'You don't pay off a debt in gift-cards'

The gift card thing was interesting, although it might have had more impact if it had come later and we knew more about the character. I don't think Silverman is in the main credits, I thought I saw last night he was in the credits as a guest star. I wonder how long he'll be around?

I'll give you my opinion on the "teaching hospital" question. The easy answer is no and that covers most of the cases. In the example you gave someone would choose to go to a beauty school to get it for free. People don't choose a teaching hospital so they can see a free doctor. However, there are a number of teaching hospitals that provide care at little or no cost to people with low or no incomes. E.R. was set in the fictional "County Hospital" that would treat anyone, without regard for ability to pay. Hospitals like this will still bill patients but there are some that they expect to never get money from. (I'm not going to get into the whole issue of all hospitals having to provide emergency care.)

I have heard of Dental schools that have free walk-in services for training purposes. There may also be free medical clinics that have interns or residents but that's not what the episode was about. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, in all those instances there has to be a licensed physician (dentist) present to supervise.

When talking about a resident, which is what the doctor was in this case, she is a licensed physician. She would have graduated medical school and passed the board to become an MD. She is now specializing in Neurosurgery which requires many additional years of training, hands on training, just like what is depicted. I was waiting for the shoe to drop and we find out that the attending wasn't present for the actual procedure which would be a big no no.

One thing I like so far is that we are seeing people with different personalities but they didn't try to shoe-horn in some deep dark secret with every single cast member. Too many new shows try to saddle every character with some big burden from the very beginning instead of revealing them over time as the show and characters develop. The only big issues we've seen after 2 episodes is Park's language issues and Tyler's ongoing meltdown.

Uberlim,

"Also is being treated in "teaching hospitals" like having your hair done for free by students in hairdressing schools ?"

Okay, I have to admit this made me smile. For some women, a bad hair cut/do could be a lot worse.

From my experience working in teaching hospitals, these students (med students and interns) order more labs, tests, and procedures than most attendings. Students are more afraid of missing something than concern about the hospital's bottom line. They would hover in groups discussing every possible cause for every result then start more test to eliminate every possible diagnosis. I am surprised we did not have to do transfusion to replace blood taken for labs. And there is always an attending somewhere that is bottom line responsible and a nurse in the wings waiting to call him.

I'm not sure how things operate since Big Business took over the hospitals, but there was a time when the patient was more important than the hospital's bottom line.


Take a chance, flip a coin, everything is 50/50

I'd take hard cash over gift-cards any day.

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Trust me, I'm a doctor.

I think it depends on the teaching hospital, not all offer the same level of care or consideration. I had my appendix removed at a teaching hospital, and while the surgery itself went fine, the scar was unusually bad because of sloppy suture work. I learned to suture from a veterinarian and I can do much better than that idiot who sewed me up. They didn't decide to do surgery until 5 different interns had given me pelvic exams, and to me that was extremely excessive.

The same hospital treated me a few years later and one of the tests ordered was an LP (spinal tap). I do not know how many times that intern stuck that needle in my back; I stopped counting at 17 and I know there were a lot more.