The Retrievals
the true crime that's worth your time
The crime
In 2020, a nurse at the Yale University fertility treatment clinic was arrested when it was discovered she had been swapping the content of fentanyl vials with saline. Before her drug diversion was uncovered, patients undergoing IVF treatment were put through an invasive procedure called egg retrieval without any pain relief. These patients would go on to claim that their distress was ignored by clinic staff during their procedures.
The story
In the newest series from the New York Times-owned Serial Productions, The Retrievals, you know from the jump whodunnit. You also know why. There’s clearly a crime that’s been committed, and it has all the usual features of a criminal case — an arrest, a trial, lots of lawyers — but The Retrievals isn’t sure that the crime here has been fully understood. And if it’s not known what the offence is, can there be any justice for the victims?
This all sounds like more theory than practice, and host Susan Burton is trying to get her arms around some big questions: not just the bad actors in the Yale clinic scandal, but the whole system, a world where women’s pain doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter so much that tampered fentanyl containers weren’t investigated by clinic staff, even as their patients screamed with pain.