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Alternative Medicine

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Alternative Medicine is the sixth episode of Season 2 and the twenty-fourth overall of Chicago Med. It aired on October 17, 2016.

Summary[]

Dr. Manning tends to a young cancer patient and struggles to inform her parents of her dire condition. Dr. Reese gets contacted by Danny, the troubled young man, and turns to Dr. Charles and Detective Lindsay for help in resolving a difficult situation. Goodwin and Maggie do their best to clear the logjam in the hospital, and Dr. Rhodes fine-tunes his instincts after both Dr. Latham and Dr. Halstead pick up on things he doesn't. A teenage science geek and her friends impress Dr. Choi and Natalie with their bio-engineering lab.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Crossover Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

  • Haley Brooke Walker as Shannon Fisher
  • Mildred Marie Langford as Cynthia Fisher
  • Paul Grondy as Bart Logan
  • Jack Hickey as Henry Collins
  • Armando Carlo IV as Kyle
  • Dennis Bisto as Counter Guy

Plot[]

The episode opens with Dr. Sarah Reese and Joey Thomas walking to the hospital together after disembarking from a bus. Joey is telling Sarah a story about testing an incorrectly-drawn sample, but notices that Sarah is distracted and keeps turning around to look behind them. Sarah tells Joey that she is reasonably sure she saw someone following them from the bus, and asks if Joey saw it, too. She tells Joey she is sure she is being followed. Joey tells her that as a first-year psych resident, she might just be paranoid after reading many disturbing cases. Sarah tells him he's being a little condescending. At the hospital, Maggie Lockwood tells Dr. Natalie Manning that Hayley Kline, a young cancer patient that she has been treating for a long time, has just been readmitted. Hayley suffers from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and has been undergoing chemotherapy. Hayley's parents tell Natalie that Haley has been talking nonsense, and that her eyes are yellow. Dr. Ethan Choi and Natalie order tests, suspecting liver failure which might have caused her brain to swell. Natalie puts in a breathing tube and they take Haley up for tests.

Sharon Goodwin and Maggie discuss the fact that the hospital is currently overcrowded, but Sharon refuses to divert patients to other hospitals. In the corridor, with no rooms available, Dr. Will Halstead is treating a patient, Bart Logan, on a bed in the corridor. Bart is experiencing pain in his belly button. Will notices that the monitor shows Atrial Fibrillation, and asks if he has a history of irregular heartbeat, which he is currently experiencing. Will orders a x-ray and tests, and assures Bart they will get him out as soon as possible. In the cardiac care unit, Dr. Isidore Latham and Dr. Connor Rhodes check on Henry Collins, a patient who has just had surgery. Connor listens to Collins' heart, and assures him all is well, but when Dr. Latham rechecks, he tells the patient that they have to redo his aortic valve replacement. Connor cannot hear the apical systolic murmur in the patient's heartbeat, and Dr. Latham tells him it is subtle, but audible. Dr. Latham schedules an emergency aortic valve takeback, but Connor objects, saying that they need to get an echo to confirm. Dr. Latham tells Connor he is confident the valve will fail, and that if Connor needs confirmation they can do an echo on the table. He leaves to prep for surgery.

In the E.R, Dr. Ethan Choi and April treat Shannon Fisher, a fourteen year old girl with a foreign object in her stomach. Shannon insists she didn't eat anything, and asks if it will just come out eventually because of peristalsis. Dr. Choi is surprised to hear her use the word, but advises Shannon's mother, Cynthia Fisher, that they should perform an endoscopy, with Shannon under sedation, to remove the object. Natalie shows Hayley, her young cancer patient's, test results to Dr. Sam Abrams, a neurosurgeon, who advises surgery. They move Hayley to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and get a CT scan. Natalie tells Hayley's parents that Hayley has acute liver failure causing swelling in the brain. Dr. Sam Abrams tells Hayley's parents that he will do surgery to drain the fluid, and Natalie adds that they will do so with the parents' permission. When Hayley's parents are concerned, Sam tells them it is a bedside procedure that he does frequently. Later, at a food cart, Ethan asks for a non-chicken option, but the vendor does not have any. April asks if he has given up chicken, and Ethan says that since he adopted a parrot, eating birds no longer feels right. Sarah Reese walks past, looking for the person following them earlier, and discovers that it was Danny Jones, one of her former patients that she suspects is being sex trafficked. Danny says he is suicidal but no one can help him. Sarah talks to Dr. Charles who urges her to bring Danny into the clinic. Sarah tells him that she can't, and that Danny trusts her. Dr. Charles tells her she is too emotionally involved, and is heading down a dangerous path. He warns her to back off and pass Danny to another doctor, asking if they are clear. Sarah nods her assent.

Will returns with Bart's labs, and tells him they are slightly off, warranting further testing. Bart is reluctant, but allows Will to keep him at the hospital a little longer. Dr. Latham and Connor take their patient, Henry Collins, to surgery to replace the valve that Dr. Latham correctly diagnosed, and Dr. Leah Bardovi praises Latham's technique. Later in, the elevator, Connor tells Natalie that Latham can hear things that he cannot even detect, and Natalie tells Connor that Latham has an amazing ear in music as well (Natalie and Latham occasionally play music together). Connor tells her about the Henry Collins diagnosis, and how he didn't detect it. Natalie tells him that it isn't just innate, and that Izzy (i.e. Dr. Latham) worked very hard to develop his skills.

Dr. Choi completes his endoscopy and pulls out a curious metal object from Shannon Fisher, their fourteen year old patient's, stomach. Shannon tells them that it is a prototype for a robot that she made. It is intended to be swallowed to clear intestinal blockages, and she needs it back. When Ethan points out that it actually caused an intestinal blockage, Shannon admits that her prototype might need some more work. With some prodding from her mother, Shannon tells Ethan and Natalie that she is a 'body hacker' and her friend, Kyle and Jen are 'biohackers,' who design devices to help medical diagnoses in her basement. Shannon's mother, Natalie and Ethan warn Shannon against experimenting on herself, telling her it is risky. They return the device to Shannon's mother. Later, Natalie asks if they should report the kid and Ethan tells her it isn't illegal, but shares his concern. Meanwhile, Maggie attempts to clear the backlog, and finds that there is a room that doctors are refusing to use, calling it the 'Red Room' after several patients have died there. Maggie tries to get Connor to move his patient into the empty Red Room, but he also declines, to her surprise. Maggie asks Connor to put her in touch with Keoni, who owns a Hawaiian bar that Connor frequents. Will tells Bart, his patient, that tests show that a section of his bowel has died, and that he needs immediate surgery and cannot leave.

In the PICU, Natalie watches as Sam completes the draining of fluid from Hayley's brain. Sam tells Natalie that they are still in the Dark Ages as far as treating such cancers go, and shakes head at the situation, especially as it involves a pediatric patient. Natalie tells Hayley's parents that while it is too soon to tell, Hayley may need a liver transplant. Will asks Connor to operate on his patient, but Connor tells him that the tests are inconclusive, and the symptoms are not conclusive for his diagnosis. Will insists that he felt a portion of the bowel die in his hands. Connor tells Will that he would normally say no, but after what he saw with Latham today, he decides to go ahead with the surgery. In surgery, Connor finds there is a significant portion of dead bowel, and that Will was right. Meanwhile, as Shannon Fisher leaves, she waves a box containing her prototype at Ethan Choi.

Natalie goes to speak with Dr. Charles and tells him that she did something she shouldn't have. She tells Dr. Charles she told Hayley's parents that she had a chance with a liver transplant, but that in reality, Hayley has a very bad prognosis. She is concerned that she gave them false hope after getting her feelings in the way in her desire for Haley to recover. Dr. Charles tells her not to blame herself and the line is hard to draw between caring for the patient and caring too much. Natalie thanks him. Dr. Charles goes to talk to Sarah and tells him a story about a former patient of his, when he was in private practice. He tells Sarah about treating a young woman, who was a musician, suffering from depression. Dr. Charles tells her how he bonded with the patient, but was devastated when she committed suicide. He says he went over the case over and over, asking himself what he could have done differently, and eventually left his private practice and went into emergency psychiatry, swearing never to get involved again. He tells Sarah that he was wrong to tell her she was too involved, but that she should still see Danny inside a clinical setting and not outside the hospital, especially since there is a risk with his involvement in trafficking. Sarah and Dr. Charles go to see Erin Lindsay, a detective, about what they can do help Danny escape. Lindsay tells them it will be difficult, but that if Sarah can convince him to approach the police, then they should let her know. She warns Sarah that if Danny's traffickers find out, they might kill him, so she needs to be very careful.

Sarah meets Danny outside, in an alleyway, and tells him that she can prescribe medication for the depression. She also tells Danny that he might not be depressed in himself, but because of his circumstances. She asks if Danny would want to leave, and he tells her he can't, and that they will hurt her. He tells her he is addicted to heroin. Sarah tells him that they can help with the heroin addiction and remove the tracking device, but Danny panics, telling her it was a bad idea to talk with her, and runs away.

At the hospital, Dr. Sam Abrams calls Natalie to see Hayley, her cancer patient, and they tell Hayley's parents that her brainstem has been affected by the swelling in her brain. Hayley experiences Cushing’s reflex and crashes, and despite their efforts to revive her, dies. Hayley's parents give them permission to stop attempts to revive her, and Natalie leaves them to grieve, crying. Ethan Choi goes to Shannon's house, to visit her home basement lab, and is let in by Shannon's mother. Shannon's mother tells him that she had to give back the prototype. Later, Ethan finds Natalie sitting outside, crying, and comforts Natalie, who tells him that she did everything she could and it wasn't enough. Ethan tells her about Shannon's lab, and the amazing things that they are doing: making affordable tech, bio-engineering meat, and so on. He tells her that they are doing things in a basement that ten years ago could only be done in a hospital or university lab and that she should go see it, as it will make her feel better. Ethan tells Natalie that when they find the cure for cancer, it might come out of a lab like that. Natalie goes to see Shannon's basement lab, and asks who is supervising their work. Shannon runs her through their safety protocols and tells her that their biology teacher is nominally supervising but that she doesn't understand what they are working on. Shannon and her friend Kyle show Natalie a slice of apple implanted with Hela cells, made by them. Natalie tells them she was a science geek too, and would have killed to have a lab like theirs. She asks them what they think of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and if they would like to give it a shot. Shannon smiles and nods.

In the E.R., Keoni, Connor's friend and the owner of a Hawaiian bar, meets Maggie and Connor at the so-called Red Room that doctors refuse to use for superstitious reasons. He tells them it doesn't have a 'healing atmosphere' and when Maggie asks if he can fix it, Keoni says yes and enters the room, closing the curtains behind him. When Connor expresses doubts about the efficacy of Keoni's kahuna (spiritual abilities), Maggie points out that people who believe a room can be cursed don't have much space to be critical of such things. Keoni tells them that the room is clear and Maggie tells the doctors that she is now going to use it for patients. Later, Connor asks Keoni if really believes that the room was cleared. Keoni says he does, but it is physics, not spirituality. Keoni tells Connor that sound vibrations imprint on inanimate objects, changing them, and that while this can't be erased, it can be written over.

Just then, Danny Jones is brought into the hospital with a self-inflicted wound. Ethan, who is attending to him, pages Sarah after Danny asks for her. Ethan tells her that Danny cut himself, and Danny says he tried to cut out the tracking chip that his traffickers had implanted. He tells Sarah that he wants to escape, and asks for her help. Ethan removes the chip and hands it over to Sarah, who in turn drops it into a flowing puddle outside the hospital, where it washes away.

Connor tells Will that their patient, Mr. Logan is doing well and asking when he can go home. He asks Will how he could be so sure with his diagnosis. Will tells Connor that as a student he had a doctor with great hands who could detect conditions by touch, and that they don't make doctors like that anymore. Connor says he thinks he knows one more such doctor. Connor tells Will that if he knew how much didn't know before, he wouldn't have become a doctor, and Will says no one would. They wish each other good night. Will goes to meet the doctor he had told Will about, Dr. Rowan, who is now suffering from dementia. He brings her flowers, and chats to her. She doesn't recall being his teacher, but he tells her she was the best. He tells her that what she taught him saved a man's life, and thanks her. She holds his hand and tells him he's welcome.

Dr. Latham leaves the hospital, and Connor is about to follow him about, but instead returns to the hospital library to study, listening to audio files of heart conditions. Maggie and Sharon go out to Molly's, and Natalie stays at Shannon's lab, working with the students. Sarah stays in the hospital with Danny, talking to him.

Gallery[]

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