Dr. Max Goodwin is the new Chief Medical Officer of New Amsterdam hospital in New York City — a hospital modelled after the famous Bellevue. This is a hospital equipped to take patients from the nearby Rikers Island prison, as well as dignitaries from the United Nations. But when we meet the doctors of New Amsterdam, they’re suffering from the same malaise that plagues the general medical profession: over-billing, a waiting room full of patients and an inability to change things up in order to actually help people.
That’s where Max comes in. In the sneak peek above you can see him introducing himself to his new staff and he immediately sets out to shake things up. He fires the entire cardiac surgeon unit because they spend more time billing rather than focusing on patient care. And while many of the doctors are resistant to change, some make bold suggestions — getting rid of a waiting room so they can get patents into bed sooner, for example, or making healthier food available in the hospital. Later, Max re-hires Dr. Floyd Pearson and promotes him to run the cardiac surgery department as he’s an outlier.
Elsewhere in the hospital we meet Dr. Helen Sharpe, a brilliant doctor who spends more time bringing free publicity to the hospital via morning show appearances than she does practising medicine. In the clip above we also meet Dr. Iggy Frome, a psychiatrist who is desperately trying to help a teenage foster girl.
NEW AMSTERDAM premieres on Tuesday, September 25 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.