The frame Derek attaches to his patient's head is called a stereotactic frame. Used in conjunction with an brain scan, it permits the clinician to precisely locate structures in the brain during surgery. Using a scan data, a computer can calculate the location of each structure relative to a point on the frame. Once the clinician places the frame, the computer can maneuver a probe to implant electrodes or inject drugs with a high degree of precision - in this case, ensuring that a drug dosage is delivered to the correct region of the brain in each patient.

Most modern drug investigations are conducted using the double-blind model, where neither patient nor clinician knows whether the patient has received the investigational drug or a placebo. Trials usually depend on patient descriptions to ascertain whether medications are effective. A key problem with this is the "placebo effect" in which patients report improvement even when receiving a placebo. This effect can hide whether or not (and to what degree) an investigational medication actually works. To avoid the placebo effect, patients are not told whether they are receiving the medication or a placebo, and in a double blind model, the clinician does not know, either. This prevents him from introducing his own bias into the reports or inadvertently telegraphing the facts to the patient. Yet here, we see that the medication insert reveals to the clinician (Derek) whether his patient is receiving a real medication or not. At best this is a single-blind study, a type known to be inferior to double-blind studies.