Will Dr. Melendez’s last surgery failure hamper his relationship with Dr. Lim?

A romantic relationship at the workplace can be very tricky to handle. Mostly because every individual’s professional personality tends to be quite different than how they are in their personal lives. And hence many refrain from getting emotionally attached to a colleague. However, as life would have it, sometimes these situations are not always in our control, especially, where professionals spend almost their entire days at work. Take our doctors of ‘The Good Doctor’ for instance. As full-time surgeons and medical professionals, their lives revolve around the world and works of St. Bonaventure Hospital.

So, when Dr Audrey Lim and Dr Neil Melendez ended up getting romantically involved, we were not really surprised.
In fact, it came across as a refreshing angle to the story, as well as for the characters. It is always a warm feeling to see a touch of emotions amidst a high-tension and stressful environment of a hospital. And although they had kept their relationship private for a while, eventually they made it official and it was welcomed by their colleagues as well. However, there is a flip side to dating a colleague. As we established earlier, there is and always will be a fine line between how a person in at work and in their private life. In episode 6 of ‘The Good Doctor’ we saw the perfect example of how a mishap at work could possibly become stressful for Audrey and Neil’s relationship.
As we saw, Neil was supervising the tumor removal of a 23-week pregnant woman and while under surgery, one of her arteries get nicked and the situation gets complicated, leading to her unexpected death. This becomes extremely upsetting for Neil and he somewhere blames himself for either misdiagnosis or for not being careful enough. Either way, it doesn’t stop Neil from feeling guilty. When Audrey learns about the incident, her instant reaction is difficult to gauge. She seems supportive enough as Neil’s boss. But later, when they are in their personal space, she expresses her concern like a partner. However, this doesn’t quite help Neil’s emotions.

What we cannot stop contemplating is how this situation would reflect on their relationship? We know Neil is a good doctor. He is efficient and responsible and usually succeeds in his diagnosis. However, as a human being, he is also prone to mistakes or mishaps. And this surgery was one of them. But if we also try to see from Audrey’s perspective, she wouldn’t be wrong to take steps so such incidents don’t occur in the future. After all, as the chief of surgeon, it is her job to ensure that her colleagues are doing their job right and that the institution she is responsible for, is functioning perfectly. With mistakes like this, it can prove to be detrimental to the hospital’s reputation and patients’ trust in the medical fraternity.

No matter what stance Neil or Audrey take on their professional responsibilities, there are high chances that it could cause tension in their personal lives and create a rift in the relationship. Can a professional failure be so detrimental to a relationship?