In this episode of my blog, we'll talk about fiction's obsession with the medical profession.
As some of you know, I've been working at a hospital for close to two months now. I find it incredibly rewarding and I love the challenges that each workday brings. It's been one of the best jobs I've ever had.
Over the years, I've rolled my eyes whenever a new movie or television show comes out that focuses on hospitals, doctors, nurses and other medical personnnel. I considered the genre done to death and I was even more annoyed about how everyone laps these shows and movies up. How many variations on E.R., Grey's Anatomy and House do we need? I tired of the cheap melodrama that was found in the old jazz musician dying or the 8 year old cancer patient's last wish. I was sick of watching the perfect 10 M.D.s lustily eye each other in the break room and then watch two seasons worth of the whole cast swapping body fluids-and I don't just mean during surgical procedures! HIYOOOOOOOO!
I'll admit that I'm guilty of casually enjoying a few of these shows. I can't deny that Hugh Laurie as Dr. House is generally brilliant, even though every episode follows the formula of 1.Look at this wacky medical problem. 2. House snarkily explains how to solve said medical problem.3. Everyone else says House is crazy for thinking this. 4.Entire medical team is baffled by the medical problem and 15 things go wrong at once. 5. House comes in at the last second, tells everyone that they are morons and saves the patient with his MacGuyver plan. 6. "You're so great Dr. House"!
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| I prefer my Hugh Laurie with a side of Fry. |
All around though, I can't stand most medical shows. That is until the last few weeks.
The people in a hospital, be it the patients or staff, experience a lifetime of emotions on a daily basis. Babies are born, bringing the joy of new life to their parents. A family watches in shock as their father or grandmother succumbs to a terrible illness. A man feels explosive rage at the thugs who beat him in the parking lot and split his forehead open.
The doctors, nurses and other staff are there the entire time, witnessing the real life drama of hundreds of people unfold. They must be the strong ones, the smart ones, the people who provide answers. They are blamed and hated when something goes wrong, yet elevated to savior-hood when a breakthrough happens.
And there's drama within the staff's lives, too. When you are forced to spend double shifts and odd hours with a team of people responsible for saving lives, you get close real quick. You also get irritated with each other. Nevertheless, you begin to invest in the complicated lives of your coworkers. Your team in the ER, ICU or Pediatrics becomes a kind of family.
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| The coworker family at my hospital isn't this ethnically diverse. |
On television, doctors are the ones who are celebrated, but I say they get too much credit. From my observation, nurses are the people that do most of the dirty work and doctors swoop in at the last minute and make a diagnosis. Nurses have to be maids, waiters, and counselors, not to mention the hundreds of other roles they have to assume. I'd like to see more fiction that explores the varied and fascinating situations that nurses find themselves in.
There's plenty of comedy working at the hospital, too. When you're dealing with a high stress environment, you lighten up or go crazy. In the E.R. especially, there are some characters. There's the guy who comes to the ER everynight complaining of chronic pain so he can get a pain pill prescription even though there is no discernible ailment . There's the lady who screams "I HAVE TO PEE!" at the top of her lungs in the middle of a problem summary. There's the guy who insists on examining every piece of documentation he has to sign with a jeweler's eye, thoroughly irritating everyone in a five foot radius.
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| "I won't leave until you explain every last bullet point" |
Don't make the doctor a cocky 32 year old single guy, make him a 45 year old man from India that worked extremely hard to get a job as a doctor in America. Stop making nurses look like idiots, create a character that's an assertive, slightly overweight single mom who works from 8 P.M. to 3:30 in the morning to support her children. Cut the BS with the dying child who has a life message that makes everyone stop and reflect, portray a child as a screaming, terrified foster kid who has no one to see him at the hospital. Don't portray the chaplain as a bald Catholic priest who says "The Lord works in mysterious ways", have the character be an overworked yet boundlessly caring person who will do anything to make sure a family is taken care of. These are the types of people I work with on a daily basis and more people need to see the things that these people experience everyday.
If you're interested, help me create a show with some of these ideas. I'm partial to the sitcom. We don't have enough classic style sitcoms these days with laugh tracks, catch phrases and zany characters. We get these post-modern HD quality laugh-trackless awkward fests (I'm looking at you, The Office). How great would a classic sitcom set in the ER be? Comedy gold if you ask me. Thanks for reading, folks!
P.S. I would insist the sitcom would having an opening theme in the spirit of this:
Do you believe that an emotionally-realistic medical show can be created as a pure comedy? I think the idea works as a drama but not as a comedy. Not that there aren't comedic moments in a medical setting, or that a drama must be devoid of any and all humor, but I'm quite skeptical that a 22 minute sitcom has the time to build an engaging storyline that emotionally explore characters in a realistic way.
ReplyDeleteAaron, there are plenty of sitcoms that do this. Take "How I Met Your Mother". Being that it's a sitcom, some of the behavior of the characters is a little exaggerated, but there are moments of genuine emotional depth. I particularly relate with Marshall and Lily, as they are a young married couple and the show does an excellent job of depicting the situations and frustrations that young married life contains. The focus of a sitcom is always comedy, but emotional depth can be handled well as long as the show doesn't just devolve into a drama. The aforementioned Scrubs is another example of this. The show is regularly noted for it's side-splitting comedy, but also praised for it's moments of character growth and subtle drama.
ReplyDeleteScrubs! I forgot about that show when I was writing my comment (even though it's in your piece, I read the post then came back and commented later). I haven't watched it that much, but now that I think about I have seen a couple of emotionally deep episodes dealing with what the doctors giving diagnosis to patients. Of course, I’m sure there are other examples.
ReplyDeleteAs for HIMYM, I haven't watched enough episodes to get a more than surface flavor of the show.
Speaking specifically about my point that sitcoms can't emotionally explore characters in a realistic way, I didn't mean so overly broad in judging all sitcoms, but specifically the point of your post: a medical sitcom. Obviously, the Scrubs example negates what I was trying to say.
Since Scrubs has done this before, I assume it could be done again, which brings me to your desire to see a show based around nurses. Whether such a show would be a comedy or drama, I have to say I think such a show could be a successful breath of fresh air against doctor-driven shows. Even though my mom is not an ER nurse, I’ve seen how hard she works and has worked at various clinics, and heard plenty of stories from her or occasionally her friends, and at least in the entertainment realm, I agree that nurses are underrepresented. There’s plenty of material to work with for interested writers/producers.