@Akshay Natu Human body wants to live and it has some fight in it. That things worked. They werent as good as modern medicin procedurs, but still 30 years ago doctors werent butchers, he did what he know to do and know how to do it good plus was "good doctor" who knows chief
@Akshay Natu people liked him and when there's a problem with people you like you don't want to look at it regardless at the end of the episode he quit or was fired something like that
My favourite Dr. Kelso scene. “Well....then we’ve got a problem.” It really is a pivotal moment where you see how stoic he is. The perfect man to be in charge of the show.
That became even more apparent when Cox became the chief of medicine and had to start making hard, painful decisions like firing that cafeteria worker he liked, no matter how much he wanted to still be the anti-Kelso.
He likes the guy, everyone does. He’d keep him around if he could, but not if it causes harm. In another episode he argues that a hospital needs to be a business to keep functioning, but this is one of those moments where you see he’s just trying to work within a system and he wants his patients to receive the care they need, not outdated methods from 20 years ago
A nice parallel to this scene is when Dr. Cox fires Ed for being lazy. It really does go to show that whether you been working in medicine for 30 days or 30 years, you have to keep up with the medicine otherwise you're going to be out the door
@@markseslstorytellerchannel3418 him liking whoever was never the case with Cox. He's pretty clear he never liked anyone and is simply tolerating people and he only tolerates people if they're good at the their job. Which in Ed's case he never was so he had to go. Simple as.
@@ftrunks2k You kind of made my point. Cox felt no pain at all in letting Ed go...Kelso felt it when he fired Dick Van Dyke's character and the pain was best expressed when he was erasing his name from the board and told the young doctor that he better not be there when he turned around. It takes a lot more effort to fire someone you like and once admired.
@@ftrunks2k you're forgetting the Ed *started* off good. He was talented and knew his stuff, but talent without effort has its limits. If you don't apply yourself, but others do, you will fall behind.
Regardless what people and staff say or think.. Bob Kelso actually cares and he goes the extra mile to keep up with the new technical skills every other weekend
@@Defiring There's always someone who thinks they can score points by pointing out that a character isn't real. It amuses me because all they're doing is showing that they don't get that inside your head a character can be as real as a person.
Kelso cares greatly for patients, but his position made him have to focus on big picture so that made the frontline people think he didn't. he has to prioritize the needs of the many, and that meant there were the few that suffered.
The way towend tries one last time to smile his way through with one last joke sends shivers down my spine. I've been the "joke as a last resort to not admit to yourself how bad things are" guy before
I feel the same way. And it's a reminder of their personal friendship, and Kelso laughed at that joke earlier in the episode. But he has to just give him the hard stare now. Very sad.
He wasn't willing to put the time in, learn the updated procedures, and learn the new medication protocols. It's not that he couldn't, he just didn't want to. His situation is entirely on him.
I like Dr. Towend's face at the end. It was saddness but I think it was acceptance as well. Acceptance that Kelso wasn't being mean, he was just being right.
@@clairestark9024 Bob's problem was more being unable to keep up with the culture (doctors not getting the same level of automatic respect, patients both informing and 'informing' themselves through the internet). His medical knowledge was fine.
The way Kelso never blinks - showing that he watching his reaction very seriously and that he is not joking. Kelso was not the best person but growing up (and especially after starting working in the medical field) you realize that he is actually the perfect boss. He is extremely knowledgable and actually takes overall patient care very seriously - and god forbid someone threatens it. Be it an inept new intern or an old colleague
I just love how this whole episode went down. Everyone loved Towend, just a nice charismatic guy. But JD couldn't stand how Towend was forcing the interns to do an outdated and dangerous method. Kelso knew it was a problem, stepped up and actually took care of the situation. Each character placed perfectly in their roles. Man, this show's writing was just superb.
+Andrei Plopeanu-More to the point, Townshend believed he didn't NEED to continue keeping up. That he had learned everything he needed to know involving medicine in the 70s and he didn't need to keep up on it at any point. As Kelso was quick to correct him, Kelso is the same age and Kelso still makes it a habit to keep up on any new updates involving medicine-not just because his job requires it, but because he doesn't want the same situations that Townshend allow to happen where the patient nearly dies because of him. It wasn't that Townshend not only came back as an out of practice doctor, but Townshend didn't even remotely feel sorry about it. And if Townshend wasn't willing to do the work needed to keep up, Kelso in his good conscious can't continue letting him keep practicing medicine. . .
Sad. For you young people out there, take note - this is why even the grumpiest and most crotchety old doctors are so deeply admired. They might be tough to deal with as patients, but they are toughest of all on themselves.
@@feraflauna3238 I'm not positive it was a lack of willingness. The start of the scene shows him dejected and he jumps like he's got a guilty conscience. Despite his jovial attitude and his dodging, you're somewhat given the impression that he knows he's falling behind and he knows he's risking his patients. Say what you will about the morality of a doctor who knows he's falling behind continuing to practice, I think we're supposed to think of him as a Doctor who knows his career is coming to an end but doesn't want it to end and is just barely clinging on rather than as someone too lazy to continue.
The writers always tried to address real issues, even if it was in a comical way. There is a real J.D. - he's a medical doctor and an old friend of Bill Lawerence's, and he was the medical advisor on the show. Many of the hospital-related plotlines and scenes are based on his real experience.
I'm going through residency now. Have not watched Scrubs in years, but man, some of these scenes really do resonate. I can think of one attending I once worked with who gave off similar vibes to Dr. Towend here. The difference was that he came off as more adversarial and resisted adopting more up-to-date methodology. He was with us for a few months before he moved somewhere else. As I recall, he had been in a more... managerial position before he became our attending. Hadn't actually practiced in quite some time...
Bless you my friend, that is totally fair. There are so many moments in this series that really do stick out. I think for most training for their residency My Lunch is usually the most immediate example but it's far from the only one. I think My Butterfly is another fantastic episode for these kind of things that might linger in a persons mind. Good luck with your residency by the way!
One of Dr. Kelso's finest moments. You could tell in the next scene how upset he was when he had to erase his name off the schedule. That was even harder than actually having to fire him. But it was the right decision. Speaking to my doctor he even said within 2 years a lot of new stuff is already outdated.
This kind of reminds me of something my dad once told me "the illiterate aren't those who can't learn, but those who can't unlearn then relearn". He's a journalist and used it to refer to his older colleagues who couldn't adjust to using computers instead of typewriters and subsequently had to be let go. Just goes to show that adaptability is just as important as experience and skill.
What I loved about this scene was that it established the fact that when it comes to matters of medicine, Kelso does not mess around. Yes he’s cracking jokes 75 per cent of the time but when it comes to the practice of medicine, it becomes real and the laughing stops. As per his reaction to the joke at around 1:15.
Scenes like this really show that the reason why Kelso is so hard is because he HAS to be hard. He's the one making the cold-blooded decisions that will ultimately save more lives at the cost of a few individuals. He faces the trolley problem every single day.
Kelso always cared about the patients. The problem is that as the chief, he often had to make hard unpopular decisions for the greater good or the bigger picture - think about the episode where he had to let a patient die to be able to keep the breast screening unit (or similar) outside open. The end of that episode (it's on TH-cam too) is great as you see just how hard it does hit him personally, but he still has to carry on anyway. Even Cox gets this - especially when he becomes chief of medicine himself
@@img00 I especially like the line from this clip explaining that, while he is getting hammered and having a good time at the medical conferences, he's still mostly going because he has to keep up with medical and technological advancements. He couldn't be the chief of medicine if he wasn't taking every opportunity to make sure his hospital wasn't falling behind the times.
By far one of the best scenes in the series to show that Kelso is actually still a good doctor. Constant medical conferences to keep on top of technology, practices, information so that he can keep his hospital up with the chase of ongoing research. Especially as a teaching hospital, he realizes the necessity of the most recent information to ensure his doctors are providing the best care they can afford to to the highest and most current standards possible. It shows he never rested on his laurels as chief of medicine, even when being a dick to his workers and strangling them on finances because of the business that took over medicine, he is still at the forefront a doctor who wants what is best for those who come to them for care.
Quite a few professions are like this. My brother works in IT and he goes to training seminars often, because "SOTA (state-of-the-art) stands still for no one." These conferences are just upgrades for doctors, and you have to stay on top of this kind of thing or your patients can suffer for it.
it´s really great that the show decided to flesh out kelso more than as a cartooni-ish villain, as chief he has to make hard decisions like this, or his scene where he breaks down the door to his patient to proof that a doctor can´t be replaced by the internet alone
Bob explaining that he goes to seminars and conventions help put more depth and understanding to what doctors have to do. It's a con CONSTANTLY evolving field and they all mostly need to keep up on new procedures/medicine etc..
This is why i love kelso's character. He is a douchebag authority figure but because we see the horrible decisions he has to make on a constant basis we can understand: 1. why he's butter 2. that his decisions are almost always between "Bad" or "worse". And its rare to see the side of the "bad guy" in shows because it's so real. Every boss you've ever had has made a choice like that.
As is well noted: All groups of people need a figure of loathing at the top to unify the troops below. That's why the army has (or in the now snowflake infested army - had) sergeant majors (drill sergeant).
Agreed. I think he was consistent in his character about holding himself accountable. Of course to stay out of legal trouble, but I think he's ALWAYS thought he needed to try hard for the patients. To give them his best and try in some active way to treat them better.
I never believed he wasn’t butter. It takes a long time to churn into butter, but fucking hell……..Bob Kelso was the best butter authority figure out there.
To put things in perspective, when I was a child and my doc mother was working at Karolinska (the institution that gives out the Nobel Prize in medicine) she was taught that braincells do not recover (they do) and a fuckload of other things. Mechanical hearts barely worked for 30 minutes for acute surgery, meanwhile modern mechanical hearts can work for months. If your profession is absolute, like that of math or such, be happy because else you're having to keep up with the entire human species accumulated discoveries.
High-level mathematics is less absolute (our knowledge of it, anyway), but that's when you're talking about Nobel Prize nominee level stuff, like the Riemann hypothesis.
Simple math is absolute, get really deep into the woodwork and it's the never-ending raving of lunatics writing endless hieroglyphics on the platonic realms far beyond space and time.
This shows almost more than anything else why Kelso is the way he is. He cares, but his position put a serious burden on him that often prevents him from showing it.
This episode did a very good job of demonstrating the importance of CE (continuing education) in medicine. Fact is, science and technology keep advancing, whether we like it or not, because it has to. And we as individuals and professionals have to keep up with it, as best as we can, or get left behind in the dust.
Yes this shows Kelso cares more about everything than we’re led to believe. But let’s not forget that Dick Van Dyke was here to be the Dick Van Dyke we know and love, and in the space of a few seconds he made us forget that and in the end, even though his character is in the wrong we still feel for him.
1:20. When you have to tell your best friend that he's overstepped his boundary to the point where you can't even politely or awkwardly laugh. Such a tough thing to do, but the right thing to do.
This scene was so powerful because we see Kelso's pain. He doesn't want to sack him, but the decision has to made and carried out. Kelso, so often aloof and heartless in appearance if not actually, has to fire a friend because his friend can't do the job to the needed level. It sucks but has to be done.
There’s a reason why Kelso is the chief of medicine during his time in the show. He’s the best doctor in the hospital by a country mile. And his description of going to all these seminars to keep up current medical science makes sense. In the show he’s a walking encyclopedia of medicine
The really sad and scary thing is that they're aren't a lot of Dr. Kelso's in the world. A lesser admin would have put loyalty to a friend first and kept the old doctor on, despite his refusal to update his medical knowledge and the harm he was putting his patients in by using outdated practices.
I don't know much about hospital staff, but surely there's some position the old doctor could've filled that didn't involve patients? Like an administrative position just pushing paperwork or something?
Not sure about how it officially works in the US. But in the UK you get early reviews and need to revalidate tour medical licence every 5 years. If you're not keeping up you'll not be allowed to keep yer job
Its an almost uncomfortable scene to watch. Doug Towend trying the "old ways are better" argument and lighten the mood with jokes but Kelso having none of it, maintaining a hard stare. But you can also see that Bob Kelso's heart is slowly breaking as he realizes that his old friend has fallen out of shape and is unable and unwilling to meet the standarts Kelso has to demand. Kelso realizing that he has to fire one of the few people he was genuenly good friends with, most likely destroying their friendship forever, realizing that he may have been blind to his incompetence for too long. And Towend being caught and exposed in his outdated ways, by a good friend no less, and being told straight to the face that his skills no longer suffice and no, he cannot just bullshit his ways through work.
You know, with anyone else, Kelso would not be this friendly and restrained. It must have really hurt when he realized he would have to fire his friend.
"These days if you've been out of med school for 5 years half of what you learned is obsolete". Is that actually true? That sounds like a crazy pace of advancement.
It is, another problem too that I've learned is trying to remove traditional "knowledge" that has been passed down but is not scientifically sound such as the use of trendelenburg positioning for patients with extremely low BP
I heard Doctor on the news say that "half of everything we know about medicine is wrong, we just don't know which half" new discoveries are being made everyday in the medical field.
Yes, and it applies to a lot of professions not just medicine. Programming for example, you have to constantly be training on new languages and techniques if you want to stay current. Unless you plan on working on a legacy system your entire career, which will stall out your career growth HARD, you have to be learning the newest stuff regularly.
@@salvadorlopezsalas8766 I respect doctors, those who do it because they care and not for the money (however much they may make). But I wouldn't want to be one.
Time stops for no one. Kelso had to be the bad guy because he had to think for what was best for the hospital as a whole. Constantly being given decisions that are no win scenarios for what he wants. Here, he has to tell his best friend that because of advances in medicine, he is a risk to patients and the hospital. Townshend was once the top of his field in Sacred Heart for many years. Once he admiited to Kelso and himself that he didn't have the energy to keep up with new techniques, the reality of his situation came to its head. New medical techniques often replace ones that brought a lot more risk. There is always risk in every technique, but newer and safer techniques reduce that risk. It also reduces the chance of something going wrong, risking the hospital with lawsuits.
@@niallreid7664 Tried all the phamacies in my town all said the same thing so phoned the doctors office and got them to prescribe me some other antibiotics. Funny thing is the doctor who prescribed the outdated medicine wasn't old must of been out of medschool for 10 years max.
@@niallreid7664 Bless you dude. Sorry to hear how your Grandma was treated, I hope she got treated well in the end. And you're right it's scary how quickly old techniques can become obsolete especially in Medicine, I feel sorry for the amount of hours these students and staff have to commit to staying on the front but once you slip on that the cost can be so high.
I can tell you from experience just how accurate this is... A friend asked me to take care of a simply procedure, and I completely botched it because the last time I used Instagram was in 2013... You have to stay up to date.
It's worth noting that evidence based medicine started in 1981. Dick Van Dyke, born in 1925, would have been 56 years old when that happened. If he spent 10 years in college, medical school, and internship, he'd have been a doctor for up to 28 years before that practice began. This episode aired in 2003, 22 years later. When we talk about doctors having to change to keep up with the times, in this context, we're talking about a character who spent more time practicing medicine before EBM than after. Kelso's focus on keeping up with changes in modern medicine should be framed in that context.
Someone earlier proposed that we dont know the age of the character Dick Van Dyke plays, and thats valid. It's not unusual for actors to play characters older or younger than themselves. But these characters represent people who have been practicing medicine for a very long time and are struggling to keep up with the changes. The choice of dick van dyke, a man who served in World War II, in the role of this character is supposed to present how old fashioned people can be. But it's all too common for people born after a solution has been found to think of the related problem as a thing of the distant past. Evidence Based Medicine is newer than many of the doctors who practice it, and was even newer when Scrubs was aired. If the character Dick played was the same age as him, EBM might be as new to him as Ace Inhibitors or the other practices Kelso questions him about. Medicine is constantly changing, and in some contexts is a very new field.
Evidence based medicine didn't come around suddenly in 1981 (and I struggle to understand how you got to this year in particular, as all relevant publications or events date to before or after that year, I can't find anything in particular happening in 1981). Using scientific evidence for medical decision began seriously taking off in the mid of the 19th century and yes, "evidence based medicine" as a philosophy of medicine explicitely called such came around in the 80s and early 90s, but it wasn't a sudden invention, it's a concretization of principles that had been present in modern medicine ever since it began developing.
Fionnbarr Casey don’t worry. I qualified 21 years ago. Keep friends and colleagues close. Keep each other informed and updated. We can all help each other
It's kind of similar in IT. My boss is in his late 50's, and one of the few remaining old school IT vets. His technical expertise likely peaked around the mid '00's (which is forever in tech), so he sends me to conventions and seminars to come up with new cloud and machine learning based solutions, because he's more on the management side than actually dealing with the tech now. I'll probably be in his position in 20 years or so, grooming another up and comer to slowly take over, because after a while, constantly taking new classes, recertifications every 2 years, traveling to seminars, etc., it's all just too much to keep up with as you get older.
@@Fermion.so true in every business field. You need to learn that you cant do it all by yourself forever. After a certain age you rely more on experience human interactions etc. You need to trust the youngin at one point or you are out of business
This applies to all forms of technology these days. I have a degree in computer technology that's more than likely a decade out of date. You have to stay ontop of these things and keep up at all times.
It‘s kind if weird. I kept watching this moment as a part that was about Van Dyke‘s character and a bit about JD. Because at this point in the show, Kelso was still very much drawn as an antagonistic asshole. Yet, it‘s one of the first moments that is actually fully about Kelso himself. He keeps up with the science of medicine, even though he already made it to the top. And he fires a friend of his, even though he clearly didn‘t HAVE to (nobody would have forced his hand). Before this, any time he claims to care, it was always only empty words. This is the first time where you get to learn that there truly is a part of him who wants to keep up a certain standard for the good of the patients.
It also says a lot that what appears to be the very first complaint about Van Dyke's character is taken seriously. JD is a new doctor and Kelso could easily just waive it off as him not knowing what he's talking about. However Kelso takes the complaint seriously, investigates, questions and then fires the doctor. Its not many people who would do that.
I felt so bad for Rob when they fired him from Diagnosis Murder because he didn't go to chimney conferences anymore. It's not his fault! Most of those venues don't have rooftop landing pads for flying cars!
wouldn't he have been caught by Insurance companies sooner if he kept prescribing outdated medicine and procedures. At some point some medical claims evaluator (or whatever the job is) would start to deny insurance claims for the things he prescribes
It is true, but you know they're just using these as examples to present a very genuine theme. It'd hard for a lot of people to know when it's time to quit.
Kelso is tough on the outside because he has to be. He has to be more 'manager' and less 'doctor' as his position requires him to do so. That is why he has to keep up and why he had to let his friend go. Cox didn't appreciate Kelso's role until later on, just like he was when he mentored the interns.
I always watched scrubs in SD. Later when HD became a thing, I specifically avoided watching it in anything higher than SD because a lot of comedies become less funny when you can see the actors pores. Recently though, on a whim I started watching it in HD and it's amazing some of the details that get left out. For instance, at 1:20 both actors have a slight water to their eyes. Its subtle, but it really adds another dimension to it In this version you can see there's concern.. but when you watch it in HD you see under that there's panic. Panic in Van Dyke's character at being found out, and panic in Kelso at having to make yet another hard sacrifice to keep the hospital going.
Bob Kelso. Hes mean for damned good reasons. This and the Iraq debate episode really cemented the fact that despite his age, Bob is always watching. He knows exactly when to be the bad guy and when to be a good guy. For him he has to be the bad guy or else the hospital would fall apart. When he left he made sure to pick the Doctor that was most like him. Cox is just as determined and obsessed as Bob and knows as well as Bob people need a bad guy
Townshend might have been a good doctor in the past... But to be a good doctor now, you have two choices: Either keep up with the ever-changing field that has a new "proper treatment" every other year... Or accept that it's time for you to leave the field before your outdated knowledge costs someone their life.
"I do it because I have to keep up" - Bob Kelso's best quote.
such wisdom
@Akshay Natu He didn't work with patients for many many years dipshit
@Akshay Natu Human body wants to live and it has some fight in it. That things worked. They werent as good as modern medicin procedurs, but still 30 years ago doctors werent butchers, he did what he know to do and know how to do it good plus was "good doctor" who knows chief
@Akshay Natu people liked him and when there's a problem with people you like you don't want to look at it regardless at the end of the episode he quit or was fired something like that
@Akshay Natu that's not always true
My favourite Dr. Kelso scene. “Well....then we’ve got a problem.” It really is a pivotal moment where you see how stoic he is. The perfect man to be in charge of the show.
That became even more apparent when Cox became the chief of medicine and had to start making hard, painful decisions like firing that cafeteria worker he liked, no matter how much he wanted to still be the anti-Kelso.
@@philiphunn194 I agree completely. The character development in this show is so fantastic.
@@philiphunn194 and it took him just a bit above 1,5 years to get old clinic ruined
He likes the guy, everyone does. He’d keep him around if he could, but not if it causes harm. In another episode he argues that a hospital needs to be a business to keep functioning, but this is one of those moments where you see he’s just trying to work within a system and he wants his patients to receive the care they need, not outdated methods from 20 years ago
When you aren't ultimately in.charge you can be the anti establishment #%=÷ the system guy, but when you are the head honcho......
A nice parallel to this scene is when Dr. Cox fires Ed for being lazy. It really does go to show that whether you been working in medicine for 30 days or 30 years, you have to keep up with the medicine otherwise you're going to be out the door
It really depends on the specialty. Not all of them advance quickly.
Difference is...Cox never liked Ed....Kelso liked Dick Van Dyke's character..but still did what he needed to do.
@@markseslstorytellerchannel3418 him liking whoever was never the case with Cox. He's pretty clear he never liked anyone and is simply tolerating people and he only tolerates people if they're good at the their job. Which in Ed's case he never was so he had to go. Simple as.
@@ftrunks2k You kind of made my point. Cox felt no pain at all in letting Ed go...Kelso felt it when he fired Dick Van Dyke's character and the pain was best expressed when he was erasing his name from the board and told the young doctor that he better not be there when he turned around. It takes a lot more effort to fire someone you like and once admired.
@@ftrunks2k you're forgetting the Ed *started* off good. He was talented and knew his stuff, but talent without effort has its limits. If you don't apply yourself, but others do, you will fall behind.
Regardless what people and staff say or think.. Bob Kelso actually cares and he goes the extra mile to keep up with the new technical skills every other weekend
"These feelings won't go away...been knocking me sideways..."
@Hell BroYou think he doesn't know? You're being an asshole.
@@Defiring There's always someone who thinks they can score points by pointing out that a character isn't real. It amuses me because all they're doing is showing that they don't get that inside your head a character can be as real as a person.
@@filipwolffs well and then there are some people who mistake series for real life.
Kelso cares greatly for patients, but his position made him have to focus on big picture so that made the frontline people think he didn't. he has to prioritize the needs of the many, and that meant there were the few that suffered.
The way towend tries one last time to smile his way through with one last joke sends shivers down my spine. I've been the "joke as a last resort to not admit to yourself how bad things are" guy before
I feel the same way. And it's a reminder of their personal friendship, and Kelso laughed at that joke earlier in the episode. But he has to just give him the hard stare now. Very sad.
He wasn't willing to put the time in, learn the updated procedures, and learn the new medication protocols. It's not that he couldn't, he just didn't want to. His situation is entirely on him.
@@ryanarment5393 very true. People being set in their ways, not unable but definitely unwilling to change or at least try.
@@ryanarment5393ofc he could, but as an doctor in his 70s it would also be really hard. Not the most heroi but I can't condemn him either
I like the banjo cue a lot. it adds to the visuals, sound
I like Dr. Towend's face at the end. It was saddness but I think it was acceptance as well. Acceptance that Kelso wasn't being mean, he was just being right.
Aye, he knew the jig was up.
On some level bobs letting him save face, if someone else removes him he doesn't have to admit he's not up to it anymore.
@@clairestark9024and also it lets him retire before he screws up and kills someone.
@thecroc True, nobody does something that dramatic for one reason. It's worth noting Bob had a similar issue a few years later but less severe.
@@clairestark9024 Bob's problem was more being unable to keep up with the culture (doctors not getting the same level of automatic respect, patients both informing and 'informing' themselves through the internet). His medical knowledge was fine.
The way Kelso never blinks - showing that he watching his reaction very seriously and that he is not joking. Kelso was not the best person but growing up (and especially after starting working in the medical field) you realize that he is actually the perfect boss. He is extremely knowledgable and actually takes overall patient care very seriously - and god forbid someone threatens it. Be it an inept new intern or an old colleague
I just love how this whole episode went down. Everyone loved Towend, just a nice charismatic guy. But JD couldn't stand how Towend was forcing the interns to do an outdated and dangerous method. Kelso knew it was a problem, stepped up and actually took care of the situation. Each character placed perfectly in their roles. Man, this show's writing was just superb.
Awful moment...when a great doctor becomes old and just can't keep up anymore...
+Andrei Plopeanu-More to the point, Townshend believed he didn't NEED to continue keeping up. That he had learned everything he needed to know involving medicine in the 70s and he didn't need to keep up on it at any point. As Kelso was quick to correct him, Kelso is the same age and Kelso still makes it a habit to keep up on any new updates involving medicine-not just because his job requires it, but because he doesn't want the same situations that Townshend allow to happen where the patient nearly dies because of him. It wasn't that Townshend not only came back as an out of practice doctor, but Townshend didn't even remotely feel sorry about it. And if Townshend wasn't willing to do the work needed to keep up, Kelso in his good conscious can't continue letting him keep practicing medicine. . .
@@feraflauna3238 I disagree, he definitely felt guilty, it's a coping mechanism
Sad.
For you young people out there, take note - this is why even the grumpiest and most crotchety old doctors are so deeply admired.
They might be tough to deal with as patients, but they are toughest of all on themselves.
I imagine Kelso let Townshend quietly retire rather than fire him. Least he can do for his friend.
@@feraflauna3238 I'm not positive it was a lack of willingness. The start of the scene shows him dejected and he jumps like he's got a guilty conscience. Despite his jovial attitude and his dodging, you're somewhat given the impression that he knows he's falling behind and he knows he's risking his patients. Say what you will about the morality of a doctor who knows he's falling behind continuing to practice, I think we're supposed to think of him as a Doctor who knows his career is coming to an end but doesn't want it to end and is just barely clinging on rather than as someone too lazy to continue.
1:20 - That stare from Kelso. That's when you knew it was the end of the road for Dr Townshend.
Just checked, and it was less than 2 seconds but felt like an eternity.
And Doug is like, "Alright... You got me... Let's go," like a criminal who knows he is cornered.
great bit of acting on both parts
Wow!!! As a doctor, I just love scrubs. On a comical note they present real life hospital issues
@Zach D It is sad that the comedy is the most serious medical drama out there, but definitely true
God bless you dude. I can understand that, with rapidly evolving medical and surgical techniques it must be mind consuming.
Oh, early seasons were really realistic! I really disliked how it went all cartoonish in the later seasons.
@@JonyTony2018 Same
The writers always tried to address real issues, even if it was in a comical way. There is a real J.D. - he's a medical doctor and an old friend of Bill Lawerence's, and he was the medical advisor on the show. Many of the hospital-related plotlines and scenes are based on his real experience.
I'm going through residency now. Have not watched Scrubs in years, but man, some of these scenes really do resonate. I can think of one attending I once worked with who gave off similar vibes to Dr. Towend here. The difference was that he came off as more adversarial and resisted adopting more up-to-date methodology. He was with us for a few months before he moved somewhere else. As I recall, he had been in a more... managerial position before he became our attending. Hadn't actually practiced in quite some time...
Bless you my friend, that is totally fair. There are so many moments in this series that really do stick out. I think for most training for their residency My Lunch is usually the most immediate example but it's far from the only one. I think My Butterfly is another fantastic episode for these kind of things that might linger in a persons mind.
Good luck with your residency by the way!
One of Dr. Kelso's finest moments. You could tell in the next scene how upset he was when he had to erase his name off the schedule. That was even harder than actually having to fire him. But it was the right decision. Speaking to my doctor he even said within 2 years a lot of new stuff is already outdated.
This kind of reminds me of something my dad once told me "the illiterate aren't those who can't learn, but those who can't unlearn then relearn". He's a journalist and used it to refer to his older colleagues who couldn't adjust to using computers instead of typewriters and subsequently had to be let go. Just goes to show that adaptability is just as important as experience and skill.
What I loved about this scene was that it established the fact that when it comes to matters of medicine, Kelso does not mess around. Yes he’s cracking jokes 75 per cent of the time but when it comes to the practice of medicine, it becomes real and the laughing stops. As per his reaction to the joke at around 1:15.
This is one of the few moments where Kelso's humanity shines.
Scenes like this really show that the reason why Kelso is so hard is because he HAS to be hard. He's the one making the cold-blooded decisions that will ultimately save more lives at the cost of a few individuals. He faces the trolley problem every single day.
“Sport if you’re still there when I turn around I’m having them erase your name too”
This was one of the best Dr. KElso moments . It really shiwed the few times he cared about the patients.
Kelso always cared about the patients. The problem is that as the chief, he often had to make hard unpopular decisions for the greater good or the bigger picture - think about the episode where he had to let a patient die to be able to keep the breast screening unit (or similar) outside open. The end of that episode (it's on TH-cam too) is great as you see just how hard it does hit him personally, but he still has to carry on anyway.
Even Cox gets this - especially when he becomes chief of medicine himself
@@img00 I especially like the line from this clip explaining that, while he is getting hammered and having a good time at the medical conferences, he's still mostly going because he has to keep up with medical and technological advancements. He couldn't be the chief of medicine if he wasn't taking every opportunity to make sure his hospital wasn't falling behind the times.
By far one of the best scenes in the series to show that Kelso is actually still a good doctor. Constant medical conferences to keep on top of technology, practices, information so that he can keep his hospital up with the chase of ongoing research. Especially as a teaching hospital, he realizes the necessity of the most recent information to ensure his doctors are providing the best care they can afford to to the highest and most current standards possible. It shows he never rested on his laurels as chief of medicine, even when being a dick to his workers and strangling them on finances because of the business that took over medicine, he is still at the forefront a doctor who wants what is best for those who come to them for care.
He does have a bit of the ol' sociopathy, but that just makes him good at it.
He genuinely doesn't get attached.
this is why we go to conferences
The learning about new techniques or getting away from the missus?
Quite a few professions are like this. My brother works in IT and he goes to training seminars often, because "SOTA (state-of-the-art) stands still for no one." These conferences are just upgrades for doctors, and you have to stay on top of this kind of thing or your patients can suffer for it.
it´s really great that the show decided to flesh out kelso more than as a cartooni-ish villain, as chief he has to make hard decisions like this, or his scene where he breaks down the door to his patient to proof that a doctor can´t be replaced by the internet alone
Bob explaining that he goes to seminars and conventions help put more depth and understanding to what doctors have to do.
It's a con CONSTANTLY evolving field and they all mostly need to keep up on new procedures/medicine etc..
My ex wife was going to conventions frequently to keep up...in the veterinary nursing field.
This is why i love kelso's character.
He is a douchebag authority figure but because we see the horrible decisions he has to make on a constant basis we can understand:
1. why he's butter
2. that his decisions are almost always between "Bad" or "worse".
And its rare to see the side of the "bad guy" in shows because it's so real. Every boss you've ever had has made a choice like that.
PureZOOKS i cannot believe he IS butter.
As is well noted:
All groups of people need a figure of loathing at the top to unify the troops below. That's why the army has (or in the now snowflake infested army - had) sergeant majors (drill sergeant).
@@madabbafan cringe
Agreed. I think he was consistent in his character about holding himself accountable.
Of course to stay out of legal trouble, but I think he's ALWAYS thought he needed to try hard for the patients. To give them his best and try in some active way to treat them better.
I never believed he wasn’t butter. It takes a long time to churn into butter, but fucking hell……..Bob Kelso was the best butter authority figure out there.
To put things in perspective, when I was a child and my doc mother was working at Karolinska (the institution that gives out the Nobel Prize in medicine) she was taught that braincells do not recover (they do) and a fuckload of other things. Mechanical hearts barely worked for 30 minutes for acute surgery, meanwhile modern mechanical hearts can work for months.
If your profession is absolute, like that of math or such, be happy because else you're having to keep up with the entire human species accumulated discoveries.
High-level mathematics is less absolute (our knowledge of it, anyway), but that's when you're talking about Nobel Prize nominee level stuff, like the Riemann hypothesis.
Simple math is absolute, get really deep into the woodwork and it's the never-ending raving of lunatics writing endless hieroglyphics on the platonic realms far beyond space and time.
This shows almost more than anything else why Kelso is the way he is. He cares, but his position put a serious burden on him that often prevents him from showing it.
This episode did a very good job of demonstrating the importance of CE (continuing education) in medicine. Fact is, science and technology keep advancing, whether we like it or not, because it has to. And we as individuals and professionals have to keep up with it, as best as we can, or get left behind in the dust.
This scene really changed the way I view Kelso.
Yes this shows Kelso cares more about everything than we’re led to believe.
But let’s not forget that Dick Van Dyke was here to be the Dick Van Dyke we know and love, and in the space of a few seconds he made us forget that and in the end, even though his character is in the wrong we still feel for him.
this scene reminds of a scene from MASH with Col. Potter and his old doctor friend.
Dick Van Dyke - a Legend
Kelso's finest moment.
1:03 hit me home.. "I do it cos I have to keep up"
Loved this scene! Shows the reality of life in medicine brilliantly...
1:20. When you have to tell your best friend that he's overstepped his boundary to the point where you can't even politely or awkwardly laugh. Such a tough thing to do, but the right thing to do.
This scene was so powerful because we see Kelso's pain. He doesn't want to sack him, but the decision has to made and carried out. Kelso, so often aloof and heartless in appearance if not actually, has to fire a friend because his friend can't do the job to the needed level. It sucks but has to be done.
Thats why you need people like Kelso.
There’s a reason why Kelso is the chief of medicine during his time in the show. He’s the best doctor in the hospital by a country mile. And his description of going to all these seminars to keep up current medical science makes sense. In the show he’s a walking encyclopedia of medicine
Kelso may seem evil but when people's lives are on the line sometimes you need a person like that to keep everyone straight.
The really sad and scary thing is that they're aren't a lot of Dr. Kelso's in the world. A lesser admin would have put loyalty to a friend first and kept the old doctor on, despite his refusal to update his medical knowledge and the harm he was putting his patients in by using outdated practices.
This is life, for people who do Thier job for Thier whole life and being told your unable to look after people for 50yrs it's a crushing blow
there's plenty of kelso's in the world
I don't know much about hospital staff, but surely there's some position the old doctor could've filled that didn't involve patients? Like an administrative position just pushing paperwork or something?
Not sure about how it officially works in the US. But in the UK you get early reviews and need to revalidate tour medical licence every 5 years. If you're not keeping up you'll not be allowed to keep yer job
Maybe Dr. Sloane should have spent more time reviewing literature and less time solving murders, huh?
It was the part time chimney sweeping that was the issue
😂
That's why Quincy stuck with forensic pathology in a morgue.
Its an almost uncomfortable scene to watch.
Doug Towend trying the "old ways are better" argument and lighten the mood with jokes but Kelso having none of it, maintaining a hard stare. But you can also see that Bob Kelso's heart is slowly breaking as he realizes that his old friend has fallen out of shape and is unable and unwilling to meet the standarts Kelso has to demand.
Kelso realizing that he has to fire one of the few people he was genuenly good friends with, most likely destroying their friendship forever, realizing that he may have been blind to his incompetence for too long.
And Towend being caught and exposed in his outdated ways, by a good friend no less, and being told straight to the face that his skills no longer suffice and no, he cannot just bullshit his ways through work.
He literaly starts the conversation with "i'm sorry buddy".
the common theme of this show is that the characters rip each other out and wail on each other but at the end of the day the patient comes first
You missed the best part after that, when Kelso talks to JD.
Hardest thing to do to a friend, but! the right one!. Nuff said.
Dr Bob Kelso was the best guy.
Dick van dyke was perfect for this role
One of my favorite scenes.
You know, with anyone else, Kelso would not be this friendly and restrained. It must have really hurt when he realized he would have to fire his friend.
There's something good in bad and there's something bad in good
Best example of Nice vs Good.
"These days if you've been out of med school for 5 years half of what you learned is obsolete". Is that actually true? That sounds like a crazy pace of advancement.
It is, another problem too that I've learned is trying to remove traditional "knowledge" that has been passed down but is not scientifically sound such as the use of trendelenburg positioning for patients with extremely low BP
I heard Doctor on the news say that "half of everything we know about medicine is wrong, we just don't know which half" new discoveries are being made everyday in the medical field.
@@Sablus This is an issue in many sciences, or even in general. Changing old information is much harder than introducing new information.
no2, you just look the circumsised technique, from 1990 to 2000
it is that advanced
Yes, and it applies to a lot of professions not just medicine. Programming for example, you have to constantly be training on new languages and techniques if you want to stay current. Unless you plan on working on a legacy system your entire career, which will stall out your career growth HARD, you have to be learning the newest stuff regularly.
You can tell this is tearing apart Kelso.
It really makes you glad you're not a doctor.
It make me glad that I'am a Doctor
@@salvadorlopezsalas8766 I respect doctors, those who do it because they care and not for the money (however much they may make).
But I wouldn't want to be one.
If you think about it being a doctor is the only job with a 100% failure rate, as lets face it, sooner or later everyone dies.
It was at this moment that he knew "I shouldn't have spend so much time with my Son doing stupid crime related stuff"
Kelso doesn't play favorites you gotta respect that.
In the end of the day Kelso did his job as a the Chief.
Happy 99th Birthday to Dick Van Dyke.
Time stops for no one. Kelso had to be the bad guy because he had to think for what was best for the hospital as a whole. Constantly being given decisions that are no win scenarios for what he wants. Here, he has to tell his best friend that because of advances in medicine, he is a risk to patients and the hospital. Townshend was once the top of his field in Sacred Heart for many years. Once he admiited to Kelso and himself that he didn't have the energy to keep up with new techniques, the reality of his situation came to its head. New medical techniques often replace ones that brought a lot more risk. There is always risk in every technique, but newer and safer techniques reduce that risk. It also reduces the chance of something going wrong, risking the hospital with lawsuits.
The comfort zone will destroy you
This was kelsos boss moment
a lot of careers need this sort of wake up call..... just because you got there, you need to sprint to keep up.
My grandmother's doctor has pulled the same kind of thing as Townsend it's kind of sad
I had a doctor do a similar thing, prescribed me obsolete medicine pharmacist said he's not seen that antibiotic for a long while.....
@@wetlettuce4768 What did you do?
@@niallreid7664 Tried all the phamacies in my town all said the same thing so phoned the doctors office and got them to prescribe me some other antibiotics. Funny thing is the doctor who prescribed the outdated medicine wasn't old must of been out of medschool for 10 years max.
@@wetlettuce4768 Obviously wasn't keeping up to date. Good for you for questioning it and not just blindly accepting it.
@@niallreid7664 Bless you dude. Sorry to hear how your Grandma was treated, I hope she got treated well in the end. And you're right it's scary how quickly old techniques can become obsolete especially in Medicine, I feel sorry for the amount of hours these students and staff have to commit to staying on the front but once you slip on that the cost can be so high.
I can tell you from experience just how accurate this is...
A friend asked me to take care of a simply procedure, and I completely botched it because the last time I used Instagram was in 2013...
You have to stay up to date.
good vid
And we (and JD) realise for the first time the burdens Kelso shoulders.
A number cruncher at first glance and even at the second one but Dr. Kelso proved himself to be a real caring and loving despite all the read tape.
Bob was a great leader! As much of a joke as his character was you could tell he was a damn fine doctor!
This scene is so sad. Dr Townsend is trying to be all buddy buddy with an old friend but it doesn't work.
It's worth noting that evidence based medicine started in 1981. Dick Van Dyke, born in 1925, would have been 56 years old when that happened. If he spent 10 years in college, medical school, and internship, he'd have been a doctor for up to 28 years before that practice began. This episode aired in 2003, 22 years later. When we talk about doctors having to change to keep up with the times, in this context, we're talking about a character who spent more time practicing medicine before EBM than after. Kelso's focus on keeping up with changes in modern medicine should be framed in that context.
Someone earlier proposed that we dont know the age of the character Dick Van Dyke plays, and thats valid. It's not unusual for actors to play characters older or younger than themselves. But these characters represent people who have been practicing medicine for a very long time and are struggling to keep up with the changes. The choice of dick van dyke, a man who served in World War II, in the role of this character is supposed to present how old fashioned people can be. But it's all too common for people born after a solution has been found to think of the related problem as a thing of the distant past. Evidence Based Medicine is newer than many of the doctors who practice it, and was even newer when Scrubs was aired. If the character Dick played was the same age as him, EBM might be as new to him as Ace Inhibitors or the other practices Kelso questions him about. Medicine is constantly changing, and in some contexts is a very new field.
Evidence based medicine didn't come around suddenly in 1981 (and I struggle to understand how you got to this year in particular, as all relevant publications or events date to before or after that year, I can't find anything in particular happening in 1981). Using scientific evidence for medical decision began seriously taking off in the mid of the 19th century and yes, "evidence based medicine" as a philosophy of medicine explicitely called such came around in the 80s and early 90s, but it wasn't a sudden invention, it's a concretization of principles that had been present in modern medicine ever since it began developing.
You have to keep up ... A disease doesn't take a break eighter
Being a Med school now, this is the sort of thing I’m afraid of in the future, with how fast medicine continuously advances.
Fionnbarr Casey don’t worry. I qualified 21 years ago. Keep friends and colleagues close. Keep each other informed and updated. We can all help each other
@@abbaszaidi8371 Thanks for being in the field, Abbas.
It's kind of similar in IT. My boss is in his late 50's, and one of the few remaining old school IT vets. His technical expertise likely peaked around the mid '00's (which is forever in tech), so he sends me to conventions and seminars to come up with new cloud and machine learning based solutions, because he's more on the management side than actually dealing with the tech now.
I'll probably be in his position in 20 years or so, grooming another up and comer to slowly take over, because after a while, constantly taking new classes, recertifications every 2 years, traveling to seminars, etc., it's all just too much to keep up with as you get older.
@@Fermion.so true in every business field. You need to learn that you cant do it all by yourself forever. After a certain age you rely more on experience human interactions etc. You need to trust the youngin at one point or you are out of business
Say what you want. Bob does step up in terms of the quality of doctors patients get.
I can’t believe they didn’t get him to play mark sloan
That look at 1:19 😱😔
BERT!!!!!
Sometimes, someone has to be the bad guy.
Kelso was tough and often an ass, but he was always fair
This applies to all forms of technology these days. I have a degree in computer technology that's more than likely a decade out of date. You have to stay ontop of these things and keep up at all times.
Amen. Some of that older knowledge can come in handy with older tech, but medical knowledge always has to be cutting-edge.
The problem was that along the way townsy didn't think he had to keep up.
NO! TOWNSEY!!!
It‘s kind if weird.
I kept watching this moment as a part that was about Van Dyke‘s character and a bit about JD. Because at this point in the show, Kelso was still very much drawn as an antagonistic asshole.
Yet, it‘s one of the first moments that is actually fully about Kelso himself.
He keeps up with the science of medicine, even though he already made it to the top. And he fires a friend of his, even though he clearly didn‘t HAVE to (nobody would have forced his hand).
Before this, any time he claims to care, it was always only empty words. This is the first time where you get to learn that there truly is a part of him who wants to keep up a certain standard for the good of the patients.
It also says a lot that what appears to be the very first complaint about Van Dyke's character is taken seriously.
JD is a new doctor and Kelso could easily just waive it off as him not knowing what he's talking about. However Kelso takes the complaint seriously, investigates, questions and then fires the doctor.
Its not many people who would do that.
I felt so bad for Rob when they fired him from Diagnosis Murder because he didn't go to chimney conferences anymore. It's not his fault! Most of those venues don't have rooftop landing pads for flying cars!
I got the references Dick van dyke show
Diagnosis murder
Mary poppins
Chitty chitty bang bang
wouldn't he have been caught by Insurance companies sooner if he kept prescribing outdated medicine and procedures.
At some point some medical claims evaluator (or whatever the job is) would start to deny insurance claims for the things he prescribes
Remeber the guy from Marry Popppins... Burt was his name, I think? Yes... thats him.
Sucks that JD got blamed for Towend being dismissed...
Bah, only the Janitor was REALLY mad about it, and he'd be mad at JD regardless :)
Modified Seldinger is a million times easier than a cutdown. If he can do a cutdown, he can definitely learn the technique. This is unrealistic.
It is true, but you know they're just using these as examples to present a very genuine theme. It'd hard for a lot of people to know when it's time to quit.
If you paid attention that was only one of the many procedures that the he was using that was outdated. Selective hearing much?
Kelso is tough on the outside because he has to be. He has to be more 'manager' and less 'doctor' as his position requires him to do so. That is why he has to keep up and why he had to let his friend go. Cox didn't appreciate Kelso's role until later on, just like he was when he mentored the interns.
I always watched scrubs in SD. Later when HD became a thing, I specifically avoided watching it in anything higher than SD because a lot of comedies become less funny when you can see the actors pores.
Recently though, on a whim I started watching it in HD and it's amazing some of the details that get left out.
For instance, at 1:20 both actors have a slight water to their eyes. Its subtle, but it really adds another dimension to it
In this version you can see there's concern.. but when you watch it in HD you see under that there's panic.
Panic in Van Dyke's character at being found out, and panic in Kelso at having to make yet another hard sacrifice to keep the hospital going.
Bob Kelso. Hes mean for damned good reasons. This and the Iraq debate episode really cemented the fact that despite his age, Bob is always watching. He knows exactly when to be the bad guy and when to be a good guy. For him he has to be the bad guy or else the hospital would fall apart. When he left he made sure to pick the Doctor that was most like him. Cox is just as determined and obsessed as Bob and knows as well as Bob people need a bad guy
Say what you will about Kelso but he has to make some tough calls.
Doctor Sloane.. . Legend
What season and episode is this from?
2x14 "My Brother, My Keeper"
Diagnosis Murder, Season 12 Episode 300 "Chim Chiminee Charoo"
Man, this moment really hits hard... Cripples you... God, it hurts...
Townzy!
the name gets me every time- dick van dyke
Big Don; more than Butthole Surfers?
This is so sad
Townshend might have been a good doctor in the past... But to be a good doctor now, you have two choices:
Either keep up with the ever-changing field that has a new "proper treatment" every other year...
Or accept that it's time for you to leave the field before your outdated knowledge costs someone their life.
Oof!