John Takes a Major Medical Risk to Save a Patient on 'Watson'
John Watson is no stranger to risk. He jumped over a waterfall to save his best friend. He's always willing to try the most out there procedure to save a patient, but this week's Watson was the first time he put his – and his team's – career on the line; and it wasn't even to impress Mary. No, John was standing up for the underprivileged against the price-gauging medical industrial complex. You're not going to find any shame in his game over here.
The patient of the week was a young woman named Taryn (Brittany Adebumola) who battled sickle cell anemia (also known as sickle cell disease or SCD) since she was a child. After multiple hospitalizations in several months, Mary brought Taryn to Watson to stabilize her latest attack so that Taryn could get into a clinical trial that may help ease her symptoms.
The crazy part was that a cure for SCD existed, but it cost $3 million out of pocket – something that Taryn and the millions of other Black people affected by the disease could never afford. What was the point of a cure if the patients who needed it would never have access? It sounded like a scam and John was too bright and too capable to let Taryn suffer when he knew he could help. What's a little medical fraud between friends if it was for the greater good?
