definitely adds her own unique spice to the
cast. She reminds me a little bit of a more serious version of Caroline's
friend on "Caroline in the City". (The woman who's in "Cats". Forget the
character's name. Probably shouldn't bring up another TV show on this NG,
anyway.)

Randi's attitude and appearance, although appealing in certain ways, might
mislead the casual viewer to think she's a dumb bimbo. But I suspect
that aren't too many casual viewers reading this thread. I thought it was
cool that the writers bolstered her apparent smarts (other than her obvious
street smarts) by showing her accounting insight. A subject our friend
Carol Hathaway often needs help with.

Did I say it better the 2nd time? Nicole Anderson discovered that I
usually need 2 attempts at hammering English into something that resembles
communication...

[Shawn Hill]

Mike Chary (fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote:

: He said Benton was outta line. Possibly because he was supporting a buddy
: and trying to make him feel better. You sometimes take a friend's side when
: he's wrong just because he's your friend, yes?

that's what we *hoped* he would say, but what Carter actually said was
"Well, I can see how Gant would take it that way, but I wouldn't call
Benton's words inappropriate." Basically, he wussed out on a friend
(whereas, in private, earlier, he had affirmed Gant's reaction to Benton's
public dressing down).

Shawn

[Richard Bossard]

In article <32DFD2...@govst.edu>, Pat <P-Barg...@govst.edu> wrote:
>Mike Chary wrote:
>>
>> Scott said:
>> PLOT ONE: ADVICE AND CONSENT
>> Yeah, that;'s really going to be an interesting court case. "You didn't
>> get consent." "She wasn't competent." "The psych intern said she was."
>> "The psych intern might have change his mind if he'd known she had
>> spinal meningitis."

An interesting point here. The test they administered was a real one. But it
was probably the wrong test for this patient. The test they used is one to
score a patients "awareness", generally used on older people and those who
don't seem clear fix on where they are, who they are, etc. In real life, a
different assessment would probably have been used because this girl needed to
be scored for delusional/paranoid behavior.

Or so says my girlfriend who's a rn in a local hospitals psych ward.

Rick

[Lynn Lee]

wal...@donovan.com wrote:

>Isn't it obvious that Carter didn't stand up for Gant
>before Alspaugh because he was being 'blackmailed' by
>Benton about the relationship with Keaton? Benton may
>have done nothing overt [and he may be blameless on this
>aspect of the situation] but Carter knew that Benton
>had information that could ruin his internship and
>career -- and thus was very reluctant to blow the whistle
>on Benton.
>

If that's so, he must have forgotten the guy's basic character -
Benton can be (and often is) a bastard, but not that kind of
bastard: he's got integrity, if nothing else. He'd never have
pulled such a cheap trick.

[DANIEL BEN-ZVI]

Scott Hollifield wrote:
(Their task acquires an ironic tone when
> Carol accidentally drops a large clock on Kerry
> Weaver's head.)

I'm kinda surprised no one's picked up on this, but:

Remember the old folk saying?

If a clock falls, someone will die.
If a clock falls and breaks, someone will die *badly*.

(And no, i'm not making this up. It's an actual superstition from
Britain which my grandma (who was English) told me years ago).

TTFN,
Dan Ben-Zvi

[wal...@donovan.com]

In article <1997011914...@port41.bitstream.net>,
lovr...@bitstream.net (Anna Lovrien) wrote:

> Ceon Ramon <ce...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > In article <5bn9rp$f...@chronicle.concentric.net>,
> > Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:
> >
>
> >

> > but I'm glad I didn't "know"
> > >about it in advance. The previews for next week
> > >indicate that there will be a certain amount of
> > >soul-searching on the part of the survivors, and
> > >they have been lined rather neatly up: Benton is
> > >to "blame" for professionally abusing him, and
> > >Carter for neglecting him as a friend. Of course,
> > >whether or not "blame" can actually be assigned
> > >is something that is definitely up for debate.
> >
> > The fact is that they were contributing factors, and to that extent both
> > Benton and Carter are blameworthy as far as I'm concerned, but Carter more
> > than anyone. Why didn't he see that Gant was lonely and depressed?
> > Because he didn't want to see it, he didn't want to accept the
> > responsibility that acknowledging it would have entailed. His refusal was
> > a deliberate one, and this is a grievous fault in my opinion. Carter
> > needs to do some serious soul-searching about his selfishness and
> > disregard for other people, not only for his own sake but because it will
> > make him a mediocre healer. This should be a challenge to him to become a
> > better person. Too bad it had to be at the expense of a life.
> >

Isn't it obvious that Carter didn't stand up for Gant

before Alspaugh because he was being 'blackmailed' by
Benton about the relationship with Keaton? Benton may
have done nothing overt [and he may be blameless on this
aspect of the situation] but Carter knew that Benton
had information that could ruin his internship and
career -- and thus was very reluctant to blow the whistle
on Benton.

k

[Pamela-Marie]

sco...@cris.com (Scott Hollifield) wrote:
>fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) wrote:

>>To be fair, while a public berating probably wasn't too helpful, Gant
>>*was* supposed to be up there, and the one piece of informatin Peter
>>needed wasn't on the chart and Gant wasn't working on getting
>>it...
>>This part bothered me because I am not sure *I* would call Bentons words
>>inappropriate either. This is not the first time Peter has told Gant to
>>shape up.

>On the other hand, Carter is far from lily-white even so. Sure he

>"walked the full mile" for Dennis as far as being a friendly ear, but
>I still feel that Carter's eyes were half-shut the whole while; he
>couldn't see that his friend was crumbling and needed support.

Well, I re-watched the episode today and I noticed something new. When
Beton finished yelling at Gant, Carter could tell he took it hard, I
believe it is the first time Carter has seen Gant gotten yelled at. When
Peter left, Carter looked at stoned-faced Gant (who looked like he might
have well been putting a gun to his head at that moment) and saw how it
hit him, he said, "Hey, hey, are you all right?" He was worried and then
there was a code. He said they'd talk later and they were going to later,
which leads me to the other thing I noticed in the cafeteria scene. When
Beton was talking about excuses and killing patients, Carter rolled is
eyes. I now believe that when Carter said,"Benton was way out of line." He
meant he went over board with all the junk he was yelling. He thought
Peter had been ridiculous, but he never used the words inappropriate or
unprofessional, and on top of that, after Gant scared him with his
reaction, Carter really wanted to make him feel better. When Gant begins
to open up about his insecurities and it looked like he and Carter were
really going to talk, Gant jets when Benton shows. It was all too sad.We
see John try to escape the confrontation with Anspaugh, but he fails, he
knew he better not get in the middle and he tried to be fair by saying
that Peter was hard on Gant but he shouldn't be written up for it. Your
right, Carter isn't lily-white. Still, I think Carter did under the
circumstances what he could.

>>Oh, yeah, a 14 year old girl makes you promise not to call the police or
>>a social worker if she tells you her pimp beat and raped her, so
>>naturally you keep your promise to the frightened child despite being a
>>thirty five year old pediatrician. Yep, that would be the smarter move. :)
>
>>While I don't like lying to kids either, sometimes there's no
>>help for it.
>
>I agree about what he should do; him being Doug Ross,
>anti-authoritarian and friend to abused kids, I'm not sure he will.

I agree, it may be against the law but that hasn't stopped Doug (a
falsified chart anyone?) or Mark for that reason. Doctors, however, do
tell their patients that they won't tell all the time. For example, that
paper-weight burning from the first season, Carol promised the mother she
wouldn't tell the doctor, and she did. It's the law.

>>What *should* Carter have done? What should *Benton* have done?
>
>>Okay, suppose Carter did say, "Benton was out of line in berating him in
>>public like that." All Benton has to say, "What was he doing in the
>>cafeteria to begin with?"
>
>Not really, because the one has nothing to do with the other. Even if
>Dennis is spinning around the lobby in a wheelchair, Benton's public
>beratement of him is still unjustifiable.

But, it is the *only* thing that you could say Benton did wrong. I really
don't think that Anspaugh's chastisement for Peter in lew of that would
have been the result Dennis wanted. But Mike is right, Peter could use the
fact that Gant wasn't ready and waiting for those labs, to say, hey if he
is going to screw up in public, he deserves it. i'm not sure if Anspaugh
would buy it, but judging by the way he likes to fudge away from conflict,
I bet he would.

>I'm not saying that Carter and Benton could or should have done
>anything obvious, but I think both characters need some positive
>development.

I agree, but first, I'd like to see that Carla woman go :)

Pamela-Marie

[Z]

On 17 Jan 1997, Ron Bean wrote:
[snip]
> One of the older doctors should tell Carter & Doyle to stop fighting over
> the patients. Someone's gonna die while they stand there arguing. Of
> course, Benton has been known to hijack patients from the ER.
and carter is of the benton school of surgery

[snip]
> no, she's OK and Weaver just needs a few stiches (I didn't think the clock
> looked that heavy, and it couldn't have fallen more than a couple of
> feet-- it was just above the door at 7'6", and she's 5'4". I assume it
> didn't break until it hit the floor).
actually, it did break when it hit the floor (carol is holding the
biggest piece at the end of that scene) and even a 2' drop is enough to
break the skin if the edge is sharp, which the corner of the clock is..

just my 2 ha'pennies

-Z

+----------------------------- zey...@rpi.edu ---------------------------+
|Any sufficiently advanced |If the opinions or views of RPI coincide |
|technology is indistinguish- |with mine in any way, shape or form, I pity |
|able from a rigged demo. |them greatly. |
| - Andy Finkel, computer guy | |
+---------------------- http://www.rpi.edu/~zeylim ----------------------+

[Shawn Hill]

dcchavez (dcch...@mizar.usc.edu) wrote:
: Lots of snippage!

: > -There's a scene where Randi is writing Kerry's name

: > of the board; in case anyone was left wondering what
: > that was about, I think all we can see is her
: > writing "WEAVER, KER--". I think it's meant to be an
: > accompanyment for the drawing.

: >
: > Scott Hollifield ** sco...@cris.com ** http://www.cris.com/~scotth

: Sorry, I don't agree. The writing of Weaver's name happened right after
: the clock split her head open. Randi was just putting her name according
: to which room she was in, since technically, she was a patient at that
: moment. The drawing was just something Randi did because she was bored.

FINALLY I have something to add to the discussion that comes from real
life. No, I am not medically employed, but my office does have one of
those dry marker boards like the one Randy was drawing on. I too have
been known to decorate ours when it's not being officially used.

And what she was drawing were fashion designs -- remember her line about
knowing about accounting because she took a class for her "fashion line?"

Shawn
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
= +
+ "UUUUHHHHHH!!!!!!! -- said the man =
= to the lady" +
+ --los pixies =
= +
+=+=sh...@husc.harvard.edu+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

[Pamela-Marie]

cpie...@tiac.net (Chris Pierson) wrote:
>In article <5budc4$6...@news2.snfc21.pacbell.net>,
>Pamela-Marie <pamel...@juno.com> wrote:

>>>>Spoilers in this article too....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>One note: amid all the foofaraw about how Carter and Benton are going to

>react, I'm surprised no one (that I've seen, anyway) has mentioned the
>person who could well be hit hardest of all: Carol. After all, it wasn't

>really that long ago that a similar scene played out involving her -- and
>what with her wanting to go to med school, and get into the very situation
>that made Gant do himself in, this could really shatter her.

Carol has other things on her mind.

Pamela-Marie

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5bv06j$h...@gap.cco.caltech.edu> ship...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Tim Shippert) writes:

> Assuming those really are the "economic facts". The only facts we
>really know about the hospital's situation is that one of the Suits dumped
>a hatchet job on Carol, while claiming abject poverty as the reason.

I think we have to accept that as a reality, unless otherwise stated.
There is no reason whatsoever to doubt this, as the season opened with
everyone worried about their jobs and several characters introduced
because another county hospital _shut down_ because of budget cuts.

It doesn't take a great genius to figure out that if there were money
problems serious enough to close one of three hospitals (right?) that
there might be still some problems serious enough to warrant a little
additional trimming.

That said, even if this turns out to be some hackneyed rip off of the
Evil Accountancy Plot, with Esmerelda Scrooge cackling with glee as
she throws workers out into the cold, the nurses themselves could not
_possibly_ have any better information than Carol does, and probably
quite a bit inferior.

>The angriest ex-graduate student in the world.

Take a number.

--
John S. Novak, III j...@cris.com
The Humblest Man on the Net

[John S. Novak, III]

In <1997011914...@port41.bitstream.net> lovr...@bitstream.net (Anna Lovrien) writes:

>I feel that you both (Scott and Ceon) make some good points, but think
>Ceon's condemnation of Carter is too harsh. Gant does now appear to
>have been depressed, and Carter was ignoring the signs. Perhaps it
>would have been best if Carter had talked to Gant about it

[...]

>Nevertheless, I do believe that Carter is a basically good person (or
>imaginary character). If Gant had told Carter that he was having
>suicidal thoughts, I think Carter would have helped.

Carter is a complex character, unsurprisingly enough.
He _is_ a nice guy, he's just insecure and generally thoughtless.

>I have struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts myself, and have
>had several friends and acquaintances fade away, thinking themselves
>unable to help. I could blame them, but I don't, because I don't
>believe it's a friends responsibility to help you unless you ask them to
>help you.

I might phrase it, it's a friend's duty to help you if he notices
you're in trouble, and if you accept it. But I don't think it's a
friend's job to be eternally vigilant.

There just ain't enough hours in the day.

[John S. Novak, III]

In <5bv23k$b...@news.spies.com> mat...@area.com (Matt Ackeret) writes:

>Why the heck are they using a whiteboard for this?! Why isn't it
>computerized?

Because you can't glance at a computer screen on your way into the
room. It's probably on computer, as well.

[Z]

On 20 Jan 1997, Bryan Douglas wrote:

> William December Starr <wds...@crl.com> wrote in article
> <5brlg3$7...@crl10.crl.com>...
> >
> > In article <01bc0488$73b90560$0d92b1cd@infosystemsbtd>,
> > "Bryan Douglas" <bdou...@erols.com> said:
> >
> > > Of course this has spoilers in it, being a reply to Scott's
> > > message.
> >

> > Spoilers in this article too....
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

> > [snip]
> > still *extremely* unclear as to whether the fatal injuries resulted
> > from a deliberate suicide attempt or "merely" from a tragic accident...
> > accordingly, I'm puzzled as to why you're writing as if you're
> > certain that it was a suicide.
> >
> I think Scott summed it up pretty darn well. Gant was flatline, the camera
> was panning away, the title of next episode...all pretty strong hints that
> the poor guy is now an organ donor.

somehow, after the el got through with him, i don't think that his organs
are of much use to anybody...

-Z of the gallows humor

[Z]

On 21 Jan 1997 wal...@donovan.com wrote:

> In article <5c0s9o$r...@news.fas.harvard.edu>, sh...@husc7.harvard.edu
> (Shawn Hill) wrote:
>
>
> He wusses out because Benton has information that would
> embarrass him. It is blackmail [or at least Carter
it is most certainly _not_ blackmail. in order for it to be blackmail,
benton has to ask for something and threaten to go public/do something
nasty with the carter/keaton affair if he doesn't get it.

> behaves as if he feared blackmail]
now this may be a possibility. carter may have been thinking (ha!) 'if i
dont get him in deep with anspaugh by backing up gant, maybe he wont get
me in deep by telling anspaugh about me and abby'; but fearing
repurcussions (or whatever form) and being blackmailed are two very
different things.

-Z

[wal...@donovan.com]

In article <5c0s9o$r...@news.fas.harvard.edu>, sh...@husc7.harvard.edu
(Shawn Hill) wrote:

He wusses out because Benton has information that would
embarrass him. It is blackmail [or at least Carter

behaves as if he feared blackmail]

k

[Annie Fox]

Scott Hollifield <sco...@cris.com> wrote:
>fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Mike Chary) wrote:
>
>>Oh, yeah, a 14 year old girl makes you promise not to call the police or
>>a social worker if she tells you her pimp beat and raped her, so
>>naturally you keep your promise to the frightened child despite being a
>>thirty five year old pediatrician. Yep, that would be the smarter move. :)
>
>>While I don't like lying to kids either, sometimes there's no
>>help for it.
>
>I agree about what he should do; him being Doug Ross,
>anti-authoritarian and friend to abused kids, I'm not sure he will.

Yes and no. Yes, he should tell, but how he does it is important.
He should at least offer Charlie some kind of choice about whether
she can report it herself or Doug will. In order to give her a sense
of control over herself and her own life; something that is often los
in situations like these.

-Peter

[Fiona M Davidson]

In article <5bs0n0$s...@chronicle.concentric.net>, "John S. Novak, III"
<J...@cris.com> writes
>
>Well it's not like they can legitimately cut their health
>insurance...! Beyond that, I'm not sure what they could axe and get
>away without a squawk. If someone tried to cut my 401K matching or
>pension contributions, for instance, I'd be right perturbed.

No - but they can up the employee contributions ! I don't know how it
works for hospital employees but when I worked for the State of Illinois
(Western Illinois University) we went through two years of 0% pay rises
and 10% increases in *our* contributions to our health plan - in effect
we took pay cuts each year.

On the subject of the nurses attitude - I haven't seen the episode yet
since I'm in the UK - but all the people who are saying that they should
calm down and just be grateful that they still have jobs. They just
might do that in a couple of hours or days - however, most people tend
to react very badly when they're being told that they are going to take
a pay cut/hours increase - at least initially. In addition, there's a
"thin end of the wedge" issue here - if they give in without any kind of
protest at all - then administration is going to be that much quicker to
take further cuts out on the nursing staff the next time round. In some
ways it is very much a "them versus us" attitude since you can be pretty
sure that the administrators aren't going to be cutting their own
salaries (even though that would have less of an effect on patient-care)

I think the pissed off attitude is very realistic and entirely
admirable.

(I'm new here and I apologise if I offend anyone by being so opinionated
:))

slainte
Fiona

Fiona M Davidson
fi...@fmdavid.demon.co.uk
*****************************************************************************
"From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The story's always the same.
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir, you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name"
Springsteen

[Joe Siegler]

On 21 Jan 1997 04:25:55 GMT, J...@cris.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:

>In <5bv06j$h...@gap.cco.caltech.edu> ship...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Tim Shippert) writes:
>
>> Assuming those really are the "economic facts". The only facts we
>>really know about the hospital's situation is that one of the Suits dumped
>>a hatchet job on Carol, while claiming abject poverty as the reason.
>
>I think we have to accept that as a reality, unless otherwise stated.
>There is no reason whatsoever to doubt this, as the season opened with
>everyone worried about their jobs and several characters introduced
>because another county hospital _shut down_ because of budget cuts.
>
>It doesn't take a great genius to figure out that if there were money
>problems serious enough to close one of three hospitals (right?) that
>there might be still some problems serious enough to warrant a little
>additional trimming.

I've been talking to my wife about how E.R. will end once it
eventually does. My guess is that the hospital will shut down due to
money issues, and the cast will just scatter.

Anyone else ever think about this?

Joe Siegler
Apogee Software

[Scott Hollifield]

"Robert Isaac Lee" <asia...@zipcon.net> wrote:

>> : -It suddenly dawned on me that Mark is sleeping around
>> : merely three episodes after Susan split. Boy, that
>> : didn't take long, did it?
>>
>>
> Let's see... the man had only slept with his wife until very
>recently. Hasn't had a date.
> Susan made it obvious at the train scene that she did not feel the
>same way about him and their
> relationship was totally platonic.

> What exactly then, is it that "didn't take long?" More like "it's
>about time!!!"

Well, that's what I really agree with. :) It was more a sarcastic
jibe at those who feel that Mark's one and only true love should be
Susan.

------------------------------------------------------------------

[Michelle Morrison]

Ian J. Ball wrote:

>
> In article <32e7029f...@news.computek.net>, apo...@metronet.com wrote:
>
> > I've been talking to my wife about how E.R. will end once it
> > eventually does. My guess is that the hospital will shut down due to
> > money issues, and the cast will just scatter.
> >
> > Anyone else ever think about this?
>

> Only a little.
>
> It depends on who you think the fulcrum of the show is: Mark Green or Carter.
>
> You could make a good argument that it's Carter, in which case the show
> can end with Carter leaving the "ER" and going into private practice
> somewhere.
>
> If you think it's Green, then maybe the show can end with him getting a
> job in LA or NY or something. Or dying...

Or moving to Phoenix...but Chuny blew that chance to bits :-(

Michelle

"I've given it a lot of thought and I've decided to be spontaneous." -- Mark Greene

"No such thing as bad luck in my economy. It's either a good plan or it ain't."-- Dick
Hickock

"Let's go, G-woman." -- Mulder to Scully, "Pusher"

"BYE" -- little red light to Fox Mulder, Paper Hearts

"C'mon, Scully, it'll be a nice trip to the forest!" -- Mulder to Scully, Darkness Falls