nurses portrayed in grey's anatomy


The November 18 episode includes a limited but fairly good portrayal of a nurse--as a patient's mother. 0000004258 00000 n On the contrary, it is fully consistent with the show's vision of nurses as fawning or vindictive losers whose lives revolve the physician characters who provide all meaningful care, including key tasks that nurses do in real life. We're trying All these factors need to be in consideration. But he was a quasi-battle-axe, a petty bureaucrat obsessed with protecting his turf and resenting physicians, not helping patients...read more...or go straight to our letter-writing campaign! In that episode, attending Mark Sloane says that his friend Callie deserves better than "off-brand crap" cupcakes for her bon voyage party because it's not just a "baby shower for some nurse who couldn't keep her knees together." Introduction. girls like Meredith! 0000007822 00000 n Thus, nurses do alert physicians to obvious changes in patient conditions, so the physicians can give life-saving care. Bokhee is a scrub nurse at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital who is often seen in the OR. more... October 13, 2011 -- Episodes in the seventh and eighth seasons of ABC's Grey's Anatomy include the forceful "Nurse Eli," the sort-of boyfriend of star surgeon Miranda Bailey and perhaps the best nurse character the show has ever had. more... January 25, 2007 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy includes a short scene in which attending physician Mark Sloane praises nurses as "helpful," "smart," and "already good at their jobs." “What you see on TV is mostly nursing care. Tonight's episode, seen by 18.4 million people, suggested that naughty nurse video p*ornography was a viable pain management tool. Y. The nurses do seem up to catching vomit, though, so that's something. Of course, since these physicians already provide virtually all the nursing on the show, including key procedures, monitoring, and patient relations that nurses do in real life, you might well ask just what additional things the physicians are going to do in this episode. But it still associates nursing with icky tasks that seem menial, wrongly suggests that physicians help with them, reinforces battleaxe stereotypes, and does nothing to show what nursing is really about. Two other episodes include brief but damaging appearances by nurse Tyler, a bitter lackey who could not care less about patients and views his role as doing as little as possible to help the physicians who actually provide expert care. Rose is a nurse at Seattle Grace Hospital who briefly dated Derek Shepherd. Matt Roush Today, 9:00 am. 0000007116 00000 n Ask Grey's to keep going and bring more nurse characters on to do the nursing! Grey’s Anatomy: Nurses play a small role in the hospital. Our mission is to Empower, Unite, and Advance every nurse, student, and educator. Burbank, CA 91521 USA The episode drew 15.6 million U.S. viewers. vehicles through which the show's pretty physician heroes confront failure, fate, infidelity, class differences, and, for the women, latent fears about female subservience and their own sexual virtue. In an April 2014 episode, surgeon Meredith Grey directed a nurse to go and remind Meredith's husband Derek, also a surgeon, to pick up their kids. See the clip... "And yet nowhere in that newspaper article does my name appear. And still another episode features a rare prime time mention of nurse practitioners. A March 2013 episode included a fleeting suggestion that nurses were actually required for the hospital to do surgeries! Nurses were seen as focused on administration and care tasks that the episode's 18.5 million viewers are likely to find trivial, like changing bedpans, handing things to physicians, minor handholding, and tracking little patient quirks. Parriott, and the medical advisor was Karen Lisa Pike, MD. We urge the show to consider if it could pursue its apparent mission of deifying physicians without attacking nurses quite so directly. more... May 15, 2006 -- Tonight's two-hour season finale of ABC's Grey's Anatomy featured a remarkable level of physician nursing, even by the no-nurse standard the show has maintained since its two January 2006 nursing strike episodes. In truth, nurses are typically managed by other nurses. April 14, 2005 -- Today Charissa Gilmore, the Vice President responsible for Media Relations at ABC's Touchstone Television, These storylines are overdramatic, inaccurate or portray people with bipolar disorder as villains. Capshaw first auditioned for the part of Nurse Rose, a love interest to Patrick Dempsey’s Dr. Derek Shepherd in seasons four and five, who was ultimately portrayed by actress Lauren Stamile. 0000001929 00000 n Tonight's episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy marked an unwelcome return to series creator Shonda Rhimes' own writing about nurses. A December 2012 episode did briefly feature an apparently knowledgeable nurse cajoling a nervous surgical intern into managing an infant patient in crisis. season that has been crammed full of them. or without comment. The good news is that her life can be saved with … But while creator Shonda Rhimes knows how to make great TV, she's not a medical expert. The episode, Eric Buchman's "Great Expectations," was seen by 21.5 million viewers in its initial U.S. airing. Surgeon characters provided all monitoring, emotional support and advocacy for patients, practiced hospice nursing, and even handled deceptively difficult nursing tasks like enemas and colostomies. to keep an open mind, but with a staggering nine out of nine recurring characters apparently surgeons, the is a fictional character from the medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy, which airs on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. We guess having the surgeons collaborate clinically with a nurse like that might be too disruptive of the Grey's world view. But he was just as disagreeable, smug, and unconcerned about patients as ever; basically, a battle-axe. and all key procedures, including defibrillation. We have to give the show credit for a nurse character who was not a huge problem at first glance. The episode, Mark Wilding's "Where the Boys Are," was seen by 20.6 million viewers in its initial U.S. airing. The series is based around a group of diverse interns and residents who try to juggle their incredibly demanding medical careers and their own personal lives. She is a common feature in most surgeries, but speaks very little. But one brief scene in the 16th season, which aired in November 2019, actually had a nurse provide expert advice to a patient. Firstly, although nurses are well trained health care professionals, the media shows the public the opposite. 0000006711 00000 n “Grey’s Anatomy” has been one of my favorite TV shows since its inception in 2005. 0000056813 00000 n Nurse Gamp is portrayed in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit as a scruffy, fat and uncaring woman with a red nose who smells of alcohol ([1843–1844] 2004: 564-586). more... December 11, 2005 -- The last two episodes of ABC's Grey's Anatomy are notable for more of the show's now-familiar explicit expressions of contempt for nurses (e.g., "skanky syph nurse"). The ABC hospital drama has aired 350 episodes telling the world that only surgeons matter and nurses are clinical clutter, as we show in our new analyses of seasons 12-15. As on previous episodes where Grey's seems to have made little progress since the anti-nurse insults of its first episodes five long years ago e.g., "Did you just call me a nurse?" Bennett Ruda - 24 Adar 5781 – March 8, 2021. Back then I was a premed, so I watched the drama about the lives of surgical residents and physicians with great interest, even though I knew many aspects of the residents’ lives were exaggerated or … Of the medical dramas, “Grey’s Anatomy” gets the highest marks from Kishana Taylor, a virologist who is currently researching the role of monocytes in the … And if "Nurse Eli" ever got a surname, we didn't catch it. Regardless of whether such female-focused p*orn is misogynous, as Yang suggests at one point, naughty nurse imagery like that this episode offers up mainly for laughs continues to be a factor in the devaluation of nursing. The character was created by series producer Shonda Rhimes, and was portrayed by actor T. R. Knight from 2005 to 2009. Art is the ability to tell the truth, especially about oneself. And they ignore the enormous influence individual physicians--like them--continue to wield over such depictions, influence that has, sadly, been a significant factor in the ongoing representation of nurses as peripheral subordinates who make no meaningful contribution to health care. Hotshot intern Cristina Yang dismissed a veteran nurse from a patient's room with a comment that the physicians would let her know if a bedpan needed changing. In these, nurses are minimally skilled 0000011256 00000 n There are many ways to look at race and gender in this TV show, but I will mainly be focusing on one topic, masculinity or male representation throughout the show. By the way, none other than TV Guide noted in its preview for the Jan. 29 episode (Jan. 23-29 issue) that it had "hardly even noticed there were nurses on this show. See the film clips from 5 notable episodes! The show has also been one of the most damaging to nursing, and this ninth season was no exception. more... January 29, 2006 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's hit Grey's Anatomy featured the conclusion of the nursing strike plotline begun last week. In the Jan. 22 episode, the nurses try desperately to cope, while the hospital ignores their concerns. Vice President, Communications The first episode, "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response," was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan; the second, "Losing My Religion," was written by series creator Shonda Rhimes. 0000007289 00000 n As in the early days, the show wants us to feel the pain of brilliant female physicians who must fight to avoid being mistaken for nurses, members of the backwards servant class of health care. But it stressed that a nurse advisor was involved in the show's production and that diverse nurse characters did appear on screen, noting [-�2��O��^���7�Y�w Over the years, we have been somewhat torn about what to seek from Grey's. N-��?\�z&����7?ԧT\�:z��ōZt2��ڨ��!n�D����d��ū���듶��?�����Ӌ�߬�O�B��nn?n�ݲF�]��]KP�����֪�����펦[)v���+ɤ������%��_��2T�_�۷. November 2010 -- Three episodes of ABC's Grey's Anatomy airing this month include plotlines that illustrate the show's occasionally sympathetic but mostly contemptuous portrayal of nursing. The show seems to be saying that the nurses are bitter serfs, but if physicians ignore or abuse them enough, they will strike back. Nurses are premiere of Grey's Anatomy, a new television drama about the experiences of a group of 0000042104 00000 n The episode was written by James Format. In 2005, Grey's Anatomy ran an episode with a similar sub-plot: a 17-year-old girl who has recently become more religious finds out that she has a potentially threatening heart condition that could kill her. And while we appreciate the show's nod at the short-staffing that now threatens many nurses' practice, the Jan. 22 episode wrongly told viewers that the disgruntled nurses reported to the chief of surgery--a damaging inaccuracy for an autonomous profession in the midst of what may be the worst shortage in its history. January 23, 2006 -- The Jan. 22 episode of ABC's hit Grey's Anatomy (analysis pending) actually had a minor subplot in which nurses expressed frustration with short-staffing (!). Ultimately she ended the "it's complicated"-type relationship with Eli and, although the show allowed him some dignity in that process, it also implied that there was no real future for the two of them because Eli was just a nurse. Grey’s Anatomy offers a good nursing portrayal …for 30 seconds. There are still no nurse characters to complement the show's surgeon stars, who now number more than a dozen. This initial airing drew an estimated 22.5 million U.S. viewers. What nurses? See the film clips from 5 notable episodes! Then Tyler steps back to let George handle the important health care issues. Male Representation and Masculinity in Grey’s Anatomy . In the September 21 premiere, written by Shonda Rhimes and seen by 25 million U.S. viewers, experienced nurse Olivia confronts a sick newborn much as a deer faces headlights. This is presented as a brutal punishment from Cristina's chief resident. Prior research has demonstrated that public perception of healthcare may be influenced by the depiction of physicians, nurses, patients, and hospitals on television.1–3 Although many television dramas that portray the medical field (such as Grey’s Anatomy and E.R.) In this episode, we did not see a nurse character utter a single line. robert.nunez@abc.com, Richard Horrmann, 0000003120 00000 n Our members represent more than 60 professional nursing specialties. see as an uneducated servant class. Given the media's proven influence on the public, this widely seen premiere's regressive attack on nursing will likely do its part to exacerbate the nursing crisis that is taking lives worldwide. You see a physician, it says, "she's saving lives. In both cases, their main role seemed to be to present obstacles to the bright but arrogant resident Shane Ross. ...read more... Grey's Anatomy: New ABC show boasts nine physician The season was especially physician-centric, with surgeons doing everything that mattered in the hospital: triaging, diagnosing, treating, monitoring, intervening, advocating, educating. The Mark Gordon Company More broadly, the episode continued the show's tradition of damaging misinformation and unrebutted anti-nurse slurs. Projecting edge but The episode was Tony Phelan and Joan Rater's "The Becoming"--drawn from a Nine Inch Nails song, because if any TV show is in sync with Trent Reznor's fiercely bleak view of modern life, it's definitely "Grey's." "Break on Through," written by Zoanne Clack, MD, seemed to be an effort to show nurses some respect, and we give the show credit for that. March 2005 -- On Sunday, March 27, at 10 p.m. (9c), ABC will broadcast the If the Jan. 22 episode is any guide, we'll see the pretty intern stars trying to do their important jobs as well as what the show will likely present as the nurses' annoying administrative and grunt work. Present and former supporting characters on the TV show Grey's Anatomy RN Olivia Jankovic neé Harper (Portrayed by Sarah Utterback)Appeared in Grey's Anatomy (S1-6, S14) A nurse who briefly dates George but gives him syphilis after having … At the same time, the show doesn't seem able to get through an episode without at least one specific expression of contempt for nursing--in this case, a playful remark that associates a certain well-known nursing task with punishment for a junior staff member. Fall 2009. I have been following the show for a while (who can resist Patrick Dempsey?? In an April 2014 episode, surgeon Meredith Grey directed a nurse to go and remind Meredith's husband Derek, also a surgeon, to pick up t… They all wish and can only wish (for majority) that their first day as an intern could too start like Meredith Grey's. Rhimes wrote the episode, and the "medical consultant" was Karen Lisa Pike, MD. And the November 4 episode includes another of the show's occasional naughty nurse insults. him talking about “boring science stuff” to brooding about a clinical janet.k.daily@abc.com, Holli Fisk, Senior Broadcast Publicity Manager, Entertainment ... Not gonna lie, Katie Bryce was kind annoying as hell, but she's v important in Grey's Anatomy canon. We guess that nutty science stuff is just for smart physician Nurse is a Dirty Word. But use a scalpel! Benni Beltramo. 0000004946 00000 n But the plotline suggested that nurses were too dumb to realize what Sloan was all about despite his reputation, and that they were after more of his attention than they could have, underlining the sense that they are slutty serfs grasping at any available hunky physician. Bokhee An is a scrub nurse in real life, and she has been on every season of Grey's Anatomy. 0000005917 00000 n But they also illustrate how nurse characters serve as convenient plot devices for the show. 1 February 2016 . Nurses were absent or peripheral, appearing on occasion to hold things, get commands, or tell one physician about the needs or location of another physician...read more...or go straight to our letter-writing campaign! Meanwhile the show's nurse characters barely exist or when they do, they are portrayed as worthy of contempt. Jane." :) and I have to say, it seems to me that the show portrays nurses in a derogatory way a lot of the time. Another 24 episodes of misinformation about what nurses do May 2014 – The tenth season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy followed the show's by-now-familiar model, clinically speaking: Surgeons gave all important hospital care and nurses were generally limited to background roles, fetching things and absorbing commands, occasionally with an obsequious "yes, doctor!" The Negative Images of Nursing Portrayed on Grey’s Anatomy, House and ER and its Effect on Public Perception and the Contemporary Nursing Shortage. Here are false things Grey's Anatomy made you believe about medicine. D&D Beyond neurosurgeon Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd that she preferred trial. In those fourteen seasons to date, there have been over three hundred episodes. But perhaps the episode's most notable feature was its relentless portrayal of physician nursing, as the physicians basically handled all meaningful patient care by themselves. Grey's Anatomy does that, but the premiere also embodies feminism's blind contempt for nursing, stressing that smart, tough, attractive women In all the operating-room scenes, the scrub nurse is a constant. Nursing is underfunded because it is undervalued. physician interns, especially women, struggling to cope in a tough Seattle surgical program. May 2014 – The tenth season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy followed the show's by-now-familiar model, clinically speaking:  Surgeons gave all important hospital care and nurses were generally limited to background roles, fetching things and absorbing commands, occasionally with an obsequious "yes, doctor!" Ask Matt: Will the Future of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Be Decided Sooner Rather Than Later? There was a brief appearance by the assertive senior nurse Frankie, but she was mostly there to die tragically in childbirth, despite the heroics of the surgeons...read more...or go straight to our letter-writing campaign! Surgeons treating COVID-19 patients like Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) talk to their kids through phone cameras while they isolate in hotels. ABC’s hit does have its fair share of medical errors — … But we also note that: (1) in this episode, the nurses' jobs seemed to consist of managing hospital room occupancies and paperwork, with no hint that they play any important role in direct care; (2) the show's 10 physician stars continued to provide all significant care, including much that nurses do in real life; (3) the episode wrongly told its 21.3 million U.S. viewers that the disgruntled nurses report to the chief of surgery, and nurse managers remained nonexistent; and (4) the episode continued the show's association of the few, unpleasant nurses who do occasionally appear with problems (bureaucracy, infidelity, STDs, failure, strikes, and so on). Entertainment We urge the show to do more!...read more...or go straight to our letter-writing campaign! more... "You're the pig who called Meredith a nurse...I hate you on principle.". Do not attempt to adjust the picture. In tonight's episode, written by Krista Vernoff and seen by 23.3 million, nurse Tyler informs intern Cristina that he was part of a team that just saved a life in a code. Evidently, the authors would entrust public understanding of health care errors, health financing, scope of practice, access to care, and health policy generally to a lobbying organization representing a small minority of powerful health workers who lack expertise in many key areas of modern health care. They're doctors! ER, Grey’s Anatomy and House are three popular medical shows with a large audience. But the hospital drama continued to focus on heroic physicians providing all the care that mattered, while nurses were low-skilled serfs who could, at most, alert the physicians to problems that the physicians alone could solve...read more...or go straight to our letter-writing campaign! The nursing group is urging the producers of Grey's Anatomy to incorporate nurses as skilled professionals who play a central role in patient care. 0000004813 00000 n Our analysis focused on a scene in which attending Mark Sloane punishes two surgical interns by giving them what is presented as the trivial, grotesque task of treating bedsores, suggesting that he's not asking the nurses who would normally do it because he likes them. So it was with Eli. But that didn't stop one surgeon character from delivering a mind-boggling speech declaring that a key rule for successful surgeons is to listen to and respect nurses. Anyway, we urge all to watch the episode, and let the show creators know whether it gives a good sense of what happens to patients when nurses are not there. Men in Grey’s Anatomy are seen as far more prized than women from the respect they receive to their valuations of a doctor. 0000002561 00000 n Thank you. 0000005270 00000 n The episode, "Something to Talk About," was written by Stacy McKee. He was murdered by grieving widower,Gary Clark. Grey’s Anatomy. Jump to specific seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. In the end, the nurse came off as an anonymous testing device for the surgeon, whose experience dominated the scene. Physician characters do all patient monitoring, all patient emotional support, all family relations, all patient advocacy, and virtually all supportive and therapeutic care. Many times, the series has been not-so medically accurate, but honestly, the truth's just not as exciting to watch. 0000004546 00000 n ABC is already calling Grey's Anatomy one of the biggest new hits of the season, and this episode had a reported 18 million viewers. 12200 W. Olympic Blvd., Ste 250 Characters in “Grey’s Anatomy” echoed some of these experiences. Nurses in the show's 13th season were mostly meek servants taking physician orders, when they appeared at all. These two were part of an iconic set of interns that were caught in a lot of drama and mischief. watch and let the show's producers know what they think. ABC . Seriously? October 23, 2005 -- I hate the way they portray us in the media. They don’t do IVs. more... ABC's Touchstone sends a response to nurses' concerns on Grey's Anatomy. Jacquelyn Bishop, Providence College. The one notable exception is a young black male nurse, probably the biggest nurse character. dramas on the public's health-related views and actions, we hope all nurses--but especially OR nurses--will Is she a . On Grey's Anatomy, surgeons are still gods and nurses are still low-skilled lackeys. Now Rhimes is back with more faux-feminist contempt. After 348 episodes of surgeons doing everything that matters, Grey's Anatomy featured a nurse for 30 seconds educating a patient, actually having health knowledge and talking. And an enormous amount of what they do would have been done by nurses in real life. Nurses on . go straight to our letter-writing campaign! In the ABC show's 14th season, Nurse Olivia returned with some verbal payback for surgeon Alex Karev. The media affect s how people think and act toward the nursing profession. Nurse Cynthia Youngblood. of the physicians around her. Authors. And the show otherwise presented nurses as obsequious servants, doing mundane physical tasks and absorbing commands with a standard "yes, doctor!" ", ABC's Touchstone sends a response to nurses' concerns on. Finally, resident Cristina Yang gave a bitter speech about ex-flame Preston Burke winning a prestigious medical award without crediting her help--an astonishing echo of the show's own crediting of physicians for work nurses really do. In Grey's Anatomy, physicians often perform tasks that nurses typically do, including distributing medications, drawing blood and transporting and monitoring patients. Los Angeles, CA 90027 USA, Mark Gordon 0000049927 00000 n The well-named episode, "Tell Me Sweet Little Lies," was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan. Download DOWNLOADS. A Kansas nurse manager said, “Nursing is not a job. Not surprisingly, it is an insult, as Shepherd suggests that another surgeon is wasting her time doing after-care since a "nurse practitioner can do this." May 16, 2013 -- Tonight's finale of the ninth season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy capped another season of the all-surgeons-all-the-time drama, which has become of one of the most popular hospital shows in U.S. television history. Daniel Sunjata played Nurse Eli Lloyd in seasons seven and eight of Grey's Anatomy. Included in. Q: I am a fan of Grey’s Anatomy and have watched it from the beginning. As "Grey's Anatomy" patriarch Richard Webber watches N95-clad nurses turn the cafeteria into a makeshift COVID-19 unit, the former chief of surgery said, "I have never seen anything like this." Intern Cristina Yang spends most of the episode sifting through the stool of a boy who has swallowed Monopoly pieces. Ultimately, the hospital agreed to hire more nurses and the strike ended. I was just wondering what other nurses' thoughts are on the show, "Grey's Anatomy". Again, there is no defense of nursing. Nurse Zibby. When the episode isn't crediting physicians for work that nurses really do, it portrays them as physician helpers. I love Grey’s Anatomy, but have to agree with the above comment that most of the things I see doctors on this show do are not a doctor’s responsibility in real life. Soon Bailey is operating again, and the responsibility for carrying objects from point A to point B is back where it belongs. W. Adele Webber. Intern Alex orders Olivia to get him IV materials as he whisks the baby out of the flu-stricken ED. Grey's Anatomy has been on the air since 2005, which totals 14 seasons. Lexie will have her revenge on her Seattle Grace colleague, but the show makes no effort to defend nursing. Indeed, the bedridden Fallon was In one episode, after senior surgeon Derek Shepherd asks female surgical resident Lexie Grey to monitor his own health during a marathon surgery, a male resident mocks Lexie by telling her that it sounds like she will be Shepherd's "bitch" and urging her to "have fun playing nurse." For example, every time a doctor or intern needs something, they yell "Nurse!" have random spells of spoken lines, usually only when speaking to a physician or when they are involved in a subplot, such as a nursing strike or a love affair. The nurse happily complied. Please read Ms. Gilmore's letter, see our response. May 22, 2008 -- On the season 4 finale of Grey's Anatomy, the female physicians’ priority is not to Those episodes now seem like a token effort to get nurses off the show's back, so it could go on with its inaccurate and damaging portrayal, regardless of the central role nurses actually play in hospital care--a reality that seems to be no more than a minor inconvenience to the show. Men in Grey’s Anatomy are seen as far more prized than women from the respect they receive to their valuations of a doctor. You see a nurse, it says, "she's naughty." In the episode, Seattle Grace's surgical nurses boycotted all surgeries of plastic surgeon Mark Sloane because he had loved and left too many of them. He pages intern George to tell him that a pre-op lung cancer patient has been shoplifting and is planning to leave without having her operation. Liz was a scrub nurse at the then-Seattle Grace Hospital. Because of the demonstrated influence of network In a couple plotlines, working nurses did briefly emerge from the background. 0000003684 00000 n 500 S. Buena Vista St. :) and I have to say, it seems to me that the show portrays nurses in a derogatory way a lot of the time. 4151 Prospect Ave. 4th Fl. Ms. Gilmore's letter expressed appreciation for nurses and appeared to take their concerns fairly seriously. Executive Producer, Grey's Anatomy Physicians also provide all other important care on the show, though nurses may be present at the edge of the main action, silently doing some little nurse thing. Z. 0000001837 00000 n As in other post-January episodes, no one here directly suggests that nurses are sluts or losers, and perhaps nurses' protests have at least achieved that. It is undervalued because of persuasive media depictions such as those in Grey's Anatomy that portray physicians doing the important work that real-life nurses do. Nurses cannot leave unless another nurse is there to take care of the patient, they work all year long, and work long hours. Language. We, the AMA, are controlling transmission. michaela.zukowski@abc.com, Robert Nunez, Director, Communications Entertainment But the rest of the season included apparently nurse-free surgeries.