'Chicago Med' Season 5 Episode 14: Is Natalie responsible for turning her abuse victim patient into a killer?
In this week's episode of 'Chicago Med', a woman who was involved in a car accident is brought in. Dr Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) and Dr Crockett Marcel (Dominic Rains) are working on the woman when the woman's husband is brought in. Marcel goes to look at the husband while Natalie continues to treat the woman.
On examining the woman, Natalie notices other bruises that look older. When she asks the woman if someone did it to her, the woman says she just fell. Natalie immediately suspects that the woman was abused by her husband and lets Crockett know.
Meanwhile, on looking at the husband, Crockett diagnoses that the man's leg needs to be amputated and wants to take the wife's consent. However, Natalie does not believe the woman — who says she wants to wait for her husband to wake up so he can make his own decision — is in the right state of mind to make the decision.
Crockett disagrees and the two go to the ethics committee for a decision. The committee decides in Natalie's favor and Crockett has to go ahead with the amputation surgery.
Meanwhile, Natalie speaks to the woman who is terrified that her husband will blame her for losing his leg and will seek to retaliate. The woman is clearly terrified and when Natalie leaves her alone with her husband for a while, she turns off her husband's life support system.
The woman is arrested and it is clear that Natalie is disturbed by the situation. When she speaks to Crockett afterward, he calls the surgery a waste. Appalled by his statement, she reprimands him.
However, he says that an abuse victim being hauled off to jail is a lousy outcome and that if they had listened to her, the husband would have died anyway.
Was Natalie right in what she did? As with all decisions that Natalie makes, her decisions seem right when looked at one way, but it is clear that she does not consider the big picture and only sees a narrow view of what is right and what isn't.
In this instance, Natalie failed to consider the situation from the woman's position and the situation got ugly.
A similar situation happened in an earlier episode with Will's patient when she called in Child Protective Services (CPS) for the patient's kid — causing the patient to leave the hospital, overdose and die.
Will Natalie continue to make such decisions or will there be a moment of reckoning come for her? The situation seems quite likely and we only hope Natalie knows what she is doing.
'Chicago Med' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.