Favorite Medical Shows

You’d think having been in the hospital so often makes me sick of them, and not want to watch medical dramas in my free time. Or, that I’d really be pissed about medical inaccuracies- eh. In fact, I love em.

1. Grey’s Anatomy: I started watching Grey’s when I was in Grad school, as an stress relief so to speak. Soon I began to see similarities between academia and what the young doctors went through. A world/job which takes over your entire identity so that you can’t really relate to outsiders? check. Being up at ungodly hours because you need to study/ finish something? check. Lots and lots of drama that years later seems silly to you? check. Hierarchy that is being re-inforced and shoved down your throat every day? check. People coming and going with a certain regularity? yes. Grey’s is in its eleventh season now, I believe, and I stopped in season ten. On occasion I watch half an episode. Same with academia- I teach, I read what’s new in my field, but I am not in the ER anymore.
2. ER –MY YOUTH. When episodes aired on Tuesday evening (on Pro7), none of my friends called, and if they did, it had to be… an emergency. Besides, they were watching, too. It was one of the first shows that featured a multi-ethnic and multi-racial cast. This show highlighted the inequalities of the American Health System long before I’d experience it myself. Their story lines never felt forced.  Now, looking back, I obviously see problems, but for a show in the nineties, they were pushing the envelope.
3. Scrubs. Dr. Cox. “Hello, reasons why I drink!” Need I say more?

   

4. Nurse Jackie. I haven’t seen all seven seasons, but here is what I love about it. Flawed characters, realistic portrayals of a nurse’s socioeconomic situation, and realistic portrayals of substance abuse. Of course, there are funny comic release characters (such as the continually self-infatuated Dr. Cooper), but the main characters have depth and are complicated enough to be believable.
5. A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Such a  good show. Even if you haven’t read the stories by Michail Bulgakow (which you should, they are so good!), watch the show on Netflix. A grown-up Daniel Radcliffe and a fantastic Jon Hamm are killing it in this show about a young doctor, the best at the academy in Moscow, who is moved  into the middle of the Siberian nowhere after graduating. Sharing a house with two nurses, he has to resort to rather brute methods to serve the local population. Part commentary on the early Soviet System, part the chronicles of a man in despair, this show will give you heartache.