From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 23:10:14 MST
Just when I was about to give up on Michael
Crichton, he comes up with a plethora of terrific
scripts this season. First there was Dr. Ramano's
little run-in with the helicopter {which I have been
asked to not talk about}, now a terrific little subplot
about an extropian medical student named Dr. Nathan,
a 40-something medical student with Parkinson's
disease, who is taking a rotation thru the ER.
A 26 year old patient has an incurable and fatal
genetic disease which has destroyed her lungs.
Dr. Carter has given her no hope. She is tired
of being sick and has signed a Do Not Recussitate
order. Dr. Nathan, the Parkinson's aflicted
med student, brings flowers to the dying patient,
then gives her a pep talk. He convinces her to
keep fighting, much to the dismay of Carter, who
is the resident and Nathan's boss. Carter calls
Nathan into an adjoining room for an ass chewing:
Carter: What are you doing?
Nathan: She didn't have all the facts.
Carter: Do you know what it will take just to keep
her alive until transplant? If she even qualifies
for a transplant? And we can find a suitable match?
Nathan: It's not worth it? When there is a shot
at a cure?
Carter: She's suffocating, thet's her reality.
Nathan: There are a lot of realities. Stem cell
research is a reality.
Carter: Stem cells?
Nathan: Its coming. Whether the government approves
it or not, its coming, you know that. Embryonic stem
cells can be used to grow any tissue in the human body.
Carter: What, you told her that we could grow her
a new lung?
Nathan: She's got a genetic disease. Stem cells can
fix the defect at the genetic level.
Carter: Ya, maybe in fifty years.
Nathan: Five years. The science is there in five
years if we get past all the political posturing.
Carter: Do you know what it took for her to face
her mortality?
Nathan: I think I do.
Carter: For me to convince her father to accept it?
Nathan: Oh so this is about YOUR time?
Carter: No, this is about you. Going in there
with your own agenda, and giving her false hope.
Nathan: Its not false hope.
Carter: The flowers were an interesting touch.
Nathan: You gave her ten minutes.
Carter: There is such a thing as dying with dignity.
Nathan: Every time a woman goes for in vitro, harvests
eggs, there are extra blastocysts.
Carter: I know the issues, but shes suffering. She doesn't
care about politics.
Nathan: Its the politics that are killing her. MI in one,
cured, all heart disease gone. Cancer in four, Alzheimers
disease, cured. The spinal cord injury this morning, cured.
Carter: Parkinson's disease?
Nathan: We are out of business, pal.
Carter: I would really like to believe that.
Nathan: Pack up all this crap and haul it away.
Carter: I would really like to believe in miracles. She's
dying, Nathan. The only question is, how well.
Nathan: She's 26 years old. There IS NO dying well.
You're giving up. {Nathan walks away}
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