‘The Good Doctor’ Recap: A New Chief Of Surgery Is Named At St. Bonaventure
We’ve been waiting all season to see who Dr. Andrews would name as his replacement as Chief Of Surgery — Melendez or Lim? Find out in our ‘Good Doctor’ recap!
The Good Doctor picks up where we left off last week, after Dr. Glassman struggles to recall Shaun’s brother’s name. Now, in the hospital, Shaun asks Glassman to give him his drivers license and threatens to call the DMV if he doesn’t oblige. Glassman reluctantly hands it over. We’re then introduced to the first patient of the day named George, who is assigned to Melendez, Claire and Morgan. They believe George could be having a stroke due to his injections of medication for what he says is “Atypical hyperplasia.” However, when looking at his MRI, Claire realizes he doesn’t have Hyperplasia, and suggests he could be transitioning, as that is what the medication is sometimes used for. When Morgan and Claire approach George about his medication, he reveals that he is on the injections to decrease his sex drive. “It’s all I think about, it’s all I can think about. I can’t work, I can’t socialize,” he says. The medication is the only thing that makes George “tolerable.” However, Claire figures out that the only reason George’s specific medication would be prescribed would be if he was having deviant sexual thoughts, AKA, thoughts about children. When she goes to find him, she realizes he’s already left the hospital.
Shaun and Dr. Park’s patient Billy is a juvenile delinquent who is in the hospital with a collapsed lung and beat up face after getting in a fight. He also has a large indent on his forehead due to a pre-existing condition. Dr. Park asks Billy if he wants them to fix his forehead when they fix his eye, but Shaun quickly says that isn’t a good idea, and that they should only fix the injuries Billy came in with. Outside of the hospital room, Park asks Shaun if he has any empathy for Billy — an emotion we know Shaun struggles with due to his autism. Shaun is on a mission to find out whether empathy is something he needs to be a good doctor.
George returns with severe lacerations to his scrotum and it’s revealed that he did it to himself, since the medicine to keep him somewhat sane was going to kill him. He asks for Claire and Morgan to finish the job, and says he’s never acted on his urges, but he doesn’t trust himself, especially around his sister’s children. Morgan argues to Melendez that they should go through with the castration, while Claire says it’s not their job and they can only do a psych evaluation. In front of Dr. Andrews, who is observing him for the Chief of Surgery job, Melendez says they can’t remove healthy organs, and to patch George up and give him referrals. When Claire tells George, he refuses care and says to let him rot. However, he is in insane pain without medication.
Shaun and Park find that Billy needs emergency surgery on his diaphragm and is still struggling to breathe. In surgery, Park tries to convince Dr. Lim to allow them to fix Billy’s forehead, but Shaun jumps in to say it’s not economical, adding that it would be giving Billy special treatment, over typical patients. Dr. Lim agrees, and then looks up to see Dr. Andrews watching over her surgery and taking notes.
Lim approaches Melendez to ask if they can band together to tell Andrews to back off and let them do their jobs, but Melendez refuses, saying he doesn’t want to hurt his chances of becoming Chief.
Post-surgery, Park and Shaun find out from Billy that his head was bashed in by his abusive father, who him with a baseball bat. Back in surgery to fix his eye, Shaun suggests putting a breast implant into Billy’s forehead, and adds because they’re already in surgery it would be economical.
Melendez stands up to an over-bearing Andrews and asks him to leave him alone when he’s deciding whether to intervene in George’s pain — using Lim’s argument as his own. He, Claire and Morgan come up with a plan to put George in the morgue to ride out his pain until it knocks him unconscious. Then, they will perform surgery. They realize George is septic before going into surgery and rush to find out what’s going on before opening him up. In the OR, Lim bursts in, furious at Melendez for using her argument to stand up to Dr. Andrews, but Melendez fires back that she didn’t have the guts to say it herself, which is why he will be a better Chief. Yikes.
In Billy’s OR, he starts to loose his pulse as the doctor’s put the implant in his head. He is without a pulse for quite some time until Shaun puts in a pacemaker. In the other OR, Melendez realizes that George needs all the testosterone he can get to heal his body, and says he cannot remove his testicles, as was planned. Claire promises to help George get help after his surgery, and he seems to be grateful and understand.
Andrews calls everyone into his office to announce who he has chosen to the be the new Chief of Surgery. Lim and Melendez face off as the residents have a jar full of betting money to hand off to whichever resident guessed correctly. Shockingly (or, not so shockingly) Andrews reveals he will remain Chief of Surgery, and Shaun wins the jar of money — of course!
Lea helps Shaun learn how to drive and compares driving to his surgeries. While he freaks out the first run at an intersection, the next day they go out again and he takes the turn. However, a soccer ball rolls in front of the car which puts Shaun into a panic and he crashes into a trashcan. “Becoming a surgeon is about way more than operating,” Lea says, calming him down. He begins to realize that he can make mistakes, like he sometimes does in surgery, but he always picks up his surgical tools again and continues. Shaun excitedly gets back in the car and continues to drive.
When Billy wakes up from surgery, he is in tears looking at him new face. As he thanks Shaun, Shaun informs him it was a mistake to do the implant, since he almost died on the table because of it. “You saved his life, Shaun,” Park assures him.
Claire goes to George’s room to check on him and finds him missing. She and Morgan run outside to find him and see George across the street at the bus stop. As Claire calls his name, he looks at her and then steps in front of the moving bus as Morgan and Claire look on in horror. “This isn’t the way this should have ended, but I’m not so sure the world is a worse place than it was a couple of hours ago,” Morgan says to a traumatized Claire.
Shaun pulls up to Glassman’s house with Lea and chauffeurs him to his radiation appointment, and it’s adorable! Next Monday is the mid-season finale of The Good Doctor, so make sure you tune in at 10 PM ET!