'New Amsterdam' fans want the show to have a reality check for its 'unrealistic' treatment of medical scenarios
'New Amsterdam' is an NBC medical drama based on the book by Eric Manheimer named 'Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital'. The series, that was off to a successful season one, takes a new age look at medical science and how doctors go through their day to day activities in a hospital while trying to save lives at all costs.
The series was created by David Schulner and revolves around Dr. Max Goodwin (played by Ryan Eggold) who has been given the position of the medical director in one of United States' oldest hospitals. Dr. Max is the perfect portrayal of how doctors should be in reality. He thinks about the hospital first even before he considers his own family and health.
While some fans are falling in love with the medical drama series, some are upset about the unrealistic portrayal of doctors. Many TV shows have been based on hospitals, doctors and patients. Some like 'Grey's Anatomy' get into medical science and have a huge fan following while others like 'The Resident' focus on the lives of doctors and politics in the hospital.
'New Amsterdam' meanwhile, has some impossible scenes that are drawing flak from fans. Take, for example, one of the episodes in season one where a kid comes in for a heart transplant. This episode, in particular, had many fans question how impractical a show could get in displaying something that will never be a possibility in real life.
The kid was brought in by his parents unconscious and Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) says he needs a heart transplant. The parents don't have enough money so Dr. Floyd suggests the parents get a divorce. This will allow the mother and son to get health insurance coverage as she is unemployed. They, however, refuse to do so as it will go against their religious beliefs where divorce is considered a sin. One fan tweeted, "Getting frustrated watching this episode of 'New Amsterdam' where they create a crisis out of nowhere for a Catholic family on divorce and Medicaid and I think I'm starting to imagine how lawyers must feel watching 'Scrubs' or doctors watching 'Grey's Anatomy'."
The fake crisis and its poor handling drew a lot of criticism. Fans also complained about the show's saintly portrayal of doctors, when in reality doctors are not so concerned about the patients or the hospital.
"There are, unfortunately, doctors who game the system, and who care more about money than about helping people, though they are outliers. There are also patients who are rightfully frustrated and angry due to negative or harmful encounters with these doctors. But in 'New Amsterdam', valid critiques of the incentives that allow bad actors to enter (and flourish in) medicine are supplanted by vague fearmongering and outlandish claims; scapegoating all doctors means overlooking the real, serious flaws in the health-care system," a fan shared on Reddit.
Another absurd episode that made fans question the reality of doctors and surgeries in 'New Amsterdam' was in episode 17. The city was stuck in a massive snowstorm which resulted in a city-wide power cut. The hospital's generator was supposed to turn on automatically but due to the intensity of the weather, all the electric equipment was frozen and had to be manually restarted.
There was one patient admitted with a snow icicle that had gone through his chest and had lost excessive blood. They had to do immediate heart surgery without any mechanical equipment due to the power cut. The surprising element in this scene is that the doctor was performing heart surgery on the patient without anesthesia and in the middle of the procedure, he wakes up. Fans went wild with tweets regarding how unrealistic the show is when it came to surgeries. "Heart surgery without anesthesia!? That doesn’t sound pleasant. At all. #NewAmsterdam"
Despite all this, the show still has many fans looking forward to seeing what happens next in season two which airs on September 25, 2019, on NBC.