In Joel's hallucination of being in Manhattan, the directory board outside Ruth-Anne-as-doctor's office building lists "Vittes, Fresco, and McKee" as a neurosurgery office. This is a reference to co-executive producer Michael Vittes, director Michael Fresco, and first assistant director Patrick McKee.
Dr. Ruth-Anne Miller is told of a symposium on "multidrug-resistant microbacterial TB". The writers got surprisingly close. The causative agent of tuberculosis is named Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Ed says re the ferret, "I picked up this poor terrified animal and felt his heart beating, just racing in his chest". A calm ferret just going about his ferret day has a pulse of about 250 beats per minute, roughly four times the human normal.