TV Checkup: Private Practice: East Meets West

Dr. Addison Montgomery is confronted at the beginning of the premiere episode of Private Practice by the chief of Seattle Grey Hospital. She has resigned and announced her intention to move to sunny southern California to join a private practice. He argues with her, "You don't know anything about those people!"

She shoots back, "I know plenty!"

But what does Addison really know? Apparently not as much as she thinks. As she describes each of her new colleagues, we are shown sides of them she hasn't discovered yet. Particularly striking is her description of Dr. Pete Wilder, a physician who practices integrative medicine, combining the best of East and West: "Pete does alternative medicine. As a surgeon I don't believe in that kind of thing, but he's a healer."

How does a self-described "world-class" surgeon (read smart woman) end up at a cooperative medical practice, a wellness clinic where complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) is obviously a valued component, with an attitude like that? Why is she surprised that she is expected to do deliveries in a birthing suite, that her "staff" is Dell, the nurse/surfer dude at the front desk who is studying to be a midwife, and Pete who she calls an "alternative medicine guru"? Why doesn't an educated ob/gyn know the word "midwifery"?

Her one patient of the day is Lucy, a 17-year-old girl who is going into labor. Pete points out that in Lucy's medical records there is a holistic birthing plan and announces that he'll help with the birth. Addison has been assured that "laboring moms love Pete," so she invites him in to do "your little Eastern voodoo thing you do."

Turns out she needs his "voodoo." The patient goes into congestive heart failure and the baby is distressed due to a compressed umbilical cord. The ambulance can't get there in time - Addison has to do a c-section or risk losing both mother and baby. But there's no time for an epidural and none of the equipment she took for granted in her former hospital, just some lidocaine to use as a local anesthesia. Dr. Pete's Eastern voodoo to the rescue! He uses acupuncture to block pain receptors so that Addison can perform the surgery.

"Are you sure she's not going to feel anything?"
"I'm sure."
"Are you really, really, really sure?"

She doesn't sound like a world-class neonatal surgeon. She sounds like my daughter did at age 6, questioning whether the tooth fairy was really going to come.

For me that is the problem with this new off-shoot of Grey's Anatomy. Yes, there are beautiful people, beach front homes, nude dancing, and sexual energy floating around (which we can assume will only grow) - all lots of fun. But really - did moving to SoCal suck the brains from this woman? How is this surgeon going to reconcile her attitude about CAM with her new environment? Will she wise up and smell the aromatherapy or is she doomed to sound condescending and ill-informed about everything in her new life?

Hey Addison - read Dr. Joe Pizzorno's blog, Integrative Medicine and Wellness. He'll tell you that "The best medicine is that which integrates conventional and natural medicine in the best interests of the patient" and "Health care decisions should be made on the basis of good scientific evidence." Nothing voodoo about that, is there? Need to hear from another surgeon? Read Healing from the Heart: A Leading Heart Surgeon Explores the Power of Complementary Medicine by Mehmet Oz, MD!

Addison moved south, looking to make changes in her life. Let's hope that an open mind and enlightened attitude are among the changes.

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