Sumith Prasad
In the sixth season of ABC’s medical series ‘The Good Doctor,’ Dr. Shaun Murphy gets increasingly worried about the health of his mentor and father figure Dr. Aaron Glassman. He initially thinks that Glassman’s brain cancer has returned after the neurosurgeon missed two sutures during surgery. Shaun tries his best to convince the neurosurgeon to take a test to confirm whether his cancer has returned, only for the latter to decide against it.
With no other option in front of him, Shaun tells Glassman that he doesn’t want to lose his “father” when he is going to become one. Glassman then takes the test, only for the same to reveal that the cancer hasn’t returned. Still, the neurosurgeon displays several symptoms that question his capability of operating on someone. Does that mean his time in San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital is coming to an end? Let’s find out! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Health Concerns Challenge Glassman’s Role
Although Shaun confirms that Glassman doesn’t have cancer, his worries concerning the latter’s health don’t vanish since the neurosurgeon misses two screws while building a crib for the former’s unborn baby. He conducts a test and finds out that Glassman has suffered from a stroke, which has affected his brain severely enough to make him incompatible to do surgery. As the chief of surgery, Dr. Audrey Lim decides that Glassman shouldn’t operate on his patients until she gets convinced that the patients are not at all at risk while he is operating. Hospital president Dr. Marcus Andrews, however, lets Lim know that Glassman should operate if he is confident enough to do the same.
In the twenty-first episode of the sixth season, Lim gives Glassman a chance to prove his capabilities as she assists him during surgery. Although the neurosurgeon removes the tumor in a patient, he gets stuck midway through the procedure, which makes it clear that he is not 100% fit to do surgeries. When Lim initially asks him to not operate on patients, Glassman lets her know that he will operate as long as he is a doctor working at the hospital. Therefore, the viewers can’t be blamed for worrying about his departure from St. Bonaventure. However, we may not see the same happening.
First of all, Glassman asks Lim to fire him when he is highly confident about his capabilities to do surgery. He thinks that Lim is stopping him from doing something he is the best at without any evidence that proves he is unfit. Now that he gets stuck in the middle of a surgery, without knowing about the next step, Glassman may accept that he is risking his patients’ lives by performing surgeries. Such a realization doesn’t necessarily lead him to depart from St. Bonaventure. He is too valuable an asset for Lim to lose, even if he cannot do surgeries.
Lim may ask Glassman to remain in the hospital to instruct other surgeons while they perform complicated procedures. She may assign him as the guide of his potential replacements so that his wisdom and experience can still save the lives of several patients. Since Glassman’s mistakes are trivial, another neurosurgeon assuming most of the responsibilities to free the former from pressure may turn out to be an option to consider. Staying in St. Bonaventure may also help Glassman to receive the best treatment, likely monitored by none other than his “son” Shaun.
Schiff’s Departure Unconfirmed
The health complications Glassman has been dealing with have alarmed the viewers concerning Richard Schiff’s commitment to the show. However, neither ABC nor Richard Schiff has released a statement concerning the actor’s departure from ‘The Good Doctor.’ Glassman’s health issues must have been conceived for adding tension to the show’s narrative, especially when the sixth season is progressing toward its conclusion. We can expect Glassman to recover from his concerns the same way he recovers from his brain cancer in a previous season. After working at the show for six committed seasons, it is unlikely that Schiff will leave the medical drama without even an announcement.
Schiff has always expressed how he loves playing Glassman through images and videos from the filming locations of the series. Considering Glassman’s significance in the narrative of the show and protagonist Shaun’s storyline, the writers of the series may not conclude his storyline without Schiff wanting to leave the medical drama. Considering these possibilities and factors, we believe that Schiff will most likely continue featuring in ‘The Good Doctor.’ Even if he doesn’t practice as a surgeon, we may see him at St. Bonaventure upon possibly replacing Andrews as the hospital president, especially considering that the latter’s position is on the line.
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