The Retrievals · Serial Productions & The New York Times

S02 Episode 4: The Solutions

July 10, 2025·46 min·3 clips

Mindy asks why C-sections are done awake and says some women may prefer to go to sleep.

1. The Retrievals S02 Episode 4, 'The Solutions,' centers on pain during cesarean delivery at UIC and the changes Heather made after Clara's surgery. 2. Susan Burton reports the story, with Heather, Corey DeBergrave, Clara, and Mindy as the key voices explaining what happened on the OB unit. 3. The episode asks how a hospital can make patients' pain matter when cesarean care has long treated it as invisible or secondary. 4. Clara says the culture shifted because she can now say, 'Stop,' during a C-section when a patient is not okay. 5. She describes surgeons becoming quicker to pause, while nurses and anesthesiologists are more willing to speak up across hierarchy lines. 6. Heather says changing language and behavior starts with residents, because norms set early become normal for years. 7. Heather tells trainees that there is little concrete research on what exact words to use with patients, even though there are many papers on clonidine. 8. In her classroom, she asks residents what a 'difficult patient' is and hears that the label often falls on people who ask questions and want to be informed. 9. Corey recounts a crash C-section where a patient refused general anesthesia and feared the situation enough to call herself a 'dumbass bitch' and a 'dumbass' in frustration. 10. Corey says he knelt beside her, used casual language, held her hand, and talked her through the choice without pretending he could promise a pain-free surgery. 11. Heather explains that tone matters, but the larger change comes from a system that compels staff to act when pain is reported. 12. At UIC, the electronic record now sends a reminder every 15 minutes, turns a tab red, and prompts follow-up questions when the score is 3 or above. 13. Heather says the system was built with a colleague and hooked into the electronic medical record, rather than copied from another institution. 14. The system also stores patient quotes, not just numbers, because Heather wants documentation that captures what patients actually said about pain. 15. One doctor says there is still no proof that any cesarean pain tool is the best practice, which underscores how little formal evidence exists. 16. The episode notes the SONAR study in England and Australia and says nearly 80% of OB units in the U.K. and U.S. are participating while studying whether patients told doctors about pain. 17. Susan Burton's reporting style is immersive and observational, including the hallway gowning, the sterile OR walk-in, and the moment she sees the patient's open abdomen. 18. The tone mixes classroom teaching, bedside dialogue, and reporting from inside the operating room, with repeated attention to tone, wording, and institutional habits. 19. People interested in obstetric anesthesia, patient advocacy, and hospital culture. 20. Listeners wanting light conversation or a non-medical topic.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Retrievals