I knew Salen was going to be trouble.
As Glassman said, she started as a fake patient before taking over the hospital and demanding changes that didn’t necessarily serve patients.
On The Good Doctor Season 5 Episode 2, she alienated everybody and contributed to Shaun having another Autistic meltdown. And I don’t know how much more I can take of her, either!
Salen is the stereotypical hospital administrator, full of ideas that look good on paper but don’t work well in practice.
In one sense, the idea of “serving clients” makes sense if, by serving clients, the hospital means giving superlative medical care so that patients are given the best chances of surviving and thriving even when they are diagnosed with serious diseases.
Salam: Discharge them.
Park: We have a 48-hour waiting policy.
Salam: We have a new policy. As soon as they’re stable, discharge them to make room for other clients.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be what Salen means. She’s not Max Goodwin on New Amsterdam; she’s someone who doesn’t know much about medicine and assumes good customer service means rushing patients out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Yuck.
Park’s insistence on running all sorts of tests on Abby’s baby may have begun as an attempt to get around Salen’s ridiculous insistence that he free up Abby’s hospital bed ASAP, but if he hadn’t done it, that baby likely would have died, and Abby would have been blamed for killing another infant.
That demonstrated that Salen’s policies were harmful to patient care. It also should have taught Morgan a lesson about jumping to conclusions, but it likely won’t since she does this all the time.
Morgan’s insistence that Abby poisoned both her babies on purpose was obnoxious, and it was evident that she was wrong.
As Park pointed out, Abby was under guard and had no opportunity to slip antifreeze into the hospital. And Park was in the room when Abby breastfed her daughter, too.
It was impossible, and I immediately knew the poor woman would turn out to have some sort of medical condition that made it appear like Abby’s babies were fed antifreeze. What was wrong with Morgan that she didn’t?
Oh yeah. Morgan’s pathological need to always be right no matter how much evidence that her theory is wrong.
At least she apologized in the end. That’s progress for Morgan and probably the best we’ll ever get out of this annoying character.
Lim: Salen, don’t you have your own office?
Salen: Maybe? My assistant said something about that. I’ll have to check into it.
Also annoying: Salen is just popping up wherever and putting her nose into the doctors’ business.
It was bad enough when she did that as a patient, but now she was actively interfering in the debates, discussions, and doctors’ decisions about patient care by hanging around.
On a positive note, Andrews and Mateo had to stop yelling at each other and discuss the issue like adults, but still.
Salen was probably right that Lim gave the case to Mateo because of Salen’s presence. After all, Lim said Mateo’s approach was in line with Salen’s client satisfaction model.
Whatever good Salen’s presence did, if any, was more than offset by her decision that Lim and Mateo shouldn’t have taken so much time with one patient.
To borrow a phrase from Chicago Med Season 7 Episode 2, medicine is not like a fast-food drive-through. Not all cases are equal, and the best doctors are effective at triage — figuring out which cases are higher priority and which need to wait.
And sometimes finding the proper treatment or even the correct diagnosis takes time, too, so they can’t just discharge patients the second they’re stable. Plus, as Abby’s case showed, patients don’t always STAY stable — they can be fine right after surgery and then crash.
Does Salen want the hospital to be liable for patient deaths that could have been prevented by keeping them for observation for a longer period? Sheesh.
Anyway, Madeline’s case was easily the most interesting of the night.
Madeline’s cancer was advanced and aggressive. Her heartfelt insistence that she was too young to die and had plans to go to the Nationals was so emotional it got me thinking about whether I’d had all the preventive screens I needed to make sure I was healthy!
This could have been a moving story about a young woman coming to terms with her mortality and making amends with her birth mother for that reason. Luckily for Madeline, her story ended up having a happier ending than that.
I wondered if Andrews was against the T-cell therapy on principle or because Mateo had suggested it.
Andrews tends to be on the controlling side, and Mateo swooped in and took over his case. It could have been handled better, and if Shaun and Mateo had made their case to Andrews privately before they took it to the patient, it might have had a different result.
Lim was taking a considerable risk endorsing Mateo’s idea, too. If it hadn’t worked, she might have gotten in trouble, especially considering that her decision made it look like she was giving her boyfriend favorable treatment.
All that, plus Madeline’s compelling backstory about feeling that her birth mother abandoned her even though the woman felt she had no choice but to give her up for adoption, made this story must-see TV!
Finally, Shaun kept it together despite all the changes at the hospital — until he didn’t.
It’s a lucky thing Glassman is remaining at the hospital to be Salen’s puppet (whatever that’s supposed to mean!) since Shaun will need a lot of support.
The pressure of Salen’s changes plus trying to get the perfect cake for the wedding proved to be too much for him. His meltdown at the hand dryer wasn’t exactly a powerful ending to the hour, but it made sense given everything he was going through.
And from the trailer for The Good Doctor Season 5 Episode 3, it appears Shaun’s difficulty dealing with Salen is going only to get worse.
He’s going to tell her flat-out that she’s wrong.
Now THERE’S the Shaun I know and love who hasn’t been seen since The Good Doctor Season 3!
This may be a similar storyline to Daniel Dae Kim’s character refusing to accept Shaun as part of the team, but either way, it’s compelling and gets The Good Doctor closer to its original premise, which has been lacking lately.
Your turn, The Good Doctor fanatics!
Hit that big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button to share your thoughts about Salen’s changes, the two medical storylines, or Shaun’s difficulty coping.
Missed the episode? No problem. Just watch The Good Doctor online right here on TV Fanatic and then come back to comment.
The Good Doctor airs on ABC on Mondays at 10 PM EST/PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.