The Retrievals

This was an excellent meditation on how women’s pain is perceived and often dismissed within the medical industry. It was at times infuriating, heartbreaking, and informative. This production was thoroughly researched, excellently produced, and it treated these women’s stories with the care they deserved from the very beginning. I expected no less from the New York Times and will be reflecting on this case for years to come.

I almost couldn’t breathe throughout the episodes as they went from one outrage to the next, but I especially appreciate the articulate outrage of the victims. Not a fan of long sentences, but this punishment is SO outrageous. Part of the wider disbelief and devaluation of women, even when they are pursuing the socially-sanctioned path of motherhood.

Why listen? Serial team does it yet again, with caveats. It's a five-part story of a group of women undergoing IVF at the Yale Fertility Clinic who endured agonizing egg retrievals without pain blocking medication because a fentanyl-addicted nurse had been stealing and replacing it with saline. These traumatic experiences and their aftermath become entangled in a thicket of thorny issues: Is women's pain still systematically downplayed and ignored by the medical profession? How much responsibility does Yale bear for these errors, and have the sufferers been appropriately compensated? Was justice served in the case of the nurse, who was given an extraordinarily lenient sentence owing to her responsibilities as a single mom and an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment for drug-addicted offenders? The podcast does an admirable job of examining these threads, though I was unconvinced and remain somewhat skeptical of its most assertive conclusion—that this incident is further proof of widespread bias against women in medicine.

Wow. This one really did its job and did it WELL. I was blown away by the story arch, the order in which the stories were told, and of course the validation and recognition of female pain. As sociology student, so many pieces of puzzle were addressed that hadn’t occurred to me, and that I especially appreciate. Thank you, everyone who helped bring this reality to light.

Unnecessarily long just to fill out multiple episodes. Didn’t finish after fast forwarding through chunks of the 2nd and 3rd episode. Should’ve been one good episode. Also, why are we trying to sympathize the nurse?? So Donna’s going through a bad divorce and she uses Fentanyl to cope? I’m supposed to feel bad for her?? She watched countless women go through horrific medical procedures with no pain management. Ridiculous. Skip it. Google it and read a news article about the story.

I am an avid listener of the Serial Podcast series and love other true crime stories. I would not consider myself thin-skinned or easily shook, but this season was horrific - not in production but in content. I couldn’t listen to this and wish it had come with a warning.