He’s mentally ill. I don’t remember the episode but if he’s unable to make medical choices for himself, regardless of his type of incapacitation, someone is going to have to make the choices for him.
I told you Mr McGill's mental health is a non issue. If he were schizophrenic it wouldn't take away from the fact that the defendant broke into his home and violently destroyed evidence.
I worked as a phlebotomist for the hospital that did outreach to nursing homes in the area. Lots of dementia patients that had no clue what was happening.
I always felt bad when I needed the nurse to help hold an arm but they will literally kill themselves for refusing medical care. So once they hit a point where they cant make decisions for themselves the qualified people get final say.
I think the legal standard is that when people are not competent, anything against their will has to be required to save “life or limb.” People who are not competent are supposed to be able to refuse medical treatment that is not absolutely necessary. People who are competent can refuse anything.
I disagree. They need treatment and ignoring their ailments is negligence at best. You ever hold a child while they’re getting shots? They need you to do that. That’s why no one ever grows up and hates parents for shots they don’t even remember.
He wasn’t intentionally faking it he believed it was real. Even though he only had a
Psychological condition.
But the Dr who flipped the power on his hospital bed and Jimmy getting a cell phone into his suit pocket at trial proved he doesn’t have a physical condition to electricity.
actually- it was just a cell phone battery. i don't know why a battery that isn't hooked up to anything would be a problem for him- there wouldn't be any flow of electricity.
It shouldn't if it were an 'actual' EM sensitivity but it's not and he's mentally ill so it does 'affect' him. He also reacts to batteries the same way as he does to any electric source later when he's replacing the batteries in the tape recorder after the Sand Piper incident.
What I don’t understand in his whole thought process was that he thought that so long as he was away from electrical devices, he was free from any EM waves.
I mean whether he likes it or not, unless if he created a faraday cage and around his house and shielded his house from any light on the EM spectrum, he is bombarded with different levels of radio frequencies whether he likes it or not. He also gets infrared and ultraviolet radiation from just being on earth. Ik his mental state made him *think* he was sick from a specific form of EM waves, but he poured a lot of research into it and is a smart person. You’d think he would rationally understand that it is unavoidable to shield himself entirely from EM waves.
He understood that, but rationalized that he could tolerate it so long as the actual source of the EM field was far enough away from him. This is what he says during his court hearing when the exit signs were on in the same room with him, that they don't use much power and the strength of the field drops off with distance by the inverse square law.
Jimmy already covered that for him in the cross-examination. IDK the exact words, but he asked him if a unused but charged battery would make him uncomfortable, and he confirmed it. Of course, if he truly was sick of the thing he claims to be, the battery would still not make him react
That's a really good point. I think if Chuck wasn't so caught off guard by that, he would've been able to reason that out, and convince himself he's still allergic to electricity. However that shock of the battery being in his pocket, and the public breakdown was so humiliating that I think he was mentally broken
Agreed. My guess is people in those positions need to choose between the lesser of two painful moments. If they had honored Chucks' wishes for refusal of treatment he could have had serious and permanent damage
Real ER doctor here. We operate under a unfunded mandate from the federal government called EMTALA. It says everyone who comes into an emergency department needs a screening exam and emergency stabilization regardless ability to pay. This has far expanded what it sounds like to mean if someone comes into your emergency department with potential injuries you must do your best to find said injuries or illness and treat it. So chuck comes in with a reported head injury telling me he doesn’t consent to all the test I want I have no way of knowing if his injuries are causing him to protest my testing, if he is injured and crazy, or if he just crazy and emtala tells me I need to work off the assumption he is injured and rule that out. Courts give a lot of leeway in these cases where the doctor was acting in the best interest of the patient and does something like holds them against their will or performs tests against there will. So yes the doctors did exactly what they should do with a head injured patient and no chuckles would not have much in the way of legal recourse even if slipping Jimmy wasn’t his medical power of attorney. It’s honestly the most difficult part of the job when people come in not wanting treatment and I do my best to reasonably understand their concerns and discuss them with the patient. But if the patient comes in giving me chucks story you know damn sure I am putting him through the donut of truth looking for a brain bleed or a tumor that explains his bizarre behavior.
I wasn't going to bring up EMTALA, but yes what you said is 100% the correct IRL way a hospital would have handled Chuck.
Obvious from the head wrappings and blood stains on them, he has suffered a head wound, most likely a concussion, which means you need to be thorough. Chuck is really in no position to withhold consent even if he's 100% in his faculties.
Even if we don't know he thinks he's sensitive to electricity. Once we learn that, your need to consent goes out the window.
Used to work in an ER during college. Nurses and Dr are underpaid for what they take home. Dr also pay into insurance that protects them from civil suits nurses and PA’s don’t have to.
We have a broken system but we should be careful where we apply blame.
Good nurses are underpaid, yes. I worked side by side with nurses for years and I will be the first to tell you, it’s shocking to see the Percentage of terrible nurses out there.
It’s funny, the bad ones are the ones who bitch and moan and strike all the time. The world needs more good nurses.
For sure but given recent pandemics, this resonates even more. I give credit to all the true nurses out there who do their job first and do it right.
Now there is a shortage of nurses and a huge percentage of them are terrible at their job and because nurses are supposed to do a lot in a hospital, it’s putting a huge strain on the an already terrible system.
My wife and family are in hospitals and there’s only a shortage of nurses because the hospitals can’t/won’t pay enough to compete with agency nurses.
A cousin I have is stuck because she has too much in her benefits and 2 kids by herself to walk from her FT shift and switch to agency. She works alongside agency nurses earning a lot more per hour.
EMT here with lots of experience working with physicians.
Just a fun fact: a typical America ED doctor earns LESS cumulatively - including med school and residency - than a UPS driver working equivalent hours for the first roughly 14 or 15 years if their career.
Around the 14 year mark, the earnings of the doctor catch up and pass the UPS driver.
Yes, the ballpark $325,000 or so a year salary to be an ED attending physician may sound like a lot, but it is easy to ignore the years making nothing, or making a residency salary.
Compared to other careers, and given equivalent input of time, talent, risk and debt (law/finance/MBA/business/tech), I think you could easily argue that ED physicians are fairly compensated or under-compensated.
Source: I know a guy who runs a major arm of an investment bank in SE Asia. He could have been a fine doctor. He would laugh if he were offered a physician lifestyle and salary with the accompanying responsibility of taking care of people, and being sued at any moment.
> but it is easy to ignore the years making nothing or making a residency salary.
Plus the debt we have from undergrad and medical school. Which can be a few 100k. Plus the lost retirement interest/earnings.
Lmao ya, if you spent that many years in school, owe so much in student debt, somehow survived med school, and constantly work a stressful job where people's lives are on the line then you def deserve a high pay.
My buddy is an ER doc and he gets worked into the ground and makes as much as a senior engineer at a tech company. One of them is contributing to making society better…
Cheaper than an internist, specialist, or surgeon and in many cases doing a much harder job. If your elderly mother or father presented to the ER with head trauma and was disoriented and complaining of pain caused by electricity you would want them to get a CT scan if you're smart.
Not to mention the fact that if Chuck wasn't wealthy then he could qualify for Medicare and the scan would be 100% covered.
The Healthcare system needs an overhaul to be sure, specifically pricing set by insurance companies and medical manufacturers, but the amount of dumb comments from dipshits trying to play some sort of stupid devils advocate is very frustrating.
I just finished paying off an ambulance ride/hospital stay that I was forced against my will into taking by police after they broke into my house. After the hospital found out I didn’t need medical attention all they could say was “sorry out of luck”
Yeah, this is not the whole story. He could only be forced to go if the cops "papered" him saying he was having a mental issue. EMTs cant kidnapp people. The question is who called the cops on this person and why. I suspect the cops may have papered him as a courtesy to separate individuals in an emotionally charged state.
Edit: a cop papering someone means they believe this person is a risk to harm themselves or others. According to op, hi mom lied which led the cops.
That the cops may have been doing this guy a favor and/or there were other people invloved who in the cops oppinion needed this guy to take a timeout. In the incidents where used seen the cops have the EMTs take someone on papers (I'm an EMT) that was rhe case. Better than going with the police and getting charges. May not be for this guy but the reality is someone called the cops to the house.
I understand the impulse to protect your people but in this particular case they were simply just wrong. You are right, my mom called the police. We got in an argument and she got petty and lied to the police after I blocked her number cause she wouldn’t stop calling me. I don’t live with her and I was home alone watching tv. There’s just no justification for what happened
You're making a case for EMTs being corrupt if you think it's good for cops to use EMTs as punishment when there are no visible health issues and no crimes were committed 🤨
That's not my point. My point is if someone is emotionally charged and irrational then getting that person to a mental health professional is better than going to jail. Also gives a cooling off period.
Edit: ultimately for a cop to paper someone they need to have judged them a risk to harm themselves or another.
I didn’t say what they did was justified, I said cops don’t just show up and break down doors. OP’s original story after the fact is something I see often that plagues the system and it’s the unjustified involuntary psych hold that they place because of the immense amount of terror everyone has over liability now, which plagues and brings the system down.
But you can keep up your uneducated gestures, continue.
This message is really stressful to read, we are on a better call Saul (tv show) subreddit and these “fuck the US healthcare system fuck police pigs” is uncomfortably intense
This is kinda scary to hear. I have a huge fear of hospitals and medical procedures, so the thought that there are laws essentially saying that when I’m injured I lose my ability to give consent makes me uneasy. Of course I trust doctors and a law like that saves lives no doubt, I just have a few things in my head that I’ve always pictured myself saying no to a doctor about
Not a medical expert here, but in my personal opinion it might be because they thought he was not in a state to make proper decisions, or might've been delirious - especially since he just had a head injury. Besides, his injury was likely life-threatening - if they listened to his demands (which sound very incoherent and which could be due to the injury itself) he could've died or stayed permanently handicapped. I think it makes perfect sense that they decided to operate on him despite his refusal.
If you really think about it it is in a way an ethical question, if you do as the person, who apparently is delusional, says, you can potentially let a person die because they did not receive proper medical care, but if they are in fact aware of the entire set of events they might try to sue the hospital because they tried operating without consent.
well hospitals have pretty good malpractice insurance if it came to that, but even if chuck had even he'd lose because they were performing necessary medical help to chuck
The suits that have the highest pay out in medicine are failure to diagnose and delay in diagnosis. It is a rare law suit that is brought for doing a medical test in an emergent situation or a procedure in an emergent situation. The latter will usually be dismissed or settled out of court for a small amount. Every hospital lawyer I have had the displeasure of meeting has harped on why didn't a test or lab get ordered or performed.
If I'm not wrong, doctors have the right to overrule the "consent" of a patient when they are in a delirious or obviously mentally unstable state. Chuck was ranting and hyperventilating, and for all doctors were concerned, that could be a *result* of any potential brain injury. Hence, forced treatment.
They'd probably still run the tests and then bill you! 16k for a cat scan, 9k for an ekg. They have the damn machines right there anyways, so they'd probably figure roll the dice, run the tests and maybe we luck onto someone with the means to pay. If not... oh well the machines were sitting there anyways and it doesn't cost anywhere near what they bill
Practically all hospitals to be a non-profit have debt erasure programs based on the federal poverty line and actually extend above that but only erase part of the bill instead of all of it.
On top of that ERs are required to provide aid even if the patient can't pay or is uninsured by federal law.
On that note about no money to pay for medical bills, I wonder how Jimmy was able to afford an ambulance ride when he slipped in the guitar shop when he didn’t have money at that point
Then you’d know that he doesn’t take an ambulance, he blackmails the shop owners into giving him money and a guitar. The ambulance thing was a lie to Kim.
He was bluffing. He asked them if they have insurance. They either didn’t, or they didn’t want their premiums to go up, so they paid him off to sweep it under the rug
He could just take it out of the "settlement" he extorted out of the shop owners. Also with practically no income he would have likely qualified for full debt forgiveness from the hospital.
it is legal because i believe saul had power-of-attorney regarding medical treatment--it is common that if one is deemed mentally incapable to make their own medical decisions, the closest family member gives authorization.
If I remember correctly Saul wasn’t there yet? He saw Chuck hit his head and called 911 and bounced. In real life we don’t wait for family to treat people. I’ve had patients with head injuries acting combative like Chuck and we just have to fight with them to treat them and make sure they are stable and get a CT of their brain. It sucks but we can’t just say fuck it and put them on the streets
Chuck is mentally ill, but he's also smart. He understands why the doctors did what they did, and he wouldn't fault them for it in retrospect.
Even if his EHS was actually real, he had sustained a serious injury and needed to be treated.
It'd definitely depend on the physician and the hospital's policy (ethics consult etc.), but his need for a CT of the head to rule out a bleed after the head injury coupled with the fact he appears to lack capacity to make a sound decision would make for a situation like this.
His condition is psychological. If a mentally ill person was shot and told paramedics not to treat them should they listen? No. Chuck hit his head they need to do their jobs and give him medical assistance.
It doesn’t matter. You can’t force someone to get a medical procedure against their will and then bill them for it. They literally fucking restrained him. This scene wouldn’t have happened in real life tbh. Not in the US
This is one of my favorite scenes. One of my all time favorite tropes in media is when, in a desperate situation, the director opts to drop all the glitz and glamor of cinema and instead just holds on a single shot where everyone just acts straight forward and realistically. No "doctor this is looking bad, what should we do!?" To up the tension, no dramatic music to pronounce the scene, just straight forward people doing their job and that contrast with what you'd normally expect from a drama show makes it all the more tense
Unethical, yes. Illegal? No.
Once civilly committed to an institution for mental health issues, the doctors have almost full discretion. In my state, there is something called a Jarvis Hearing, in which the courts can assume full responsibility for the treatments given to a patient, meaning they can even "force" medications into a person's system.
Chuck was severely mentally ill, but he wasn't allergic to electricity. That doesn't exist. His condition was entirely psychosomatic. And because he was mentally ill and suffering from a head injury, it's fair to say he wasn't able to make treatment decisions for himself.
That being said, your post and replies seem to imply you think Chuck is actually allergic to electricity?
Chuck was most definitely suffering a concussion. Had they not treated him for that while being in their hands, they'd be breaking the Hippocratic oath and committing medical malpractice. Which is WAY more illegal.
Medical expert here. Since chuck was mentally ill and deemed to be unfit to make decisions for himself, Saul was allowed to decide for him as a his closest living relative. One thing we see in the show is that chuck is mentally ill, but doesn’t know it. This is likely also why he wants to ruin sauls career so badly but he thinks it is because of where Saul’s past and where he went to school just as he thinks his condition is a physical one. He looks for ways to justify his insanity
Jimmy only got that power once they enacted the Temporary Emergency Guardianship later in the episode. Prior to that Chuck was refusing the CAT scan. At the time Chuck was on the stretcher in this scene Jimmy wasn't there to be involved in the decision-making process anyway. So this applies to the later scenes but, in the context of the episode (of course I don't know how it would work irl), not this scene specifically
in this type of situations when the patient clearly has a mental condition, the most closely relative takes the responsability of the decisions so we have to refer to Jimmy, this if the life of the person is at risk and its an emergency.
You have a right to refuse treatment but it’s hard to invoke it. Doctors will try to override you, because they don’t want to be responsible if you go home and die there. But if you keep on refusing treatment, eventually they’ll have to stop. It works in the show too, apparently, as Chuck manages to delay the CAT scan until Jimmy shows with the TLG and makes him do it. However, in Chuck’s case, they may have assumed he was simply confused and didn’t know where he was due to his head injury, and wasn’t refusing treatment from a sound mind.
Speaking of hard to watch scenes and Chuck, his suicide is so painful. I saw the clip of him kicking the lantern before I ever saw BCS or even BB, and thought that EVERYTHING had gone wrong for Chuck. I’m talking like physical injury he’ll never recover from, house is being foreclosed, everyone he knows HATES him, not just dislikes and thinks he’s insane. But nah, he lost A LOT during that time, but there was still hope and so much he could’ve done, but it meant nothing to HIM.
And it isn’t even something quick, it holds on him chopping his walls to bits and smashing everything, making an absolute mess. Even then he still could’ve recovered. And then to make things even more horrible and gut wrenching to watch. The camera doesn’t pan out and then we don’t see a single flash and hear a gunshot. We watch a man who’s still physically abled kick his desk over and over and over. The lantern budges inch by inch, then it falls and THEN the camera pans out, and instead of a single flash, we see the flames grow and fill the room. At any moment if Chuck snapped back to his senses he could’ve stood up and ran out of the house, but he never did.
Heart wrenching
Idk but that scene pissed me off so much and it was the one time I felt sorry for Chuck. If that happened to me, I’d get up and run the fuck out of there. If he’s there for a head injury, they can’t hold him against his will.
Yes it’s legal, been through something similar, also hospital workers or EMTs don’t really have to follow the law the way police do, and police also legally don’t have to understand or follow the law exactly
**[Heien v. North Carolina](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heien_v._North_Carolina)**
>Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that a police officer's reasonable mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion required by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to justify a traffic stop. The Court delivered its ruling on December 15, 2014.
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True story: I had this open in a tab and kinda forgot about it while I was reading the news about Russias attacks today, and when I stumbled back in here it took me quite a while to realize the talk about mental illness was not about Putin
Hospitals regularly go against the consent of patients on all kinds of decisions. The reason you don’t hear more about it is because it is incredibly difficult to prove. If a hospital says you were not in the right state of mind, it’s basically a blank slate even if you are perfectly sane.
Chuck is a rival to the protagonist and that’s the only reason you hate him. Him and jimmy were equally as flawed but jimmy had more charisma which can go a long way in getting people to overlook your flaws
“This is not what fine looks like” - HOWARD HAMLIN before setting chuck on fire as retribution for james morgan mcgill. #HHMillionaire #HamlindionaireGrindset #COCAIN3 #NAMAST3 #xxJAGUARLoV3RS
(Spolier) reminds me of how sad the show ended.. chuck is dead and jimmy spends the rest of his life in prison. Walt dies and jesse has to hide and possibly be alone for the rest of his life, in a prison of its own.
Also when Walt asked the ambulance to drop him off because he didn’t have the greatest insurance and they said no???? He was clearly sound of mind that’s illegal af lmao
“My head is literally split open and I’m bleeding to death but please don’t save my life because electromagnetism is affecting my brain” is not something real doctors will hear and think “yeah he has to bleed to death now because of a mental illness that we didn’t even know existed till now”
I literally came out of MRI today. I felt like I couldn't breathe.
I got so anxious and it was so terrible. I came out like 1 min.
I can't even imagine what it would be like for someone like chuck. I feel like many medical people have little to no empathy about how patient feels
Maybe. I think we all (most of us anyway) looked over that cuz chunk was such a hateful character. Like me? I didn't give one fuck about what happened to him. It was such a relief when he died.
He’s mentally ill. I don’t remember the episode but if he’s unable to make medical choices for himself, regardless of his type of incapacitation, someone is going to have to make the choices for him.
Mentally ill?? HE IS NOT CRAZY!
He knew he swapped those numbers he knew it was 1216. As if he could ever make such a mistake
Never, NEVER. He just- he just couldn't prove it.
He covered his tracks, he got that idiot at the copy shop to lie for him
You think this is something? You think this is bad? This? This ....... chicanery? He's done worse!
HE DEFECTATED THROUGH A SUNROOF
The billboard! You’re telling me a man just happen to fall like that? He orchestrated it!
And I saved him! And I shouldn’t have. I took him into my own firm! What was i thinking?
STEALING THEM BLIND!
I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HIM WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!
THIS? THIS THREAD OF COMMENTS HAVE BEEN RINSED DRY!!
That billboard! Are you telling me a man just HAPPENS to fall like that?
NO! He orchestrated it! JIMMY!
I should have stopped him when I had the chance!
Slipping Jimmy I can handle just fine, but Slipping Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun.
I subject that Mr. McGills mental illness is a non issue. If he was schizophrenic-
Schiz- **I AM NOT CRAZY!**
HE DEFECATED THROUGH A SUNROOF!
one after magna cartuh
Cartuh, put your dick away cartuh
Chuck, put yuh Magnuh Cartuh away, Chuck.
Im not goin to a court hearing right now chuck
It was waltuh
One after Magna Carta.
One after a kid named finger
One after Magna Carta
Howard's face when he said that
*He is not crazy.*
HE DEFECATED THROUGH A SUNROOF
He is for sure mentaly ill. You think because if was smart, he couldnt be mentaly ill?
He’s quoting the show lol
Mb i watched it in german and couldnt remember that
I told you Mr McGill's mental health is a non issue. If he were schizophrenic it wouldn't take away from the fact that the defendant broke into his home and violently destroyed evidence.
Schiz-?!
I'm not crazy !
I worked as a phlebotomist for the hospital that did outreach to nursing homes in the area. Lots of dementia patients that had no clue what was happening. I always felt bad when I needed the nurse to help hold an arm but they will literally kill themselves for refusing medical care. So once they hit a point where they cant make decisions for themselves the qualified people get final say.
I think the legal standard is that when people are not competent, anything against their will has to be required to save “life or limb.” People who are not competent are supposed to be able to refuse medical treatment that is not absolutely necessary. People who are competent can refuse anything.
Also, the cops thought Chuck was a tweaker because of the way he pulled out the wiring. The medics may have thought he was a drug addict.
Pretty dogshit treatment of the ‘mentally I’ll’ regardless
I disagree. They need treatment and ignoring their ailments is negligence at best. You ever hold a child while they’re getting shots? They need you to do that. That’s why no one ever grows up and hates parents for shots they don’t even remember.
Yeah I know but it still feels unethical. After all, he wasn’t actually faking his illness.
He wasn’t intentionally faking it he believed it was real. Even though he only had a Psychological condition. But the Dr who flipped the power on his hospital bed and Jimmy getting a cell phone into his suit pocket at trial proved he doesn’t have a physical condition to electricity.
actually- it was just a cell phone battery. i don't know why a battery that isn't hooked up to anything would be a problem for him- there wouldn't be any flow of electricity.
But Chuck reacted to it like it hurt him…. See now?
Ah thanks that's right. He thought it was an electrical field around anything with electricity if I remember right.
It shouldn't if it were an 'actual' EM sensitivity but it's not and he's mentally ill so it does 'affect' him. He also reacts to batteries the same way as he does to any electric source later when he's replacing the batteries in the tape recorder after the Sand Piper incident.
What I don’t understand in his whole thought process was that he thought that so long as he was away from electrical devices, he was free from any EM waves. I mean whether he likes it or not, unless if he created a faraday cage and around his house and shielded his house from any light on the EM spectrum, he is bombarded with different levels of radio frequencies whether he likes it or not. He also gets infrared and ultraviolet radiation from just being on earth. Ik his mental state made him *think* he was sick from a specific form of EM waves, but he poured a lot of research into it and is a smart person. You’d think he would rationally understand that it is unavoidable to shield himself entirely from EM waves.
He understood that, but rationalized that he could tolerate it so long as the actual source of the EM field was far enough away from him. This is what he says during his court hearing when the exit signs were on in the same room with him, that they don't use much power and the strength of the field drops off with distance by the inverse square law.
Jimmy already covered that for him in the cross-examination. IDK the exact words, but he asked him if a unused but charged battery would make him uncomfortable, and he confirmed it. Of course, if he truly was sick of the thing he claims to be, the battery would still not make him react
That's a really good point. I think if Chuck wasn't so caught off guard by that, he would've been able to reason that out, and convince himself he's still allergic to electricity. However that shock of the battery being in his pocket, and the public breakdown was so humiliating that I think he was mentally broken
He was mentally broken long before that scene
Are you saying you think his condition was real?
No, they’re saying it’s uncomfortable to watch a man scream about what he thinks is torture happening to him.
I imagine that happens a lot in places that try to care for people with mental disorders.
Agreed. My guess is people in those positions need to choose between the lesser of two painful moments. If they had honored Chucks' wishes for refusal of treatment he could have had serious and permanent damage
Real ER doctor here. We operate under a unfunded mandate from the federal government called EMTALA. It says everyone who comes into an emergency department needs a screening exam and emergency stabilization regardless ability to pay. This has far expanded what it sounds like to mean if someone comes into your emergency department with potential injuries you must do your best to find said injuries or illness and treat it. So chuck comes in with a reported head injury telling me he doesn’t consent to all the test I want I have no way of knowing if his injuries are causing him to protest my testing, if he is injured and crazy, or if he just crazy and emtala tells me I need to work off the assumption he is injured and rule that out. Courts give a lot of leeway in these cases where the doctor was acting in the best interest of the patient and does something like holds them against their will or performs tests against there will. So yes the doctors did exactly what they should do with a head injured patient and no chuckles would not have much in the way of legal recourse even if slipping Jimmy wasn’t his medical power of attorney. It’s honestly the most difficult part of the job when people come in not wanting treatment and I do my best to reasonably understand their concerns and discuss them with the patient. But if the patient comes in giving me chucks story you know damn sure I am putting him through the donut of truth looking for a brain bleed or a tumor that explains his bizarre behavior.
Great explanation, but did you call Charles Chuckles on purpose or on accident? Made me laugh so hard
100% intentional. I wish I had a Charles in my life to call chuckles.
It made you.... Chuckle?
Marco also called him Chuckles
✨donut of truth✨
My guess was they were more worried about liability if he actually died than the liability of him suing them for doing a scan without consent.
absolutely right. The aim is not to miss anything in the ER whereas your primary care doctor is often looking to make a diagnosis.
I wasn't going to bring up EMTALA, but yes what you said is 100% the correct IRL way a hospital would have handled Chuck. Obvious from the head wrappings and blood stains on them, he has suffered a head wound, most likely a concussion, which means you need to be thorough. Chuck is really in no position to withhold consent even if he's 100% in his faculties. Even if we don't know he thinks he's sensitive to electricity. Once we learn that, your need to consent goes out the window.
Great explainion
Thanks you. Fourteen years of schooling all for one reddit comment. Totally worth it.
Reading your comment feels like falling down a cliff because of your lack of punctuation. Interesting tho.
Dammit Jim, they’re a doctor, not a grammatician!
This comment made my day.
…and charging a fortune for your ‘donut of truth’. The US healthcare system is absolutely fucked, no offence
> …and charging a fortune for your ‘donut of truth’. To be clear, the *hospital* is charging for that, not the ER doctor.
[удалено]
nor should s/he
Used to work in an ER during college. Nurses and Dr are underpaid for what they take home. Dr also pay into insurance that protects them from civil suits nurses and PA’s don’t have to. We have a broken system but we should be careful where we apply blame.
Good nurses are underpaid, yes. I worked side by side with nurses for years and I will be the first to tell you, it’s shocking to see the Percentage of terrible nurses out there. It’s funny, the bad ones are the ones who bitch and moan and strike all the time. The world needs more good nurses.
or does the world need more bad nurses willing to strike for their fair share of the profits?
Yes. We need more bad nurses willing to strike.
Same with a lot of other jobs too unfortunately.
For sure but given recent pandemics, this resonates even more. I give credit to all the true nurses out there who do their job first and do it right. Now there is a shortage of nurses and a huge percentage of them are terrible at their job and because nurses are supposed to do a lot in a hospital, it’s putting a huge strain on the an already terrible system.
My wife and family are in hospitals and there’s only a shortage of nurses because the hospitals can’t/won’t pay enough to compete with agency nurses. A cousin I have is stuck because she has too much in her benefits and 2 kids by herself to walk from her FT shift and switch to agency. She works alongside agency nurses earning a lot more per hour.
EMT here with lots of experience working with physicians. Just a fun fact: a typical America ED doctor earns LESS cumulatively - including med school and residency - than a UPS driver working equivalent hours for the first roughly 14 or 15 years if their career. Around the 14 year mark, the earnings of the doctor catch up and pass the UPS driver. Yes, the ballpark $325,000 or so a year salary to be an ED attending physician may sound like a lot, but it is easy to ignore the years making nothing, or making a residency salary. Compared to other careers, and given equivalent input of time, talent, risk and debt (law/finance/MBA/business/tech), I think you could easily argue that ED physicians are fairly compensated or under-compensated. Source: I know a guy who runs a major arm of an investment bank in SE Asia. He could have been a fine doctor. He would laugh if he were offered a physician lifestyle and salary with the accompanying responsibility of taking care of people, and being sued at any moment.
> but it is easy to ignore the years making nothing or making a residency salary. Plus the debt we have from undergrad and medical school. Which can be a few 100k. Plus the lost retirement interest/earnings.
Lmao ya, if you spent that many years in school, owe so much in student debt, somehow survived med school, and constantly work a stressful job where people's lives are on the line then you def deserve a high pay.
My buddy is an ER doc and he gets worked into the ground and makes as much as a senior engineer at a tech company. One of them is contributing to making society better…
Emergency personnel *should* earn a higher wage than most other jobs. Teachers too, but that’s sadly not reality in ‘murica
The engineer.
Has the engineer ever saved a life?! This is such a fucked up comment
Their earlier comment was as fucked up too and very disrespectful towards engineers by implying they don't make society better in any way.
poor babies
I am that engineer in the comparison, and no the doctors are doing way more than most of us tbh…
well some do, some don't... but every doctor (if they're doing their job right) is making the world better
Hubris, much?
From the doctor? Yep.
they don't really
Cheaper than an internist, specialist, or surgeon and in many cases doing a much harder job. If your elderly mother or father presented to the ER with head trauma and was disoriented and complaining of pain caused by electricity you would want them to get a CT scan if you're smart. Not to mention the fact that if Chuck wasn't wealthy then he could qualify for Medicare and the scan would be 100% covered. The Healthcare system needs an overhaul to be sure, specifically pricing set by insurance companies and medical manufacturers, but the amount of dumb comments from dipshits trying to play some sort of stupid devils advocate is very frustrating.
This is like being mad at EMTs because they charged you for using “their” ambulance
I just finished paying off an ambulance ride/hospital stay that I was forced against my will into taking by police after they broke into my house. After the hospital found out I didn’t need medical attention all they could say was “sorry out of luck”
So, why did the cops break into your house?
Yeah, this is not the whole story. He could only be forced to go if the cops "papered" him saying he was having a mental issue. EMTs cant kidnapp people. The question is who called the cops on this person and why. I suspect the cops may have papered him as a courtesy to separate individuals in an emotionally charged state. Edit: a cop papering someone means they believe this person is a risk to harm themselves or others. According to op, hi mom lied which led the cops.
What exactly are you trying to rebut? He explicitly said the cops are responsible
That the cops may have been doing this guy a favor and/or there were other people invloved who in the cops oppinion needed this guy to take a timeout. In the incidents where used seen the cops have the EMTs take someone on papers (I'm an EMT) that was rhe case. Better than going with the police and getting charges. May not be for this guy but the reality is someone called the cops to the house.
I understand the impulse to protect your people but in this particular case they were simply just wrong. You are right, my mom called the police. We got in an argument and she got petty and lied to the police after I blocked her number cause she wouldn’t stop calling me. I don’t live with her and I was home alone watching tv. There’s just no justification for what happened
I was just providing another point of view. Obviously i wasnt there. Unfortunately it sounds like your mom lied.
You're making a case for EMTs being corrupt if you think it's good for cops to use EMTs as punishment when there are no visible health issues and no crimes were committed 🤨
That's not my point. My point is if someone is emotionally charged and irrational then getting that person to a mental health professional is better than going to jail. Also gives a cooling off period. Edit: ultimately for a cop to paper someone they need to have judged them a risk to harm themselves or another.
Bc they're assholes who are shitty at their jobs
Nope, I don’t know a single cop who wants to just break into random houses and arrest people. That’s a lot of paperwork. Someone called them.
Bro have you paid attention at all these last few years? Cops break into the wrong house and shoot innocent people all the time.
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I didn’t say what they did was justified, I said cops don’t just show up and break down doors. OP’s original story after the fact is something I see often that plagues the system and it’s the unjustified involuntary psych hold that they place because of the immense amount of terror everyone has over liability now, which plagues and brings the system down. But you can keep up your uneducated gestures, continue.
You're the uneducated one because they do do that you're just choosing not to pay attention to literal national headlines.
This message is really stressful to read, we are on a better call Saul (tv show) subreddit and these “fuck the US healthcare system fuck police pigs” is uncomfortably intense
Are you familiar with the context for the show BCS is spun off of?
Lol what, people should absolutely talk about it. Do you think going through these things is less intense than you just reading about them?
I mean true but it’s not like it isn’t being talked about. About 50% of Reddit posts and comments are dedicated to the topic and have been for years.
Yeah, I realized that. I just get bitter and triggered over what happened. I’m going to edit it down Downvoted for apologizing? Lol okay
Cry about it. EMTs aren't paid enough.
This is kinda scary to hear. I have a huge fear of hospitals and medical procedures, so the thought that there are laws essentially saying that when I’m injured I lose my ability to give consent makes me uneasy. Of course I trust doctors and a law like that saves lives no doubt, I just have a few things in my head that I’ve always pictured myself saying no to a doctor about
Then don’t go to the hospital and perish like a medieval peasant lol
Not a medical expert here, but in my personal opinion it might be because they thought he was not in a state to make proper decisions, or might've been delirious - especially since he just had a head injury. Besides, his injury was likely life-threatening - if they listened to his demands (which sound very incoherent and which could be due to the injury itself) he could've died or stayed permanently handicapped. I think it makes perfect sense that they decided to operate on him despite his refusal.
Yep, what they're doing here is perfectly legal and correct, a person with a head wound can't make the decisions on what's best for their head wound
If you really think about it it is in a way an ethical question, if you do as the person, who apparently is delusional, says, you can potentially let a person die because they did not receive proper medical care, but if they are in fact aware of the entire set of events they might try to sue the hospital because they tried operating without consent.
well hospitals have pretty good malpractice insurance if it came to that, but even if chuck had even he'd lose because they were performing necessary medical help to chuck
The suits that have the highest pay out in medicine are failure to diagnose and delay in diagnosis. It is a rare law suit that is brought for doing a medical test in an emergent situation or a procedure in an emergent situation. The latter will usually be dismissed or settled out of court for a small amount. Every hospital lawyer I have had the displeasure of meeting has harped on why didn't a test or lab get ordered or performed.
That camera angle tho
If I'm not wrong, doctors have the right to overrule the "consent" of a patient when they are in a delirious or obviously mentally unstable state. Chuck was ranting and hyperventilating, and for all doctors were concerned, that could be a *result* of any potential brain injury. Hence, forced treatment.
If I was in the US I'd just be shouting "I HAVE NO MONEY, I CAN'T AFFORD THIS!!!" They might just let me walk out
They'd probably still run the tests and then bill you! 16k for a cat scan, 9k for an ekg. They have the damn machines right there anyways, so they'd probably figure roll the dice, run the tests and maybe we luck onto someone with the means to pay. If not... oh well the machines were sitting there anyways and it doesn't cost anywhere near what they bill
Practically all hospitals to be a non-profit have debt erasure programs based on the federal poverty line and actually extend above that but only erase part of the bill instead of all of it. On top of that ERs are required to provide aid even if the patient can't pay or is uninsured by federal law.
nope, emtala
On that note about no money to pay for medical bills, I wonder how Jimmy was able to afford an ambulance ride when he slipped in the guitar shop when he didn’t have money at that point
Most attentive better call saul viewer
I watched the episode the other day lol
Then you’d know that he doesn’t take an ambulance, he blackmails the shop owners into giving him money and a guitar. The ambulance thing was a lie to Kim.
He said to call an ambulance while he was on the ground in the shop didn’t he? Maybe you need to rewatch the episode
doesn't mean he used it or that they actually even called one
He was bluffing. He asked them if they have insurance. They either didn’t, or they didn’t want their premiums to go up, so they paid him off to sweep it under the rug
Way to double down on being incorrect.
He could just take it out of the "settlement" he extorted out of the shop owners. Also with practically no income he would have likely qualified for full debt forgiveness from the hospital.
It's not like they have a card reader in the back and they just kick you out of the double doors if it declines. Not yet anyway
they'd forcibly conduct their operations and still bill you in the end regardless of whether or not you have money
from experience, this will not work
Like, what happens? Am I just forced into debt despite screaming I DONT WANT THIS?!
Medical bankruptcy is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US. Hell, injured people beg for people to *not* call an ambulance!
it is legal because i believe saul had power-of-attorney regarding medical treatment--it is common that if one is deemed mentally incapable to make their own medical decisions, the closest family member gives authorization.
This was only when they enacted the Temporary Emergency Guardianship, which was later in the episode.
you are right...i misremembered the sequence. thanks.
No problem! "Klick" is one of my very favorite episodes haha so I remember it a lot better than most others.
If I remember correctly Saul wasn’t there yet? He saw Chuck hit his head and called 911 and bounced. In real life we don’t wait for family to treat people. I’ve had patients with head injuries acting combative like Chuck and we just have to fight with them to treat them and make sure they are stable and get a CT of their brain. It sucks but we can’t just say fuck it and put them on the streets
I'm kinda surprised he didn't try to sue them
Chuck is mentally ill, but he's also smart. He understands why the doctors did what they did, and he wouldn't fault them for it in retrospect. Even if his EHS was actually real, he had sustained a serious injury and needed to be treated.
He wouldn’t have won considering his condition wasn’t real
Agreed but I'm surprised he didn't try considering his legal influence
He wouldn’t have won because Jimmy had a temporary guardianship, and thus had the legal right to make Chuck’s medical decisions for him.
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good point
Or the cops who entered his house without actual probable cause other than a few exposed wires.
It'd definitely depend on the physician and the hospital's policy (ethics consult etc.), but his need for a CT of the head to rule out a bleed after the head injury coupled with the fact he appears to lack capacity to make a sound decision would make for a situation like this.
His condition is psychological. If a mentally ill person was shot and told paramedics not to treat them should they listen? No. Chuck hit his head they need to do their jobs and give him medical assistance.
A patient refusing an harmless procedure on the basis of "electric sensitivity" after hitting his head hard isn't really of sound mind
It doesn’t matter. You can’t force someone to get a medical procedure against their will and then bill them for it. They literally fucking restrained him. This scene wouldn’t have happened in real life tbh. Not in the US
This is one of my favorite scenes. One of my all time favorite tropes in media is when, in a desperate situation, the director opts to drop all the glitz and glamor of cinema and instead just holds on a single shot where everyone just acts straight forward and realistically. No "doctor this is looking bad, what should we do!?" To up the tension, no dramatic music to pronounce the scene, just straight forward people doing their job and that contrast with what you'd normally expect from a drama show makes it all the more tense
Unethical, yes. Illegal? No. Once civilly committed to an institution for mental health issues, the doctors have almost full discretion. In my state, there is something called a Jarvis Hearing, in which the courts can assume full responsibility for the treatments given to a patient, meaning they can even "force" medications into a person's system.
His made up condition.
It wasn’t made up??
Chuck was severely mentally ill, but he wasn't allergic to electricity. That doesn't exist. His condition was entirely psychosomatic. And because he was mentally ill and suffering from a head injury, it's fair to say he wasn't able to make treatment decisions for himself. That being said, your post and replies seem to imply you think Chuck is actually allergic to electricity?
Chuck was most definitely suffering a concussion. Had they not treated him for that while being in their hands, they'd be breaking the Hippocratic oath and committing medical malpractice. Which is WAY more illegal.
Medical expert here. Since chuck was mentally ill and deemed to be unfit to make decisions for himself, Saul was allowed to decide for him as a his closest living relative. One thing we see in the show is that chuck is mentally ill, but doesn’t know it. This is likely also why he wants to ruin sauls career so badly but he thinks it is because of where Saul’s past and where he went to school just as he thinks his condition is a physical one. He looks for ways to justify his insanity
Jimmy only got that power once they enacted the Temporary Emergency Guardianship later in the episode. Prior to that Chuck was refusing the CAT scan. At the time Chuck was on the stretcher in this scene Jimmy wasn't there to be involved in the decision-making process anyway. So this applies to the later scenes but, in the context of the episode (of course I don't know how it would work irl), not this scene specifically
in this type of situations when the patient clearly has a mental condition, the most closely relative takes the responsability of the decisions so we have to refer to Jimmy, this if the life of the person is at risk and its an emergency.
You have a right to refuse treatment but it’s hard to invoke it. Doctors will try to override you, because they don’t want to be responsible if you go home and die there. But if you keep on refusing treatment, eventually they’ll have to stop. It works in the show too, apparently, as Chuck manages to delay the CAT scan until Jimmy shows with the TLG and makes him do it. However, in Chuck’s case, they may have assumed he was simply confused and didn’t know where he was due to his head injury, and wasn’t refusing treatment from a sound mind.
Just had a CAT scan last week and I can't imagine how someone with Chuck's fears would handle that. Would definitely need sedation.
they have to treat him still and check if hes injured
Speaking of hard to watch scenes and Chuck, his suicide is so painful. I saw the clip of him kicking the lantern before I ever saw BCS or even BB, and thought that EVERYTHING had gone wrong for Chuck. I’m talking like physical injury he’ll never recover from, house is being foreclosed, everyone he knows HATES him, not just dislikes and thinks he’s insane. But nah, he lost A LOT during that time, but there was still hope and so much he could’ve done, but it meant nothing to HIM. And it isn’t even something quick, it holds on him chopping his walls to bits and smashing everything, making an absolute mess. Even then he still could’ve recovered. And then to make things even more horrible and gut wrenching to watch. The camera doesn’t pan out and then we don’t see a single flash and hear a gunshot. We watch a man who’s still physically abled kick his desk over and over and over. The lantern budges inch by inch, then it falls and THEN the camera pans out, and instead of a single flash, we see the flames grow and fill the room. At any moment if Chuck snapped back to his senses he could’ve stood up and ran out of the house, but he never did. Heart wrenching
Idk but that scene pissed me off so much and it was the one time I felt sorry for Chuck. If that happened to me, I’d get up and run the fuck out of there. If he’s there for a head injury, they can’t hold him against his will.
Yes it’s legal, been through something similar, also hospital workers or EMTs don’t really have to follow the law the way police do, and police also legally don’t have to understand or follow the law exactly
Police don't have to understand the law according to you?
According to the Supreme Court- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heien_v._North_Carolina
**[Heien v. North Carolina](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heien_v._North_Carolina)** >Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that a police officer's reasonable mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion required by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to justify a traffic stop. The Court delivered its ruling on December 15, 2014. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/betterCallSaul/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
True story: I had this open in a tab and kinda forgot about it while I was reading the news about Russias attacks today, and when I stumbled back in here it took me quite a while to realize the talk about mental illness was not about Putin
Lmao bless you
Hospitals regularly go against the consent of patients on all kinds of decisions. The reason you don’t hear more about it is because it is incredibly difficult to prove. If a hospital says you were not in the right state of mind, it’s basically a blank slate even if you are perfectly sane.
This was my favorite scene (I hate Chuck)
this scene was awesome to watch because chuck is fucking awful
Chuck is a rival to the protagonist and that’s the only reason you hate him. Him and jimmy were equally as flawed but jimmy had more charisma which can go a long way in getting people to overlook your flaws
chuck defenders recognise that characters do not have to be liked based off of their moral alignments challenge (impossible)
> Chuck is a rival to the protagonist and that’s the only reason you hate him. No lol
“This is not what fine looks like” - HOWARD HAMLIN before setting chuck on fire as retribution for james morgan mcgill. #HHMillionaire #HamlindionaireGrindset #COCAIN3 #NAMAST3 #xxJAGUARLoV3RS
(Spolier) reminds me of how sad the show ended.. chuck is dead and jimmy spends the rest of his life in prison. Walt dies and jesse has to hide and possibly be alone for the rest of his life, in a prison of its own.
Also when Walt asked the ambulance to drop him off because he didn’t have the greatest insurance and they said no???? He was clearly sound of mind that’s illegal af lmao
“My head is literally split open and I’m bleeding to death but please don’t save my life because electromagnetism is affecting my brain” is not something real doctors will hear and think “yeah he has to bleed to death now because of a mental illness that we didn’t even know existed till now”
Any scene where Chuck suffers is candy to my eyes.
Horrible
I literally came out of MRI today. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I got so anxious and it was so terrible. I came out like 1 min. I can't even imagine what it would be like for someone like chuck. I feel like many medical people have little to no empathy about how patient feels
MRI is a panic thing for me too. I have found I can go to a different place that has what they call an open MRI machine. It made all the difference.
Maybe. I think we all (most of us anyway) looked over that cuz chunk was such a hateful character. Like me? I didn't give one fuck about what happened to him. It was such a relief when he died.
They at least should have let him have an MRI which is magnets, not radiation. I thought that was dumb.