David Hamilton's Surgery is a surgery performed by Amelia Shepherd to attempt to cure David Hamilton's Parkinson's disease.
Timeline[]
David Hamilton called Meredith to Minnesota under the guise that he was dedicating a research library to her mother. When she arrived, he gave her a tour of the facility, which included a lab he'd set up for her to work on curing Parkinson's, starting with him as the first patient. He took her to dinner and share his proposed treatment with her. ("Here Comes the Sun")
Meredith brought in Amelia as she was considering his offer. Meredith decided to accept his offer, but wanted full control over her team, whatever they learned to be accessible to anyone, and asked to have the project moved to Grey Sloan. He said he couldn't move the program, but offered to set up a satellite lab there so she could do most of her work there and travel to Minnesota once a week, which she agreed to do. ("Some Kind of Tomorrow") Neuroscientist Kai Bartley was also on the team and they happily reported that 74% of the cells transplanted into mice had survived, a promising result. ("Hotter Than Hell") Despite agreeing to allow Meredith to hire whoever she wanted, David became irritated when Meredith hired Tom Koracick, as Tom had slept with David's daughter. Meredith reminded him that he'd given her full autonomy over the team and they needed him. Meanwhile, Kai succeeded at the cell maturation process and just needed to prove the cells could survive after injection into the brain. To prove this, they were using hydrogel brains, but when they injected the cells, they stayed in a clump, which caused them to die. They floated the idea of using a motorized injector. ("Bottle Up and Explode!") This worked and solved the blog problem. ("Everyday Is a Holiday (With You)")
When Hamilton fell, he put additional pressure on the team to work more quickly to meet the FDA's requirements for compassionate release so he could get treated sooner. Kai, Amelia, and Gavin ran trials all day, trying various things to improve cell viability. They finally had the idea to cool the needle they used to inject the cells to keep them cool. They found a temperature that gave them 92% viability, enough to satisfy the FDA and allow for compassionate use. ("Today Was a Fairytale")
The FDA gave them a small window to to the surgery. Knowing that doing it in Minnesota would draw too much attention, Kai and David travelled to Seattle so he could have the surgery. On the day of the surgery, David developed a fever, but kept it hidden. Kai discovered the fever and Meredith determined that he had a perforated bowel. Instead of his scheduled brain surgery, he had surgery on that instead. ("It Came Upon a Midnight Clear) David's surgery went well, but Kai and Meredith admonished him for not telling them he was in pain sooner, as it jeopardized their work. ("No Time to Die")
When Hamilton had healed from his surgery, they rescheduled his brain surgery. Hamilton wanted the surgery to be private, but Meredith reminded him that it was a teaching hospital and she wanted to open it up to the hospital to staff to watch. During surgery, Amelia was paged to do another surgery, but she sent Tom to go in her place, allowing her to continue. ("Legacy") Hamilton survived the surgery and Kai and Amelia collaborated on their report. ("The Makings of You")
Meredith went back to Minnesota to present Hamilton's case to the staff of the Mayo Clinic. He encouraged her, adding his own commentary about how the surgery had changed his life for the better. ("Put the Squeeze On Me") Twelve months after his surgery, Hamilton hadn't had to increase his dopamine therapy nor did he show any negative neurological effects from the procedure. ("Wedding Bell Blues")
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