| “ | I'm a good doctor. I've trained to be here. I deserve to be here. | „ |
| — Mason's "booster phrase" (CAS: Series 34, Episode 17) | ||
Mason Reede (12 August 1995 - 28 December 2019) was an F1 who worked in the emergency department of Holby City Hospital. He joined the department in 2019.
Biography
Joining the emergency department
On 24 August 2019, Mason worked his first shift in Holby City Hospital's emergency department. Due to his mentor Ethan Hardy being sent home, he was dumped with F2 Rashid Masum who was treating an infant named Evie with signs of intercostal recession and poor obs. Rash decided to take her to resus, and Mason suggested that she could be presenting with markers for sepsis; unbeknownst to him, his colleagues had already come to the same conclusion. Rash assured him that it was okay for him "to feel a little out of [his] depth" and recommended that he take a break, but Mason insisted that he was ready for "whatever [would come] through those doors".
Once Evie was taken to PICU, Mason and Rash were instructed to keep an eye on her distraught mother Hollie until she was ready to accompany her child. However, Rash was forced to step out and leave Mason on his own once his father Ashok arrived unannounced outside the room. Whilst waiting, he noticed that Hollie's breasts had been leaking milk and offered her paper towels, but she immediately panicked and started desperately searching for her daughter. Later that day, Mason expressed his feeling of failure to Rash, but he assured him that he was only at the ED to learn, and, as junior doctors, they needed to stick together. Nevertheless, Mason reported Rash to Clinical Lead Dylan Keogh and asserted that he had left him alone with Hollie for half an hour. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 2)
On 31 August, Mason treated a patient named Marcus who was presenting with an abscess. Ethan began guiding him through anaesthetising it, but he had to step aside to help out with another patient and to take a phone call. Mason began to grow restless, but charge nurse Jacob Masters encouraged him to have patience. Feeling that Marcus was in danger of breaching, Mason decided to incise and drain the abscess himself, but he ended up being covered in blood and pus when it exploded. Later, he apologised to Ethan for his mistake, and Ethan assured him that he would make many more in the future. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 3)
Mason encourages Rash to bet on Sharmella's condition. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 4)
The next day, Mason and Rash assessed Sharmella Wilson, a woman with intermittent head and neck pain, and nausea, and Mason bet £10 that she was merely hungover; when Rash refused to humour him, he offered to bet his car against his bike. Her tests soon showed that she was mildly dehydrated and hypotensive, and Mason suggested that he give her "an egg butty, some painkillers and call her a cab", but Rash opposed his "cavalier" attitude and posited that her symptoms could point to a potential thunderclap occipital headache - a red flag for a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Mason disagreed and, given Rash's unwavering stance, proposed that he reconsider their wager. Rash branded him as "unprofessional", but, with Mason and Jacob's encouragement, he acquiesced. Later, Dylan reprimanded Mason and Rash for wasting hospital resources on diagnosing Sharmella's hangover, and Mason claimed that he told Rash several times that her symptoms were alcohol-related. After their shift, Mason approached Rash for the key to his bike lock at The Hope & Anchor, and Rash reluctantly handed it over. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 4)
The following week, a woman named Hailey was admitted to the ED with a dislocated shoulder, and Rash hastily instructed Mason to prepare to reposition it after he presented him with an X-ray confirming her condition. However, after Mason successfully performed the procedure, Hailey began screaming with pain, and Dylan pointed out that there was a fracture visible on the X-ray. Mason reviewed it in disbelief and realised that he had shown Rash an X-ray taken when she was previously admitted in November 2018. In the staff room, Dylan confronted Mason and Rash about the incident, and Mason suggested that Rash was distracted by his girlfriend Gem breaking up with him. Later, Mason told Rash that he wanted to "clear the air", but he accused him of throwing him under the bus; Mason argued that he repeatedly tried to get rid of him, and it was not his fault that he had been dumped. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 5)
On 14 September, Mason treated a headteacher named Joe who had collapsed at the gym and diagnosed him with arrythmia caused by over-exertion, but he failed to notice Russell's sign on Joe's knuckles. Once Joe began retching, Mason asked Rash for a second opinion on Joe's ECG, and Rash confirmed that he was suffering from hypokalaemia, leading him to suspect that Joe had been making himself vomit. After Joe began vomiting blood, he was rushed into resus; Mason later admitted to Ethan that he had initially missed the hypokalaemia. At the end of their shift, Mason confronted Rash about undermining him in front of Ethan, but Rash insisted that he was merely looking out for Joe. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 6)
On 23 September, Ethan informed Mason that the hospital had received a patient complaint about his competence. The next day, Mason treated a woman named Millie presenting with chronic chest pains. He ordered a series of test, and they all came back clear; Mason suggested that Millie was merely suffering from a viral chest infection and discharged her. After Rash warned him about the number of tests he performed, Mason tried to get Millie brought back into the department to take more samples for a D-dimer test. On 25 September, after Mason had berated a patient named Corina for drinking heavily while pregnant, she decided to lodge a complaint and demanded to see a "real" doctor. However, after realising that she was attempting to abort the baby, he apologised to her and promised to help her through her ordeal. The following day, Millie was brought back into the department in a bad state, and Mason had her blood sent off for a D-dimer. However, Millie was soon taken into resus and later died of a pulmonary embolism. Rash castigated Mason for failing to perform all of the necessary tests when Millie was first admitted. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 7)
Personality
Mason was an extremely confident doctor who always savoured a challenge and insisted on being thrown in at the deep end. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 2)
However, despite his bravado, Mason appeared to be fearful of getting into trouble with his superiors. When Rash briefly left Mason alone with a vulnerable mother, Mason feared that he had angered Dylan after she began desperately searching the department for her baby. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 2) On another occasion, Dylan had encouraged his staff to strive towards discharging people before breaching the four-hour rule. Not wanting to incur his wrath and realising that his patient was close to breaching, Mason decided to perform a procedure without supervision. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 3)
Relationships
Professional
Rashid Masum
On Mason's first shift, he shadowed Rash who was treating an infant with sepsis. Rash temporarily left Mason to keep an eye on the baby's mother, but she soon became hysterical and began desperately searching for her baby. Rash assured Mason that the incident was his fault and told him that, as junior doctors, they needed to look after each other. However, Mason reported Rash to Dylan and suggested that he was too preoccupied with domestic matters. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 2)
Jacob Masters
As a fellow black medic, Jacob lent Mason his support and advice. When Ethan left Mason unsupervised for a long period of time and forced him to perform a difficult procedure alone in order to avoid a breach, Jacob confronted Ethan, and he later apologised to Mason. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 3)
Archie Hudson
Like Jacob, Archie related to Mason as a black junior doctor, but she believed that, as "they" expected less from them, they had give "them" more, and Mason's mistakes were theirs as well. (CAS: Series 34, Episode 3)
Behind the scenes
Victor Oshin portrayed Mason on Casualty from August to December 2019.
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