Greevey and Logan discover that a hospital is covering up an accomplished doctor's mistake which resulted in a patient's death. They later find out that the doctor might have been drunk at t... Read allGreevey and Logan discover that a hospital is covering up an accomplished doctor's mistake which resulted in a patient's death. They later find out that the doctor might have been drunk at the time.Greevey and Logan discover that a hospital is covering up an accomplished doctor's mistake which resulted in a patient's death. They later find out that the doctor might have been drunk at the time.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis episode appears to be following cases/incidents:
- The 1984 Libby Zion case. Zion was an 18-year-old woman with a high fever who died six hours after being admitted to New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. A grand jury determined that the long hours of often unsupervised interns and residents contributed to her death. Although her father, an attorney and writer for "The New York Times," claimed inadequate care resulted in his daughter's death, the hospital was cleared of criminal charges. An appeals court exonerated the doctors. The subsequent investigation led New York State to form the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Emergency Services, more commonly known as the Bell Commission. This committee developed a series of regulations that addressed several patient care issues, including restraint usage, medication systems, and resident work hours. One aspect of these regulations is commonly referred to in the medical community as "the Libby Zion Law" or "the Libby Law," which sets limits to working hours for medical "post graduates" (commonly referred to as interns and residents).
- The real-life malpractice lawsuits and other scandals against doctors with alcohol and drug addictions
- The term "impaired physician".
- Quotes
Dr. Edward Auster: You solve every case you work on?
Detective Mike Logan: We can tell a felony from a traffic ticket.
Dr. Edward Auster: Look, a patient walks in with a headache. She could have a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a berry aneurysm, a retro-orbital tumor... or does she just have a headache? Do you give her an aspirin? Or do you saw open her skull?
Sgt. Max Greevey: You make this speech at funerals?
- ConnectionsReferences Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Though not actually the show's pilot episode (the real one was broadcast a few weeks later), Prescription for Death works very well as an introduction to the series: loosely based on a real case, it begins with a young girl being rushed to the hospital, only to die while receiving medical care. Although everyone says it's the kind of stuff that sometimes happens in a hospital, Sergeant Max Greevey (George Dzundza) and Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth) soon begin to suspect something else is in the works, especially after discovering that the on-call surgeon, the well-known and respected Dr. Edward Auster (Paul Sparer), has a habit of showing up at work drunk. The second half of the story focuses on Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) and his assistant Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks) as they try to build a case against Auster, under the guidance of D.A. Adam Schiff (Steven Hill).
With no underlying story arc, the show lives simply on the strength of the storytelling and the characters, and it succeeds in both areas: early episodes of the series were very concerned with social issues, and this investigation of the dark side of medical treatment is rather poignant, albeit with a few touches of typically dry humor (most notably coming from Stone). As for the characters, they are immediately convincing thanks to the obvious chemistry between the two duos - Dzundza-Noth and Moriarty-Brooks - and the contributions from Hill and Dann Florek, who plays Captain Donald Cragen (later seen in the Special Victims Unit spin-off) and is at the center of the one piece of character development we get in the episode: Cragen's own issues with booze help Greevey and Logan decide to arrest Auster.
Also notable is another L&O staple, namely its penchant for talented guest stars who later became household names in film or television: this series opener boasts excellent turns from John Spencer (The West Wing) as the victim's father and Ron Rifkin (Alias) as the defense attorney. With an ensemble like that, what's not to love? And it has stayed this way ever since (well, most of the time). Unmissable.
- MaxBorg89
- Mar 7, 2010