Saw a gifset of Robby calling Mel one the best residents that have passed through PTMC, and it just makes me so sad and angry. Because it shows that he was still capable of reassurance to the white woman who was distracted the entire day-first by her deposition, and then by her sister. But Samira suffering from a panic attack, that in the moment felt like a heart attack, was proof to Robby that she didn't belong in the ER.
It's definitely not a bad thing that Mel got that reassurance, but what is it that makes her so much more deserving of it than Samira-I mean we know what, but what did the writers think was the reasoning, considering they truly don't think Robby's a racist?
He had multiple instances to tell this talented doctor that she's a good at her job, but the only time we've seen him give her a compliment that wasn't backhanded was in s1, where he's armtwisted into it, and Samira appears visibly taken aback. Even Dana remarks how surprising it is for her to hear him compliment Samira. It makes me wonder how much Samira must regularly feel the bias in his training, and how little she's even come to expect from him.
And even still, she tells him that maybe she doesn't belong in the ER, practically begging for any sort of comfort or reassurance from this mentor of hers who has been nothing short of cruel to her. And he brushes her off, tells her that her patient should have picked a higher place to jump from, and tells her that he's actually the one who's suffering, because he doesn't have a family and a pond. And still, he refuses to give her any actual support-a recommendation letter, a kind word, or even just laying off when she's clearly shutting down emotionally after a horrible case.
And we're never going to get to see him actually face any consequences for his treatment of her. Al-hashimi's criticism of his behaviour was brushed off (not to mention how he treats her in the finale), and doctor Samira Mohan is simply "not working that day" when s3 takes place, after which Gemmill has said that she's almost certainly not returning to the series.
What the actual fuck are we doing here? Yeah woc are treated horribly in the healthcare system, but that's not what it's being framed as in the show. Yes, the futility of the insurance scam in the US affected her, but can we reasonably say that Robby hasn't had any effect on her mental health? Collins in s1 told Robby to his face that he was destroying Samira's confidence in herself, and then we see that come to fruition in s2, and now she's never going to be able to build herself back up (at least onscreen).
As much as the show likes to put forward Robby as this lone ranger, fighting against the machine, he is very much a part of the complex. He's the chief attending and the doctor in charge of the residents in his department. And he drove a South Asian woman out of his ER, with great prejudice.
Robby might be portrayed as this saint of a doctor, who is just going through such a tough time, but to healthcare workers like myself, I recognise him as one of the most difficult parts of my job, that is still just treated as the status quo.
