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Mishel Prada's Brilliant Minds EMT Showcases How "Vulnerability Isn't Weakness"
Brilliant Minds introduces paramedic Katie Rodriguez in an emotionally charged episode.
Things got serious in this week's Brilliant Minds for the doctors at Bronx General Hospital when one of their own, paramedic Katie Rodriguez (Mishel Prada), landed in their care. As the titular character from Episode 10, "The First Responder," Katie drives the episode's core message home, but not before she delivers one hell of a scare ... and, maybe, sparks a love connection.
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Meet Brilliant Minds Paramedic Katie Rodriguez
"She’s very much considered family, but this — on the show — is the first time we’re introduced to her and we see somebody that is so committed to her job and taking care of people," Prada told NBC Insider of Katie. "I think it mirrors a lot of what you see the doctors on the show [doing], just humanizing the [medical] experience, which also speaks to a lot of the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks. She has that special bit that isn’t just going to just take a job and take a patient. She’s really getting to [the] heart of people as we see with the way that she treats Finn and then also her array of clients when we get into that montage."
Her dedication is admirable, but after collapsing on the job, Katie refuses Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. Dana Dang's (Aury Krebs) tests only for her condition to get worse. They eventually discovered that she contracted meningitis from one of her patients in the ambulance, but it worsened due to a listeria infection. And that was ultimately caused by her inability to sit still and accept help.
After some detective work, the doctors realized Katie had been prescribing herself steroids to mask her chronic pain after she was shot in the field. The constant steroid use led to Katie being immunocompromised: hence, the infection and subsequent collapse.
Real-Life EMT Inspiration in Brilliant Minds
Much of Katie's story aligns with Brilliant Minds' on-set EMT consultant, from whom the team took inspiration.
"She developed something that made it so she couldn’t walk," Prada explained. "And when she was in the hospital, her wife had just had a baby, and her wife stayed there with her. And you know eventually, she [was] walking again but it was hard. And her personal experience really hit home because she was like, 'I was so used to being the person that was taking care of everybody and was capable, not only with our family but within the community.'
"And that was a really important and humbling experience, to allow herself to relinquish that control and allow someone to take care of her," Prada continued. "And so, obviously, it was an easy job to really bring that into Katie’s character. And she even says that especially being a woman, she feels that she can’t show weakness because it’s a wrap. You get replaced. And... I think that’s a really beautiful lesson for those of us watching to realize that vulnerability isn’t weakness."
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With Dr. Wolf and his team's help, Katie is able to start working past her issues — this idea that "saving lives keeps me alive," as she says in the episode.
"We are so scared of our pain and we try to run from it, but sometimes we have to just sit in it and we deal with it," Prada said. "And with that, we allow ourselves the ability of community to help nurture each other."
Is there a romantic connection between Katie and Dr. Dana?
Much of Katie's growth — at least, these beginning stages — comes from opening up to Dr. Dana, who shares her own struggles with chronic mental health issues. It's a heart-warming, tear-jerking moment that could be read as friendly or familial. But even Dr. Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) is getting a romantic vibe off the pair, telling Dr. Dana that she and Katie would "low-key" make a cute couple. While Dana demures at first, we, like Jacob, can't help but wonder what could come next.
"Obviously, they’ve been in each other’s lives, they’ve known each other, Katie isn’t new to this world," Prada said when we asked about the Dana-and-Katie of it all. "A lot of us women can relate to the experience of taking care of everybody else except you, feeling like that is where your value and your importance is. And I know I’ve had to learn this [from] personal experience. Giving love, you have a lot of control over [it], but receiving love is something you don’t have control over.
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"And there’s something really exciting I think in the relationship we see with Dana and Katie … [Katie] allows herself to be taken care of," she continued. "I mean, she gets to a point where she has no choice and Dana really shows up with her in a way that isn’t somebody having pity on somebody — it’s almost just really showing up as a human being and being like, 'It’s OK for us to need each other,' and I think there’s something really powerful in Katie letting Dana in in that way that leads to hopefully something deeper. We’ll see."
Watch new episodes of Brilliant Minds when they premiere on Mondays on NBC at 10/9c. Episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
