As the second episode of Malpractice begins, Dr. Lucinda Edwards (Niamh Algar) gets a call from Beth reminding her that she is late. Once she makes it to the hospital, she is told about Rob Thornbury (Douglas Hansell) who was hit by a car. Lucinda tells Ramya Morgan (Priyanka Patel) that she can move to Majors if this is too much for her, but Dr. Morgan says she is fine. They find that his BP is still dropping, his jugular veins are distended, and his heart sounds are muffled. Oscar Beattie (Scott Chambers) begins the compressions as Lucinda says she is going to do an emergency thoracotomy.

Eventually, Lucinda says she needs to massage the heart in order to restart. She manages to get the heart beating again. After that, Lucinda has to go to the bathroom because she gets ill. She goes through her phone and deletes the messages to Rob. Lucinda calls George Adjei (Jordan Kouame) to say they’re understaffed so she isn’t going to make it. George agrees to let her do the interview tomorrow, but they’ll have to escalate if she cancels again. Norma Callahan (Helen Behan) asks if he believes her. George admits it is plausible. Lucinda goes home and speaks to Tom (Lorne MacFadyen). He asks her about not calling after she disappeared this morning.

Lucinda apologizes and explains that she got called into work early. She tells him about the accident involving someone she used to work with and how that made it worse. The next day, Lucinda goes to the meeting with Norma and George. She agrees to speak to them even though her rep isn’t there. Lucinda is shown the CCTV picture of her outside on a break at 8:52. A&E was called at 9:07 telling them about the overdose of Edith Owusu. Lucinda is asked how she was able to tell Dr. Morgan about the overdose before that. Lucinda says she is mistaken because there would be no way for her to tell Dr. Morgan about the call before it came in. Lucinda is asked about the phone number calling her that night.

The friend who called about Edith’s overdose seems to be an acquaintance of hers. Lucinda insists she doesn’t have a connection to Edith Owusu. When they tried to trace the call, it came back as being unregistered. Lucinda claims she doesn’t know who the number belongs to. Then, she is asked about taking time off due to stress during the pandemic. When asked if there was a specific trigger, Lucinda suggests it was because she was on the front line during the global pandemic. Norma questions why large sections of her record have been redacted. Lucinda reminds her that she doesn’t have to discuss anything that has been expunged from her record.

Norma says they have a source that claims Lucinda assaulted a patient. Lucinda says she was asked to come back from maternity leave early to help out because things were so bad. She was tired and run down. Her daughter, Abi, was breastfeeding at the time. She thought it was that, but she actually had COVID and didn’t know. Lucinda continued to work and a lot of people died. They managed to trace it back to when she treated them in the A&E. Lucinda was given 10 days off for the anxiety due to the harm she had caused. When she returned to work, she was on edge. One day, a drunk walked in and ranted about COVID was fake. Lucinda asked him to put on a mask but he wouldn’t. She doesn’t think she should’ve returned to work so soon.

She got the record expunged because there were inaccuracies in the way it was detailed. Lucinda is adamant that there was no assault during the pandemic. George says they’ve been informed of a more recent assault on a coworker although Lucinda denies that. George won’t tell her who made the allegation and admits they didn’t make an official complaint. Once Lucinda leaves, Norma tells George that she is clearly lying. He questions how they’re going to prove it. She wants him to come with her to the Patient Care Awards tonight because Lucinda’s team is nominated. At work, Lucinda looks in on Rob and sees a woman sitting with him. She tells a coworker that Rob was her supervisor when she was in med school.

Lucinda claims she hadn’t seen him in years before being told it is still touch and go. They talk about Rob’s wife who will have to look after two small kids and a baby. Sam Henry (Daniel Larkai) says goodbye to Lucinda. She visits Dr. Leo Harris (James Purefoy) who admits she has always been his first choice for the consultant post. He explains that they can’t offer her the job right now. If nothing comes of the investigation, the job will be hers. Lucinda reminds him that he has lied and covered for him many times. Leo says it is a legal thing. He suggests it might be a good idea if she didn’t come to the awards ceremony, but Lucinda isn’t going to miss it.

Ramya speaks to Oscar at the awards ceremony. He goes to the bar for drinks and runs into Lucinda. When she sees George and Norma, she says she thinks they’re there to ruin her night. Oscar says they won’t. Lucinda says hello to Professor Corrine Lonergan. She explains that she is a big fan of her work. She is introduced to Jubair Singh who is the owner of the Wellspring Pharmacy chain. Corrine isn’t up for an award. Instead, she is Vice President of Biocura Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Mike Willett (Tristan Sturrock) asks Leo about telling Lucinda not to come. Leo says he did, but Lucinda came anyway. Lucinda asks Corrine to call her about any consultant jobs going around.

Corrine informs her that she knows about the young woman who died as well as the investigation. Something similar happened to her when she was younger and she regrets letting it alter the direction of her work. The award ceremony begins. The West Yorkshire Royal Hospital’s A&E team wins the award. When Lucinda accepts the award, she makes sure Leo and Mike are applauded. Mike Willett admits that is why he didn’t want her there. Lucinda thinks they all got it wrong at some point during the pandemic because none of them had a clue what they were doing. She dedicates the award to the medical staff that tries to do its best.

After the speech, George approaches Ramya Morgan to see if she’ll talk to him about Lucinda. In private, Norma says it would be helpful to have someone like her reporting back to them on a regular basis. She says she’ll think about it because she has already risked a lot telling them what she has. The next day, Lucinda is called in early because the coroner’s summons has arrived for the Owusu inquest. Dr. Willett gives them advice. He reminds Lucinda that if it wasn’t written down then it didn’t happen. Leo tells Lucina that her psychiatrist and GP will be there too. Her GP is Dr. Charlotte Peal. Oscar deals with Mary Johnson once again even though Lucinda just discharged her two days ago. Lucinda agrees to write the request for him.

She tells him to write down his login details and she’ll get to it once she has finished hers. Once he leaves, Lucinda uses his details to log in and check Edith’s information. She checks her messages from Rob and finds one mentioning Camille Woodham and another mentioning Alexander Taylor. She checks Taylor’s information before going into Rob’s hospital room. She takes his phone and replaces it with another. Lucinda tries to guess the passcode to Rob’s phone until she only has one attempt left. Then, she gets upset when she notices she is out of pills. Lucinda has difficulty working on a patient because she is shaking so much. She offers to give the patient to calm her down so she can finish it later.

Lucinda asks Ramya to fetch her four 10mg diazepam tablets. Ramya tells her that she’ll knock her out with 40mg. Lucinda takes the phone to a repair shop and says the passcode isn’t being recognized. She makes it clear that she needs to keep all the data on the phone. The worker there tells her to come back tomorrow morning. When she signs the paperwork, she uses the name Lucy Ward. At home, she watches the news with Tom and sees a report about Rob’s accident. Lucinda tells Tom she is going to bed. In the bedroom, she takes a few pills. The next day, she visits Eva and says she is one of the doctors who looked after her husband. Eva finds that odd because doctors usually don’t visit their patients at home. Lucinda explains that Rob contacted her about helping with some of his GP patients that needed some A&E treatment.

They were patients he was prescribing for at his GP practice. He was flexible with their prescribing so they wouldn’t buy street drugs. Eva says he is a good doctor working in an inflexible system. Lucinda thinks he was giving them a week’s worth of methadone so they wouldn’t have to pick it up every day. One of his patients accidentally overdosed so Rob called Lucinda and asked him to code it as deliberate. Now that the MIU is investigating Lucinda, they will find out about Rob’s prescribing. Lucinda has looked at her medical record, but hasn’t been able to find Rob’s name anywhere. Lucinda explains she just wants to warn her that Rob could be in just as much trouble as she is.

Eva gets upset and makes her leave. Ramya gets a call about a severe opioid overdose of a 27-year-old male. Milo Hanbury (Darryl Dale) is brought into the hospital so Lucinda walks Ramya through the process. They have to administer two doses of naloxone before they notice that it is being blocked rapidly. Lucinda finds that his veins are messed up. She decides to put a line in his neck blindly. Later, Leo arrives after Ramya contacted him. He learns it is going great so he says they didn’t need him after all. Lucinda speaks to Milo’s mother who says he was going to The Guelder Clinic. Ramya visits George to say she has agreed to help them. Lucinda tries to learn more about the Guelder Clinic. She finds a picture of Eva Tait on the clinic’s website.

George tells Norma how Lucinda’s behavior with Milo was similar to that of Edith. They agree to find out more about overdoses Lucinda treated this year and cross-check them with her phone records. Lucinda picks up the phone from the repair shop. She finds messages on the phone from people asking for downers and other pills. In another, Edith is experiencing problems with the drugs. Lucinda listens to a message from JS who asks Rob to call him back. He says Rob will go down with her if this goes any further.

 

Malpractice Review

The second episode of Malpractice was pretty much in line with the first. The performances remain solid and some viewers may enjoy the story. The camerawork is a bit too shaky at times although the medical scenes look great. I really just can’t force myself to get into the story or the characters. In a way, the series is a little formulaic, yet it incorporates a medical spin to make it somewhat different.

In other words, the story is laid out in a similar fashion as most ITV crime dramas and even has some of the same story elements. The story just seems so farfetched though and that makes it difficult to genuinely care about the outcome. It is like they took a medical drama and combined it with a crime drama of sorts and that isn’t working for me.

It really should’ve been grounded more in reality. If the series was going to tackle malpractice and negligence, it should’ve done that without adding the drug abuse angle. Combining everything in a single show really takes away from everything as a whole and leaves a sense of disbelief. The second episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of Malpractice are available on Reel Mockery here.

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