Holby City: Wise old heads

(Series 15, ep.29) Is Serena trying to get rid of Ric Griffin? Is that why she’s banished one of Holbyshire’s leading general surgeons to the reservoir of surplus emergency cases that is known as AAU, which everyone keeps insisting is a “young man’s game”? She needs to be careful he doesn’t have her for constructive dismissal if that’s her plan. She claims his emergency medicine skills are “outdated.” This would be because he’s a consultant general surgeon. Honestly, it makes no sense, it really doesn’t.

His comfort zone is very much the operating theatre, so he spent much of the episode there trying to hide from AAU (where someone yells “Mr Griffin!” literally every three seconds) by performing a laparotomy at the same time as an emergency procedure on a patient. It made clinical sense, and it also bought him a bit of quiet time away from the hurly burly of bedpans and puke. He also found time for a little bit of brain surgery, which obviously was excellent fun for him, but didn’t go down well with Serena. “It’s not an AAU procedure,” she said. Well, no, but Ric follows in the proud tradition of Linden Cullen and Michael Spence in doing stuff on AAU that’s ever so slightly a bit too risky for AAU, and therefore he’s a better fit for the Ward of Doom than Serena perhaps anticipated.  

Speaking of Michael Spence, his current gig is on Keller, where the collision of two of the biggest egos in the NHS (his and The Malick’s) provided excellent entertainment. Malick wanted to impress cute new F1 Dominic Copeland (David Ames) and invited him to observe a procedure “that I, The Malick, will perform in Mr Griffin’s absence.” He was usurped by the higher power of Michael Spence, tucking into sushi (brought by Digby) and channelling his inner Mr Miyagi (“I’m the clinical lead. Wax on, wax off”) in his mentoring style.

As an aside, is cute new F1 Dominic Copeland turning Malick’s head away from the lovely Nathan? It looks like it. Maybe our Antoine isn’t quite ready to settle down and meet his other half’s mother just yet.

Dr Oliver Valentine continued to express his grief over Tara via the medium of looking moody and being horrible to Prof Elliot Hope. His grief is so profound that it’s beyond the scope of the usual hospital counsellor to deal with it, and Ollie was pencilled in for a meeting with psychiatric doctor Sharon Kozinsky (Madeleine Potter). He didn’t bother to turn up, but she appeared on Darwin anyway, because his heart patient needed a bit of psychiatric input as he was convinced the heart that had been transplanted in him was evil and had to be removed. Ollie failed to mention this bit of information to Dr K, with the inevitable result that the patient attempted the procedure himself with a lump of broken glass. Ouch. Dr K reported the whole thing to Hanssen, and both Ollie and Elliott are in hot water with The Boss (Hanssen, not Bruce Springsteen, who couldn’t give a hoot, frankly).

Did Oliver thank Elliot for attempting to stand up for him and protect him? Nuh-uh. Walked straight past him at the end of the shift. I know the lad has to mourn and so on, but I do hope he sorts himself out soon and gets back to being a little bit flirty/scared with Jac, doing the big-eyes thing as opposed to the blank-eyes thing and producing amusing one-liners.

The episode ended on a philosophical note, with old-timers Ric and Elliot sitting outside, pondering the skies above Borehamwood, the Hollywood of Hertfordshire. Elliot remembered the days before there was so much light pollution, when you could look at the stars (and the fireworks from the Big Brother house on eviction night) rather than just see aeroplane lights. But, he mused, “there are still stars up there.” Yes there are. And there’s still room in a hospital full of smart juniors for a pair of wise, experienced seniors. As long as Serena’s around to help them keep their skills updated.

Next time: Big news for Jac! Bad news for Sacha! And a tricky customer for Malick.

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