What are your best medicine/surgery-related shows and documentaries?

hey guys,
thought i could start a thread for everyone studying medicine/interested in medicine to post your favorite medicine-related tv shows, documentaries etc.
Feel free to post both real life documentaries and works of fiction.
My current favourites are:

Documentaries:

ITV - Surgery School (follows 10 junior doctors training at a prestigious school of surgery in london)

Trauma: Life in the ER (very very good, available to watch on youtube. if you're interested in emergency medicine, orthopaedic surgery then you'll love it very detailed and contains some explicit surgical scenes)

Hopkins (also available on youtube. a slightly dramatized real life documentary follows the difficult lives of doctors and surgeons working at the famous john hopkins hospital)

Surgery's dirty secret (a uk based documentary revealing some worrying facts about how surgical equipment are produced and used in the UK)

TV Shows/Films:

Grey's Anatomy (genuinely my favorite medicine-related tv drama. follows the lives of surgical residents at the Seattle grace hospital. perfect combination of drama, realism and humour) - available on amazon instant video

Monroe(UK based. Follows the life of a brilliant neurosurgeon) - ITV (available to watch on amazon instant video)

House M.D (I'll be honest when I say I personally dont like House. at all. really it's bad in my opinion and once you've seen one episode you've seen them all, gets boring after a while. i'm only including it on this list because i know someone will. its a matter of taste anyway) - avilable on netflix and amazon instant video

Emily Owns M.D(i only just started watching this. its a matter of taste. not my favourite show - a bit too over the top but not as bad as scrubs. also depends on whether you prefer medical dramas to be more realistic or more funny)

Thats all i can think up so far, hope people can add to the list
____

EDIT:
Seeing as the thread got a bit off topic due to some trolls who cant stop arguing about how non-realistic a fictional show (greys anatomy) is. I'v remembered some more medicine-themed must-watch documentaries

Documentaries
all available on YOUTUBE

Emergency Room: Life and Death at Vancouver General Hospital.
~ This is a pretty decent medicine documentaries, one of the few I could find that's actually based in Canada and gives an insight into Canadian EM residency experience. It's not as dramatic as some other ones in terms of blood and gore but gives a really good insight

Battlezone ER: brutal life of a warzone medic
~ This is an extremely good documentary to watch if you're interested in being a medic in armed forces, navy or any other military position. obviously

Battlefield surgery
~ This is an even better documentary one being a surgeon in the army than Battlezone ER. Follows army orthopaedic/trauma surgeons as they have to perform surgeries and treat serious wounds and mangled limbs of soldiers.

BBC: Between life and death
~ Pretty good show, not just from the perspective of the doctors but also shows the patient's stories and perspective. Features a lot of neurosurgery

The English Surgeon
~ Fantastic documentary about one of my inspirations, Henry Marsh- a brilliant neurosurgeon. It follows the work he does training surgeons in Russia and performing very difficult operations on patients in russia who have no other means of getting surgery due to lack of available technology there.
He's also written a marvelous book called "Do No Harm" detailing his life as a neurosurgeon. Check it out

(edited 9 years ago)

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Reply 1

MarvelAgent

I would like to add three of my favorite, they are all real-life Documentary

BBC---Junior Doctors your life in their hands ( Follow an cohort of both F1 and F2 doctors as the F1 embarks on the first 3 months of their life in an hospital and F2 embarks on their new rotation in the hospital

Channel 4-- 24 hours in A&E (Follow patients that submitted to A&E and Resus over the 24 hours period, in Kings and more recently St.George)
Channel 5-- Trauma Doctors (Follow HEMS doctors in London, which deployed helicopter as their mod of transport in daylight and travel with high-performance car with blues and twos :biggrin:

at night)

--Marvel

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

liam__

To go along with Hopkins, there is also Boston Med and NY Med. Both are on Youtube and follow a similar premise to Hopkins.

Reply 3

Zainab14

Casualty

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Reply 4

Asklepios

Cardiac Arrest

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB10102D1736FEAC5

90s medical drama based in an NHS hospital

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Reply 5

SophieSmall

Original post by insert-username

For TV drama I seriously recommend you give The Knick a try, I was sceptical at first but it turned out to be really good.

Reply 6

Helenia

Original post by Asklepios

Cardiac Arrest

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB10102D1736FEAC5

90s medical drama based in an NHS hospital

Posted from TSR Mobile

This will give you the best idea of how it feels to be a junior doctor, far more than any American show. Grey's Anatomy makes me want to punch people.

There was one called Between Life and Death which was about a neuro ICU, a couple of years old now but it might be on youtube. It was very insightful.

Junior Doctors: Your Life in Their Hands is reasonably good, but it's heavily edited to make "good TV" and I don't think it always represents the job that well.

Bodies

Also add:

Boston Med - Similar to Hopkins by the same producers but situated at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's Hospitals part of Harvard Medical School

NY Med 1 and 2 - Also by the same producers but situated at New York - Presbyterian Hospital of Cornell and Columbia as well as St. Luke's Roosevelt and Newark University Hospital.

Edit: just realized someone else already mentioned these 2 w/e

There is also Young Doctors based in Newcastle, Australia its basically Australia's version of Junior Doctors

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 9

Olderandwiser23

Nip/tuck wins hands down for the best show ever let alone best medically related show.

The ER a good old staple

Green wing is a great comedy.

No angels was funny

Scrubs the original cast/seasons

Reply 10

Olderandwiser23

Let the blood run free was awesome too. Need to import the dvd's from Australia though to watch it

Personally I love ER

Seriously guys... HOUSE MD is the greatest

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Reply 13

AsandaLFC

Greys anatomy is the best

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Reply 14

hoonosewot

Original post by insert-username

Grey's Anatomy

follows the lives of surgical residents at the Seattle grace hospital. perfect combination of drama, realism and humour)

Erm, Grey's Anatomy may be the single most unrealistic medical show i've ever seen on TV.

Reply 15

Asklepios

Original post by DrumChops

Seriously guys... HOUSE MD is the greatest

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It's not very realistic, but I agree it's mother****ing awesome

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Reply 16

insert-username

Original post by hoonosewot

Erm, Grey's Anatomy may be the single most unrealistic medical show i've ever seen on TV.

I completely disagree. Compared to all the other shows out there it's probably got the most realistic element of traumas, hectic work lives, new innovative techniques constantly being developed as well as the intertwinement between specialties and how different hospital departments often have to work together on one case. (includes a high number of rare and common medical emergencies that are typically seen in a real life setting)
Its a medical dram not a documentary. So of course its not going to be 100% accurate because they are actors and its a drama. so yes there's romance and unrealistic characters and highly exaggerated situations but that's why its a 'drama'.
However, in my opinion its a much better and much more interesting show than all the other current medical shows that exist and definitely much more realistic compared to them. I particularly like how it presents the hospital hierarchy that exists in residency and the fact that doctors have lives and relationship outside of work. 1400% better than House, ER especially as there are a lot of main characters. its not like house for example where theres just one main character thats seen as the most important, it does a good job of showing how each part of the hospital team is significant

If you want realism then stick to documentaries. Trauma: Life in the ER is a pretty good non-fiction show.

All in all, i think GA is a great show, very dramatic and good fictional show and i dont think any other show compares.
But thats my opinion and you're entitled to yours.

Reply 17

hoonosewot

Original post by insert-username

and how different hospital departments often have to work together on one case.

Except that, y'know, there's basically not a single medical physician on that show at any point. Every single part of every single case is managed by surgeons, which as you will find out when you're a doc, is hilariously not the case. Surgeons are infamous for often being incapable of dealing with anything outside of their niche specialty.

The closest thing they had to a physician was the anaesthetist fella, and i remember in one episode when he's become a junior surgeon he was made to look completely out of his depth dealing with a peri-arrest patient (presumably because he's a lowly anaesthetist). Anyone who works in a hospital would have laughed at that, because that's exactly what anaesthetists are amazing at dealing with. That's why they staff ICU.

Reply 18

Fission_Mailed

I don't watch anything medical on TV apart from 24 Hours in A&E.

Generally speaking, the unrealistic stuff bores/annoys me and the realistic shows are far too terrifying to contemplate watching a mere 8 months away from starting work.

Reply 19

insert-username

Original post by hoonosewot

Holy walloftext batman!

I don't know you, but i'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say you're not a doctor, and therefore probably don't have amazing insight into their working lives, because it's really not a lot like Grey's at all. There's nothing wrong with it as a show really, my gf watches it and i quite like it. As you say it's a drama, but it's no more realistic than any of the other guff medical dramas (ER, House etc).

As for this:

Except that, y'know, there's basically not a single medical physician on that show at any point. Every single part of every single case is managed by surgeons, which as you will find out when you're a doc, is hilariously not the case. Surgeons are infamous for often being incapable of dealing with anything outside of their niche specialty.

The closest thing they had to a physician was the anaesthetist fella, and i remember in one episode when he's become a junior surgeon he was made to look completely out of his depth dealing with a peri-arrest patient (presumably because he's a lowly anaesthetist). Anyone who works in a hospital would have laughed at that, because that's exactly what anaesthetists are amazing at dealing with. That's why they staff ICU.

I come from a family of doctors. Both of my uncles are surgeons (one's an ENT and the other's in general) my brother is also currently a resident in neurology. My brother's the one who introduced me to the show, he loves it. It's actually quite hilarious how much in a huff you are about the fact that a fictional medical drama isn't an accurate reference for residency life.
Of course its not real. but in my opinion it's better and has better realism compared to the other shows out there.
of course its not realistic, its not a documentary. There's the fact that all the attending surgeons are way too young. the literally just got the actors to dye their hair grey to look older. so what? it's a show. most people watching it aren't medical students or doctors their just regular people who would rather watch a show with good looking young actors.

Not to mention your little point about there not being any physicians. If you think that comparing UK experience to the US hospital system makes any sense then you're incredibly misguided. I'v had major surgery three times. Both of those were with the same surgeon. and the other was a different less serious operation. He managed my case throughout, there was no separate physician. the only doctors managing my case was my surgeon, the anesthesiologist who i only met briefly before surgery and right before they anesthesized me. Afterwards I met a physiotherapist briefly who talked me through post op recovery, and then i met with my surgeon again after surgery and a few weeks later for post operative checks. your point about surgeons not managing cases is complete rubbish. Surgeons are physicians.

The show's based on the surgical department, they only manage surgical patients. and yes its a tv show so they simply want to show the exciting surgical stuff the general non-medical audience actually want to see.

"Surgeons are infamous for often being incapable of dealing with anything outside of their niche specialty."

hit the nail right on the head there, surgeons actually do their job which they trained over 15 years for! exactly what reason would an orthopaedic surgeon have to be dealing with a psychiatric patient? dont really see the point you're trying to make here other than trying to inflate your ego by pointing out how a fictional show isn't real life. that's the equivalent of me writing an essay on how unrealistic breaking bad is as a show or how dexter isnt an accurate depiction of being a forensic scientist or how Hannibal isn't an accurate depiction of detective work.

The amount of knowledge needed to be a consultant level surgeon is too much for a surgeon to be expected to do anything else. it's the same with non-surgical physicians who have a specialism. Even GPs are no better, they;d be no less lost on dealing with unusual cases without handbooks and the ICD
your experience as a uk FY1 doesn't give you amazing insight into surgical residency experience in North America either. I'm not saying GA is some kind of accurate depiction of what life is like as a surgeon, the point which you seemed to have completely missed is that it's a good show, its dramatic (hence it being a medical drama) and its much better than the other medical dramas out there. simple.
you can get yourself in a huff about how unrealistic it is all you want but its still a good show.