ER Code Blue

Last Thursday night, I watched the two hour series finale of ER. That means, over its 15 year run, I probably saw a total of one season’s worth of episodes.

Don’t get me wrong. I know this was a superlatively done show. What I have caught over the years was always compelling. But, as a former devout fan of the miraculous St. Elsewhere, I pretty much didn’t get addicted to ER because it felt like I was cheating on my wife. When it came to medical drama, nothing could ever match the doctors of St. Eligius. Probably unfair to the folks who crafted ER, but I figured that I had seen it all already.

When we were at Murphy Brown on the Warners lot in the 90s, the ER soundstage was right next door. And there were several times when it was completely empty with the doors open. I’d wander through the set which literally looked like a hospital emergency room. I completely forgot that I was in Hollywood. Everything was real from the syringes to the Bandaids to the blood-stained sheets on the gurneys. Incredible realism and a lot more interesting than wandering through the Friends apartments. (We did that, too.)

Everytime I watched ER, it was pretty frenetic. Patients rushing in, doctors rushing out, lives being saved left and right. The action never stopped. And everybody got immediate medical attention. And that always got me thinking. Where the hell did the producers do their research? Because every emergency room I’ve been in was anything but…

Yeah, I have done my time in emergency rooms. Luckily, never as a result of an auto accident or the type of power plant explosion that was ER’s final trauma event last week. But, with health-challenged parents (and some goofiness provided by friends), I have logged some hours on the budget furniture you find in those always-sloppy waiting rooms. Watching the crazy pace on ER, I always wanted to see what was going on beyond those swinging double doors. On the other side of that window where some slob sits and yells “Next.”

Usually, the only way you can fasttracked in an emergency room is if you have a heart attack. When my mother was having some arthritic pain that needed attention, I used to tell her to say that the discomfort was traveling up and down her left arm, even if it wasn’t. Of course, she’d never lie and, before you know, you’ve sifted through a year-old People Magazine for the twelfth time.

Part of the issue here is that segment of our population which totally abuses the concept of a medical emergency. Too, too many folks (and I am sorry to say we are talking about some Black people here, gang) think an emergency room is the same thing as their general internist. Every single time I had to visit an ER, I would see at least one fat slob with toddler in tow at the glass window.

”My baby girl got the sniffles.”

Ask anybody in the medical profession to tell you the single biggest reason why there are money problems and they will tell you it's this kind of emergency room abuse. And now they want to make this even easier with universal health care. Trust me, we will see a day where a patient, gasping for breath, heads into an emergency room for a tracheotomy and a nurse will hand them a box cutter to do it themselves.

You see all the dregs of humanity in an ER waiting room. Some unlucky people have been hanging around for days. I remember seeing one man who actually had cobwebs forming around his eyelids. It takes forever for the patient to get through the magic doors. That's just the mindnumbing start. Once inside, you often find yourself laying on a gurney in some hallway waiting for the quintessential "tests." Meanwhile, your friend or loved one is out there amongst a sea of torn-up magazines and trying to figure out how to put some mustard on the armchair they are getting ready to gnaw on, since the cafeteria always seems to be closed.

A few years ago, my writing partner suffered some sort of internal stomach muscle contusion that looked a lot like a ruptured appendix. We ventured over to Cedars-Sinai where the stars go to die in LA. Once he got beyond the special doors, he was shuttled from one ultrasound machine to another. With a two hour wait in between each one. Meanwhile, I was outside and literally finished a 500 page book cover to cover. In by 2PM, out by 12Midnight.

If I had a DVD set of ER, I could finish a half a season in the same time. And wonder how the hell they manage to always move so fast.

Dinner last night: Cervelat sandwich and tossed salad.