Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective

Episode 7

Dear lord, where do I begin with this episode?

I guess I'll begin at the beginning: would a doctor being sued for malpractice once really be the kind of thing that could get an entire department destroyed? To be fair: I have no idea how hospitals work, especially with regards to what happens when doctors get sued for malpractice. Still, in this context, the erasure of an entire department while the ink on the legal papers is still drying—much less before it has a result—feels pretty extreme. Not least of all because it's being framed as an issue of public relations, even though neither this mother nor child hold any particular amount of influence, nor is the audience given any reason to believe that there's any journalists or other media figures sniffing around for stories about malpractice and could latch on to this one. But, again: I guess I don't know what happens when a department head gets sued for malpractice, so while I remain skeptical, I won't dwell on this.

But even if I don't know much about how hospitals handle this kind of thing, helicopter parents are another story. Continuing this anime's streak of laughably improbable circumstances, I have a hard time believing that someone who's ostensibly an overprotective parent—much less someone who's actually got Munchausen syndrome by proxy—would allow the doctor she's suing, and who she seems to be aware could be on to her, to so much as be in the same room as her and her child, much less give the child an examination of any kind. And this is all to say nothing of the hospital itself—weren't they supposed to be concerned about their image? Why don't they seem concerned that she's doing this? Actually, better question: if the hospital is concerned enough about the sheer possibility — and I want to emphasize the word “possibility:" remember, the lawsuit's only just been launched! It's not even explored, let alone confirmed, by the hospital that she actually misdiagnosed the kid yet! — that Dr. Takao misdiagnosed someone that they're attempting to remove her department, then why is she still allowed to be doing her job at all? One would think, based on the hospital's reaction, that she'd be suspended, or at least in a position where she can't see patients for a while. But nope! She still seems to have as much free reign as ever!

In any case, however ridiculous the circumstances that led her to examine the child, Dr. Takao's been watching too much Apothecary Diaries if she went right to poison. I'm not a medical professional, but I would think something like an allergy, even if an unconventional one, would be the more likely and obvious choice. Sure, she ended up being technically right, but only in a roundabout way. Maybe I'm actually the one watching too much Apothecary Diaries, but coming right out and saying the kid is being poisoned before any tests have been run makes it sound like the mom is slipping arsenic in his juice, or something like that.

And speaking of the juice: I've talked about this in previous weeks, but medical mysteries have a difficult needle to thread in terms of constructing their mysteries. If they're not going to make them solvable by laypeople (without also feeling obvious and boring), then they have to make up for it by having good storylines. While I'm unsure of the medical accuracy of this episode, it's nonetheless an episode whose mystery hinges on medical knowledge. In other words: it's an episode that was always going to need to lean more into having a good story, since the mystery aspect of it wasn't going to be as generally solvable. But unfortunately, this anime has a track record of poor storytelling.

There's no buildup to the reveal of the mother's Munchausen syndrome by proxy—no hints dropped, no moments of tension, really nothing in the episode that might specifically point to that being the specific manner of what was going on. Sure, it suggests that the mother is doing this to her child, but why? What's the all important motive? It's anyone's guess. Even Dr. Takao doesn't really offer a substantial justification for how she landed on the mother having Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She says it's because the mom sued her for being right the first time, but again: all that denotes that the mother was doing the poisoning. It does nothing to tell us why. Dr. Takao just did a glorified vibe check that happened to be correct. Fortunate for her I guess, but it's so painfully un-detective-like.

Once again, this show really should've given this episode more room to breathe. A mother with Munchausen syndrome by proxy has the potential to make an interesting storyline, even if you're not as concerned with using it to make a better mystery. But this show, it'll get elements that could make a good story, but it just doesn't know what to do with them. It doesn't know how to make a good, solidly composed mystery—something that could be more easily looked past if it was at least telling good stories, but it simply isn't. And at this point, we're more than halfway through the series, so while I'd love to be wrong, every week I become more and more doubtful that it's ever going to change my mind.

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