Max Cristie

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Max Cristie
Familial information
Children	Jodie
Parents	Stella Lawson
Professional information
Occupation	Consultant in emergency medicine
Previous places of work	Holby City Hospital
Titles	Lead Consultant in Emergency Medicine (formerly)
Appearance information
First appearance	"Crash Landing" 18 February 2023
Last appearance	"Easy Way Out" 2 March 2024
Appearances	see list
Portrayed by	Nigel Harman
Casualty appearances
37 • 38

Max Cristie is a consultant in emergency medicine who worked in Holby City Hospital's emergency department from 2023 to 2024.

Biography

Years at medical school

Whilst attending medical school, Max became friends with Dylan Keogh (CAS: "Crash Landing") and a woman named Lucy. At some point, Lucy was abused by her professor, culminating in her suicide. Max and Dylan's differing feelings of responsibility for not spotting the signs of her abuse resulted in them falling out. (CAS: "Pushover")

Fatherhood

At some point, Max had a daughter named Jodie. From Jodie's perspective as an adult, Max ignored her and her mother until the latter died; he sent Jodie a sympathy card upon receiving the news. (CAS: "Welcome to the Warzone")

Early medical career

At some point, Max worked as a HEMS doctor. (CAS: "The Straw")

Joining the emergency department

In February 2023, on the way to a locum shift at St James' Hospital in Holby, the train Max was riding on derailed, causing the engine and four carriages to crash. Max was left with only minor injuries, and he treated a young girl named Janey at the scene for a tension pneumothorax. After accompanying Janey to Holby City Hospital's emergency department and receiving treatment himself, Max approached Marcus Fidel — the department's general manager — offering his assistance in treating the derailment casualties, and Marcus agreed to have him cleared for work. Max treated a teenaged girl named Fi Lybeck who, after experiencing a miscarriage, was witnessed possibly being groomed by her football coach Joe Hutchin. After Fi reacted poorly to Max confronting Joe and accidentally confirming Max's suspicions, Max threatened violent retaliation against Joe if he ever approached Fi or the other girls again. Marcus offered Max the role of acting clinical lead whilst the former sought a permanent appointee; Max accepted the job. (CAS: "Crash Landing")

Shortly after Max became the acting clinical lead, a troubled teenaged girl named Ivy was admitted to the ED after injuring her hand. Max harshly told Ivy to wait her turn when she complained about the wait for her X-ray results. However, when Ivy was readmitted the following day with a burn on her hand, Max realised that Ivy was not receiving enough support at home and gave her the number to the hospital's switchboard so she could vent to him. Two days later, an unconscious Ivy was dumped outside of the ED. Max correctly deduced that Ivy had overdosed on heroin, and scans revealed that she had swallowed four bags of heroin, one of which had leaked. Once she had stabilised, Ivy admitted to Max that she was working as a drug courier to pay rent. (CAS: "Not Important")

In March, Max informed Dylan that Dean Sommer — the carer of an elderly patient Dylan had accidentally outed whilst investigating evidence of abuse at Willco House — had made an official complaint against him, and urged him to stop endangering his job with his allegations. Ashok Masum — a care home resident with vascular dementia and the father of ED doctor Rash Masum — was admitted to the ED with minor injuries after stabbing a carer; the circumstances surrounding Ashok's injury, as well as a series of bruises indicating forceful restraint, led Dylan to suspect that he was a victim of abuse, but Max believed that Dylan was obsessed with finding spurious evidence of abuse to make up for failing to save Lucy. Dylan was ultimately vindicated when Ashok recounted him witnessing the abuse of another resident, so Max backed up Ashok's reliability as a witness to DCI Supriya Vadra and commended Dylan for his obstinacy. (CAS: "Pushover")

Later that month, following a "brutal" meeting with hospital management, Max and Jacob Masters, the ED's clinical nurse manager, were instructed to make efficiencies in the emergency department. Max feared that the jobs of both doctors and nurses as well as the continued operation of the department would be at risk if he and Jacob were unable to make any substantial changes themselves. Following an incident at a fairground, Max pushed back against Jacob's impromptu decision to put pressure on doctors to start taking patients' bloods and insisted on discussing any protocol changes after the shift. However, Max later begrudgingly agreed to Jacob's recommendation of turning away non-critical patients until the number of active cases was sufficiently reduced. Consequently, the ED was unable to release an ambulance to respond to an entrapment which, unbeknownst to the staff, involved staff nurse Robyn Miller for a prolonged period of time. (CAS: "Falling Down")

Max was part of the resus team that treated Robyn upon her arrival at the ED and, when there were no operating theatres available to treat her internal injuries, agreed to serve as her anaesthetist in an operation led by Sacha Levy in the ED's trauma theatre. An unexpected bleed was encountered which Max identified as a result of Robyn becoming coagulopathic, and Max urged Sacha, Dylan and David Hide to let Robyn go. As a result of Robyn's death and the excessive stress placed on them, several nurses resigned and walked out of the ED. Max instructed Jacob to request agency nurses, stating that they could not afford not to get them at that point. (CAS: "The Straw")

As the Willco House investigation continued, Max praised Dylan's intuition and was ready to relinquish the clinical lead role to him. DCI Vadra was rushed in the ED after being stabbed by Roy Welch — the leading suspect. Max and Dylan treated the officer in resus and managed to stabilise her condition for theatre. After Max informed Dylan that Dean had dropped his complaint, Max recommended that Dylan stand down when Roy was admitted to the ED following an impalement. Dylan ignored Max and took on Roy's case, managing to bring Roy back from the brink with a risky clamshell thoracotomy, but Max accused Dylan of prioritising Roy over other high-risk patients for the sake of a "personal vendetta", and proclaimed that he would be better suited for the job of clinical lead. Dylan later conceded that Max would be the better lead. (CAS: "No Regrets")

Jodie's employment in the ED

In April, much to Max's surprise, Jodie started working in the ED as a staff nurse. After struggling to cooperate with one another in resus, Max asserted that Jodie could not remain in the department working with him. However, after Jodie played an instrumental part in saving a pregnant woman's life, her newfound colleagues vouched for her potential as a nurse. Max approached Jodie for a more cordial discussion on how they would tackle their working relationship, but Jodie suggested that he completely ignore her like she claimed Max did her mother, and insisted that she would never consider Max her father. (CAS: "Welcome to the Warzone")

Behind the scenes

In September 2022, it was reported by press outlets that Nigel Harman had signed a one-year contract with the BBC to portray a character named "Max" in Casualty and had already started filming. The BBC declined to comment on the reports, but photographs posted online by other Casualty cast members showed Harman at Roath Lock and wearing consultants' scrubs.

On 7 February 2023, Harman's casting as Max was officially announced in a segment of The One Show.