Watching ER

Show starts out with Neela talking about how the hardest thing about being a doctor isn’t being lonely or the long hours – it’s “something else”. She lying in bed and gets a phone call from Ray at 5 am. She’s actually at the hospital and on call. It’s Ray’s birthday apparently. Her pager keeps going off and she goes to see the girl from last week who has sickle cell anemia. She’s getting sicker and may need her gall bladder taken out. Neela wants her transferred to the PICU. She did a fortune for Neela and she said that she’ll be “back soon” to hear the fortune.

Neela’s overview then says that the hardest thing is making a decision quickly. She apparently has a different idea about how to treat the girl but doesn’t voice out loud. She races downstairs to the ER and sees Dr. Banfield giving herself an injection. She gets snagged by Gates to help treat a patient who is a “dream running” – he acts out what he dreams about instead of sitting still, like most people do.

Sam gives Gates back the Blackhawk tickets and tells him that it’s okay if he goes and takes someone else. He says that he doesn’t want to go with anyone else.

Jerry takes Morris outside and shows him that he’s revived his father’s motorcycle – it looks amazing. Jerry tells him that it belongs to him and Morris starts it up, with Jerry telling him to “keep the shiny side up”. He runs straight into a garbage container!

Neela is beginning surgery on the young sickle cell girl and says that she cancelled her interview.

Down in the ER, Dr. Banfield is having hot flashes while they’re treating the dream runner. Sam says that she has to go and shows up upstairs with Neela’s patient taking over the anesthesiologist’s spot because she’s doing her rotation. Suddenly the patient wakes up, sits up, and screams when she sees her stomach!

The rest of the recap is below!

The anesthesiologist is back and he was the one who made the mistake – he forgot to tell Sam to turn something back up. The dream runner needs a surgeon but they can’t go down because they’re taking care of the girl. Dr. Banfield wants to give the patient an angio and is arguing with Gates – he tells his girlfriend that in his dreams, she’s “always the girl” and his heart starts to fail.

Back up in the OR the girl goes into Vtach.

Banfield’s in the angio room and they’re shocking the dream running patient. Morris sees that his belly is full of blood. Gates goes into the OR to get Neela and she reluctantly leaves Dubenko doing CPR on the girl and rushes down to the dream runner. Just as she gets there, Banfield calls it.

Morris and Banfield are arguing – she says that she wishes she could do it over but there was “no way to know” if there was belly in the blood. Morris says that she still doesn’t fit in because they’re a team and work together, but that Banfield thinks that she’s better and so she won’t let herself be a part of their ER. She throws her pass to Jerry and asks him to turn it into human resources and tells Neela that she’s going home.

She throws her phone and Simon walks up – he just returned from Australia. She tells him that it’s been a horrible day – that she’s helped kill 2 patients.

Back from commercial and Neela’s back in the same bed, and once again it’s 5:04 am and the phone is ringing. And it’s Ray – again – we’re reliving the day over again. Back with the sickle cell girl again and this time she speaks up to Dubenko and tells him that she could die on the table and asks him to move her to the PICU and to do a different course of treatment for a day. He says that it’s a good idea and that they’ll do it.

Neela goes down to the ER – having an odd conversation with a transport specialist while she’s at it, and this time actually asks Banfield what she’s doing. She tells Neela that she’s trying to get pregnant. She says that the drugs are making her a “bitch” and that everything is getting on her nerves.

Banfield: “Maybe I should quit.”
Neela: “Oh no – don’t be silly”

Jerry catches Neela she’s needed for a trauma and Banfield says that she heard that Neela is interviewing for another position – that Dubenko has been complaining about her leaving. Neela is surprised because she says he set up all the interviews and Banfield says that “that’s the game”.

We’re in the trauma room hearing the dream runner explain his condition again to Nela and Tony. This time Sam doesn’t get the chance to give him the tickets and instead just says “I’ve got something to give you later”. They’re doing an ultrasound on the patient and Neela runs down to the PICU to do rounds where she sees the girl again. Her oxygen level’s a bit low still and the mom goes to talk to Neela. They’re waiting to see if her immune system will conquer the infection.

Dubenko and Neela are talking and she says that she’s thinking of canceling the interview, but Dubenko says that he’ll take over the patient. She says that she doesn’t understand why Dubenko is pushing for her to do other interviews but why he seems to want her to stay but has never asked. He says “we can’t have this discussion until you’ve seen what’s out there. Go.”

Gates and Neela meet at the convenience store. She says that she feels bad that Gates and Sam have broken up. She repeats what the guy on the elevator told her – “inaction is in and of itself action”.

Her cell phone falls and once again Simon picks it up and she’s much happier to see him this time. She says that she’s not sure what she wants in her life and he responds that she doesn’t need to know where she’s going, but that she just has to keep moving forward. This time we see Jerry driving on the motorcycle.

Neela heads to her interview and opens the door to find Dr. Corday!

She explains that she loved England for awhile but that she got the call from Duke and realized that she missed the US. Ella is now 8 and Corday shows her a quick pic, but we don’t really get to see it.
Corday starts to interview Neela and her beeper goes off. She says that she doesn’t think County’s really in her future. Corday says that County’s an amazing place and that it made her the person that she is and changed her life. She said that she considered going back, but that there is “something to be said for getting away from the place that you trained”. The beeper goes off again and she says she has to leave. She tells Dr. Corday to come by and visit County sometime.

Gates tries to talk to Sam but a nurse interrupts him because he’s got to intubate the Dream Runner guy. Banfield wants angio again but Gates disagrees.

Neela is running back and Debunko is at the hospital intubating the young girl. Morris is at the elevator arguing with Banfield and asks for Neela’s opinion as she’s running up the stairs. She says to get a CT and Banfield says to “take him to the scanner”.

She gets to the young girls’ from as Debunko is doing CPR on her and the nurse gets a call that there’s a full arrest at the scanner from “some guy who jumped through a window”. It’s the Dream Runner and he’s dead. Neela keeps doing CPR on the girl into commercial.

And we’re BACK in the bed again – at 5:04 am – with Neela answering the phone for Ray once again. Debunko and Neela are once again checking out the girl and this time Neela gives Debunko a different idea about treating the girl – a different type of treatment that is less invasive. She avoids the elevators this time and hits the stairs. She ignores Banfield’s shot scene and is helping to treat the Dream Runner patient. This time Gates brings up the tickets and asks if it’s okay for him to take Alex. Sam says that she’ll think about it.

A test that Neela did – an old one – shows that the Dream Runner has internal bleeding and that he’ll need surgery.

Jerry grabs Morris to show him the motorcycle but we cut to Neela in a treatment room with Debunko and the girl. He aspirates and they get the puss-stuff out of the girl and then tells Neela to go to the interviews. She says she can’t leave, but he tells her to go – and how he hopes, once she’s gone, that she’ll decide to stay at County. She’d get to be an assistant professor with full benefits. That she’ll get an official offer in a few weeks. He says that whatever happens “you’ll have a backup plan here.” But still advises her to go. She does.

She runs into Gates in the ambulance bay and tells him to repeat the ultrasound on Dream Runner guy to stay ahead of the blood loss. This time a garbage guy whacks into her and Simon again picks up her phone, but she says she can’t talk because she’s late. Morris is looking at his bike and Simon asks if they can borrow it. He brings Neela to the interview and he says that he missed being there when he was in Australia. That he missed her. They almost ksis and Simon tells her that she needs to go. She says, before she goes in, that she missed him too…”a little”.

Back at County, Sam and Gates are checking the patient’s belly again with ultrasound. He tells Sam to hang 2 units of blood and to call the OR again.

Corday and Neela are walking through the lobby and Corday says that Neela should go visit Duke. Simon’s in the lobby and gets introduced to Corday briefly. Corday, it sounds like, offered Neela the position. Simon shows Neela a card and it’s to a hotel room! The two head up there and go at it.

The Dream Runner is crashing because the OR says that it’s going to be 45 minutes before they get him into the OR. The show alternates between scenes of Simon and Neela and shocking the Dream Runner. Banfield says that it’s enough, and she says that she’s going to take care of the problem herself, as she cuts into the patient to fix the problem.

Banfield is trying to clamp the aorta and eventually does, as Neela’s running back to County. She gets into the OR just as they shock his heart back. She takes him upstairs and Tony and Sam start talking in the room – she says that Alex would love to go to the Hawks game with Tony, and thanks him.
Neela checks on the girl again and this time gets her fortune. The fortune is “your actions are the seeds of fate.”

Once again it’s 5:04, and the phone is going off. Neela wakes up and the show goes off to the song “Mad World”.

Watch the full ER episode.