Baran Al-Hashimi has a neurologist, she's had this disorder for 35 years, she's probably on medication, she may need a change in said medication, she's been in an active war zone, lived through a terrorist attack, all the while managing her disorder.
Absence seizures typically last between three and fifteen seconds. Neither of her seizures happened during critical care moments, though of course they could. We have seen many other doctors on this show deal with issues that have caused them to have delays in patient care between three and fifteen seconds. Robby has been letting his issues affect his work in a myriad of ways, Mel put Becca ahead of every other patient she was treating and spent a good amount of time with her, Mohan had a panic attack, Javadi didn't catch the sigmoid volvulus patient, Trinity is falling behind due to exhaustion, Langdon was diluting patient medications (which isn't a timing issue but certainly put patients in a lot more danger than an absence seizure!). There are very few, if any, times in which a patient that will die in the next three to fifteen seconds is being treated by one (1) doctor alone.
Saying that she is unable to run the ED because of her disorder is simply wrong. There will have to be some extra measures put in place perhaps (like two attendings) but no more than there needs to be extra measures in place to protect the staff and patients from Robby's self-destructive warpath.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on the ED being a place of multiple moving parts, the staff being a team. I'd go even so far as to say the theme of the season is that this job cannot be done alone.
Last season, when Robby had his breakdown, he tells Abbot later: "I choked."
Abbot's reply: "For what? Forty seconds? Three minutes? Ten minutes? So fucking what? We all have that, that is what happens when you're in a war and nothing makes sense. We survived as a species because we learned how to cooperate and communicate."
These people are not robots, that is the thesis of the show. They will all deal with something that makes them slip, but because of the people around them, that will not be the end-all be-all.
If you have been extending your empathy to Robby all this time, you must also extend that to Al-Hashimi. She, out of everyone, knows the value of cooperation and communication, which is why she is fit for this role, no ifs, ands, or buts.
