As we follow Medical Director, Dr Max Goodwin’s mission to improve patient care at New Amsterdam, one of America’s oldest public hospitals, we are not only pulled into the lives of his patients and co-workers, but we also get a glimpse of the tightrope medical executives are forced to walk in order to uphold their oaths within a broken system.

The 12th house

The 12th house in astrology represents isolation, suffering, escapism, the intangible, and the unseen realm. It is also the house that represents jails and hospitals. Connecting these places with the 12th house themes mentioned is hardly a leap; both patients and prisoners are isolated from the “real world”, and they are both undergoing special kinds of suffering from which they would surely love to escape. Still, they can only do that through dreams and visualisation. Similar to all marginalised people, the sickly and the incarcerated are often forgotten or directly neglected. It is worse for those who are poor as well. The system downright locks them out or pushes them deeper into the hole that is poverty, further isolating them from society.

Self-sacrifice

Despite being new on the scene, Dr Goodwin, a character played by Ryan Eggold, dives in head-first to tackle the issues prevalent at this understaffed and underfunded hospital, while simultaneously juggling his battle with cancer and trying to win back his wife’s affections. We experience with him all the emotions he tries to suppress as he does his rounds in-between chemo sessions. His character embodies self-sacrifice which borders on self-sabotage as he ultimately fails to keep all the balls in the air. As implied by his motto, “How can I help?”, Max is the personification of the saviour complex that plagues those with planets in Pisces. Driven by compassion, empathy, and duty, Piscean’s often sacrifice themselves for the other or a cause. The zodiac sign Pisces naturally falls in the 12th house.

Escapism

Unfortunately, Dr. Goodwin is not the only doctor who puts on a cape to avoid dealing with his issues. The head of the hospital’s Emergency Department, Dr Bloom, once put her patients’ lives at risk because she wanted to feel like she was helping people. She was abusing her medication (and her job, let’s be honest) to escape her pain even though she knew better, and it almost cost her her career. This is quite the case study for why it is important to confront the shadows that you’ve pushed to the depths of your subconscious instead of trying to run from them. They will catch up to you, and sometimes you won’t even realise until they have taken over your actions.

There is also Dr Iggy Frome, the Head of the Psychiatry Department, whose weaknesses were sugar, flattery, and saving people, traits that almost cost him his family. I have to admit, I enjoyed seeing so much of this side of the doctor-spectrum. It certainly made me relate to them more as people who, despite their own troubles, try their hardest to improve someone else’s life, and sometimes, fail in very human ways.

Surrender

Some mountains proved to be simply too high for Max Goodwin to climb. He was, unfortunately, unable to end racism, but we’re all noting his effort. To make matters worse, he was unable to save the one person who mattered the most, the love of his life. Before that, he was forced to give away control to his oncologist and simply have faith. He was forced to surrender.

Responsibility

Regardless of whether you have been a prisoner or a patient before, we have all experienced what it feels like to be excluded, unseen, and stuck. We have known a fair share of our own version of suffering. Thus, we know what it feels like to dream of a better reality. Dreaming and imagination also fall within the realm of Pisces and the 12th house. The 12th house reminds us of the importance of dreaming and visualising our lives so that we can cope with the heaviness of reality. As believed by Freud, people cannot live without a modicum of fantasy in their lives. The issue then lies with responsible use. With all 12th house themes, one must tread responsibly lest they fall off the cliff. Overindulging in escapism and the other high that comes from serving through self-sacrifice can lead one down a dark path.