Chicago Med season 5 keeping hybrid OR, even without Connor Rhodes

Chicago Med will be keeping the hybrid OR open during season 5, even though Dr. Connor Rhodes won’t be around to run the room he created.

Though Dr. Connor Rhodes is leaving Chicago Med, the hybrid OR he created isn’t going with him. New details from TVLine say that the hybrid OR will still be open in Chicago Med season 5.

According to their article, the groundbreaking program that Connor (Colin Donnell) created during last season is “not going anywhere” even though he’ll no longer be there to run it.

It’s an interesting, though not really surprising, turn of events. Given how much money was spent to build the hybrid room—something that was mentioned a couple of times during season 4—it wouldn’t make much business sense for the hospital to tear it down.

At the same time, it’s worthy of an eyebrow raise, because Chicago Med fans will also remember that the primary condition of building it was that Connor stay to run the program.

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How is the hospital going to change its mind on that critical point? More importantly, how are the writers going to handle this part of the story going forward?

At face value, this is another reason why choosing not to bring back Connor for season 5 seems not to make much sense. There’s a big hole now, where the show created this whole new part of the ED and the producers chose not to retain the character who was in charge of it.

Connor’s disappearance won’t just affect the fans who are going to miss him; it’s going to affect the hospital on-screen, too.

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But it’s not as simple as saying that Connor is leaving so everything he built has to leave, too. From a practical standpoint, the hospital spent who knows how much money to construct this hybrid OR, and keep in mind that this is an institution that was in financial trouble before the idea came along—something else that was discussed repeatedly in seasons 3 and 4. They can’t just dismantle the program and consider that investment a wash.

So that leaves the writers with a big problem in Chicago Med season 5. First, they have to explain how the hybrid OR is expected to go forward without Connor, which may be as simple as pointing out the above. But they have to address it, given how they made a point of saying it wouldn’t have been built without him.

Then they have to decide who’s going to take over running the room. Will it just be opened up to everybody, and all the main characters will start using it when they can’t get patients upstairs?

Or will someone else have to take on the responsibility of making sure the hybrid OR is making money and is used appropriately? If so, who’s that going to be? We know ED chief Dr. James Lanik (recurring guest star Nate Santana) is pretty useless. Or is this something that someone like Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) could take over? It’d be great to see one of Connor’s friends make sure his pet project remains in safe hands.

However you slice it, Chicago Med‘s decision to keep the hybrid OR is about more than a room in the hospital—it’s a side effect of getting rid of Connor’s character and something that could play a sizeable role in season 5.

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For the latest Chicago Med season 5 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Med category at One Chicago Center.

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