OK--you've probably seen both new medical shows- Chicago Hope and 
"ER". Both shows are pretty good, but, sadly lacking in substance, at
least that's what I got from the pilots that I saw, and of course, reflected
against my own recent escapades with the UMH.

  In short, Gimme re-runs of "Ben Casey" anyday.

14 responses total.

"St. Elsewhere" had it all.  Chicago Hope seems to try to rekindle that
sprit more than ER, but I think I'm going to skip both.

 I forgot about "St. Elsewhere" since I did see every episode, and yes,
I agree with you 100%. Still, Ben Casey has appeal ;)

Admittedly hard to judge after only seeing l episode each but...  I liked ER
better.  Chicago Hope seemed to try too hard to be overly dramatic and heroic. 
With ER, however, perhaps a bit difficult to keep the patients straight. St.
Elsewhere was about my all time favorite show.  Love d the ending with the
hospital in the snow globe.  Kind of like the ending on Bob Newhart where it
was a dream from his previous show.

 The ending implied that St. Elsewhere was all in theimagination of
an autistic child. Blew me away!!!

Well, I have a clear preference.  I really enjoy ER alot and even though it is
extremely  difficult for me to stay awake until the end, I try darn hard.  I,
also loved St. Elsewhere.  But this is a different slant altogether.  St.
Elsewhere was sardonic and mocking and downright funny.  ER is fast paced,
dramatic and tries to be serious.  It's the fastest hour on TV for me.  Yes,
folks, I admit to watching tv even though its not PC.  

Well, at least a choice is no longer necessary since they moved Chicago Hope.
I still like ER, however.

 Still like Ben Casey. 

 Medical Center was a pretty decent show as well. OTOH, Marcus Welby was a
load of crap straight from the farm. Ugh.

I have yet to see a medical show that is much like what a real
life hospital is about.  They are all far too serious, too wacky,
too sexist, too dramatic, too just about everything.  That's really
sad because if they dared make a movie or do a television program
showing it just as it is I think would be great for the whole health
care delivery program.  Folks would see there are few miracles and 
that everyone, patients and staff are people with good days and bad 
days, and that you'd better do all you can to take care of yourself
and not get sick.

Most people have either been hospitalized or have been
to hospitals on account of others, and must realize how
hyped up TV shows about hospital life all are.  Just spend
a couple of hours waiting in an emergency room (where you'd
*think* much of the drama would take place) and you get the
picture pretty quickly.  Kids with lacerations or musculoskeletal
injuries, elderly people with circulatory crises, a drunk
or two flanked by police officers, and so on.  No screaming
or yelling.  No one ever shouts the word "stat!"  The IV'd
and intubated critical cases are quietly wheeled off somewhere,
and everyone else is patched up and sent home.  The only
bigger letdown is actual courtrooms vs TV courtrooms.

You've been to different hospitals that *I* have.
Either that or you visited on a 'slow' day.

Could be.  With a couple of athletic kids in the house, though,
I've seen what I thought was a representative sample of ER scenes.

The most dramatic-on-paper event I've ever experienced along those
lines happened a couple of years ago.  I was being cross examined
in a court case in Miami.  The next witness, an older physician
of the grouchy but lovable variety, was sitting outside the
courtroom waiting to be called, when he suddenly collapsed.  
One of the attorneys who had been waiting there with him called
EMS, and then went into the courtroom and interrupted the trial
to announce what had happened.  We all went outside, and watched
helplessly as the EMS crew arrived and carried the man away on
a stretcher.  I called his wife in Michigan and told her what
had happened, and she said she would try to get on a flight to
Miami immediately.  I then went back into the courtroom, where
the trial resumed and I finished my cross examination.

An hour later, I went to the hospital and found him there in
the emergency room.  He was dazed and confused, and complaining
of a severe headache.  A doctor explained to me that the patient
for the past hour had been insisting on getting up and going to
the bathroom, and they had been refusing to let him do it and
insisting on catheterizing him, which he in turn was refusing to
let them do.  "Physicians make terrible patients," remarked
the young ER doctor.  He told me that the old man had obviously
suffered a stroke, and that it would be a matter of hours before
they knew how serious the damage was.  

At one point I was paged, and given the message that the man's
wife would be arriving at the airport around 7:30 that evening.
I went to the airport to wait for her.  Her plane ended up in a
holding pattern for 45 minutes before it landed, and when I found
out I went to the desk and told them that one of the passengers
was a woman from Michigan whose husband had taken in and was in
intensive care, and she was probably quite upset so anything
they could do for her, etc.  A woman waiting in a nearby seat
overheard the conversation, and introduced herself as the sister
of the man's wife.  She had heard the news and had come to meet
her sister.

When the plane finally landed, I drove both of the women to the
hospital.  This hospital had part of one floor turned into a kind
of hotel, where relatives of critical patients could stay, and
that's where the women stayed that night.  

There were many other events and episodes, many touching scenes,
a little hope, a little heartbreak - all the elements of a TV
drama.  Also, it combined the courtroom and the emergency room.
Hollywood should be calling.  But i reality, it was a very slow,
partly boring, partly nervewracking process that never really came
close to the sort of semi-hysteria you see on TV and in the movies.

Exactly.

In the 15 years I worked Detroit Emergency Rooms (Detroit General and St.
John's) and the 12 years I've worked OR/Recovery I've yet to see medical
drama that wasn't fake city.  MASH had parts of it right, but again, the
proportions were all wrong. 

When you do it day in and day out as a job it just doesn't come out with
the same enthusiasm and gusto and righteousness.  And I wouldn't trade my
job for the dramatized job, no way, no how.  There is some integrity that
comes with being able to do the real thing as unexciting as it often is. 

But you want stories?  Man, do I have stories. ;-)

Well, it is drama on TV, and the nature of the beast is drama, and that means
fiction not reality (fortunately, I think).

 I don't like to admit this, but Chicago Hope is beginning to grow on
me. I think it's the writing. ER is a little too bloody for my tastes, and
Chricton, INHO should do a little more writing.

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