I’ve always had an affinity for John Carter, as played by Noah Wyle, from the TV series ER. The night ER premiered on UK television happened to be my very first ED shift as a medical student at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I remember sneaking away to the lounge to watch it. My first ED experience was nothing like Carters but I was hooked.
I went to Chicago to do my elective and saw them filming in the snow in between shifts at Northwestern and when I returned to England to prepare for finals we would gather around the TV trying to make the diagnosis before the medicos on the television. We called it revising, but really it was escaping from the textbooks for a short time.
My interest wained nearer the end of the run. Carter had been through many trials, as had I, but one thing has stuck with me more than anything else. It was something passed down from David Morgenstern (William H. Macy) to Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), and then more importantly from Greene to Carter. That is the basis for this talk. You can read the background here.
This talk was recorded live at DFTB19 in London, England. With the theme of “The Journey” we wanted to consider the journeys our patients and their families go on, both metaphorical and literal.
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