School shootings were one theme of the March 10 episode of NBC’s New Amsterdam, but with a bit of a twist.
Instead of a plotline about a school shooting, it revolved around students traumatized by an active shooter drill at their school. One of the students, Danica, gets referred to New Amsterdam shrink Dr. Iggy Frome. She is so traumatized she never wants to return to the school.
In the drill, a friend of hers had been “shot” and she can’t stop seeing the image in her head, even once she knew it wasn’t real. Frome goes to the school principal to explain that this type of drill can cause the same PTSD symptoms as a real shooting because it induces real fears. He encourages them to use other means to prepare their students for a potential shooting and holds an assembly to help the children acknowledge their fears and open up to each other, to parents and teachers to help let go of those fears.
The only real surprise was that the very liberal Dr. Frome didn’t go on a gun control crusade over the matter. His views about gun policy were never stated, only implied.
And later on, in a counseling session with Danica he apologizes for all the adults who haven’t solved the “problem.”
Dr. Frome: I'm just, I’m really sorry. For all us adults making you kids deal with this problem rather than fixing it ourselves. That's not fair.
Danica (with sarcasm): Yeah, we've received your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.
Dr. Frome: But you know what gives me hope?
Danica: What?
Dr. Frome: You. You and your whole generation. You blow me away. You're already taking on the big issues way better than us.
Danica: No pressure.
In the same episode (“Perspective”), the hospital, Dr. Max Goodwin, Dr. Floyd Reynolds and Dr. Lauren Bloom were all sued for the wrongful death of a patient. The patient was a white supremacist who had released a botulism toxin at a Middle Eastern street fair that nearly killed seven people.
Dr. Reynold’s fiancee Evie takes depositions from each of the doctors to learn if the hospital was responsible. The most tense interview is between the couple, when Evie interviews Floyd. She turns off her tape recorder to ask if he made the decision to do a more invasive procedure before or after learning the man was a white nationalist. He refused to answer the question.
Ultimately, Evie concludes the hospital was not really to blame for the embolism that caused the man’s death mid-surgery, but she encourages them to settle the lawsuit because each doctor could be torn apart on the witness stand.
Afterwards, Evie confronts her fiance for not telling her the whole truth even when he didn’t do anything wrong.
Floyd finally tells her the entire story, admitting he knew the patient was the terrorist who attacked the street fair and that he spoke angrily in the operating room in front of his colleagues about saving him. But he had immediately regretted his attitude, apologized to his fellow doctors and said they would all do their jobs and do them well. Then the doctors did their best but the embolism killed him while they were operating.
Floyd explained he didn’t want her and others to know because he was ashamed by his outburst because he has always tried to be a doctor without any prejudice.
