The Evolution Of The TV Doctor
"Grey's Anatomy," "House" and "ER" pull in more than 50 million viewers a week, and CBS wants in on the doctor show riches. On Nov. 14, the network will launch "3 lbs." The title refers to the weight of the human brain.
The show focuses on two brain surgeons. Stanley Tucci plays Dr. Hanson, who sees the brain as merely a box of wires while Dr. Seger, played by Mark Feuerstein, is more sympathetic.
"Every show has to have a certain level of technological expertise. This is where we show our mettle as a cool medical show," Feuerstein told Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner.
The granddaddy of all doctor shows was "Medic," which premiered more than half a century ago.
Richard Boone played Dr. Styner and Robert Strauss played Dr. Caulfied. Back in 1954 when the show debuted, there was a woeful shortage of hunks. It was seven years before "ER's" George Clooney was born and 12 years before Patrick Dempsey, who plays doctor McDreamy on "Grey's Anatomy," came into this world.
By the time Dr. Kildare, played by Richard Chamberlain, appeared on the scene in 1961, somebody realized the appeal of sexy TV doctors. Following Dr. Kildare was Dr. Ben Casey, played by actor Vince Edwards.
"Marcus Welby, MD" was on television from 1969-1976. The Welby character personified TV doctors past. He was played by actor Robert Young, and was God-like and good. His patients always seemed to recover.
In those days, the American Medical Association demanded that it had the right to revise scripts, which it did.
"Doctors are not the saints and heroes that they used to be," said Neal Baer, the first real doctor to write a medical drama.
In his fourth year at Harvard Medical School in 1994, he was asked to work on a new show, "ER," which would revolutionize doctor shows.
"The steadicam allowed us to fly down the hallways, racing with the gurneys, chasing after the doctors and patients, and you never had that before in a medical show."
Goran Visnjic plays Dr. Luca Kovac, the current hunk in residence on "ER." He says they try to be as accurate as possible.
The realism pioneered by "ER" has become the standard for every medical show since. In its second year, when Laura Innes joined the cast as the abrasive Dr. Kerry Weaver, "ER" had an audience of more than 40 million.
"The first show that I had anything to do on aired, and I was in, like, a department store the next morning, Friday morning, buying a quilt and I heard these two women and they were going, 'Oh, there she is. I just wanna slap her.' And I'm going, 'Oh my God, what are they talking about?' And they were talking about my character," she said.
Innes soon realized that fans took the medical conditions the show explored personally, too. For example, a character who was dying of a brain tumor first realized his condition when his speech changed.
"There was actually somebody in the audience who did this and saw this and went to their doctor and had a brain tumor and had it removed and lived," Innes said.
The Kaiser Family Foundation studied 3,500 "ER" viewers for three years and found that one in seven actually contacted a medical professional because of something seen on "ER"
Looking back, one might ask how much did viewers learn from "Doogie Howser, MD," about a kid who happened to be a doctor? "MASH" wasn't really about education. "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" was unique.
Today, more than 13.5 million people work in health care, the nation's biggest employer. Families act out their personal plotlines in hospitals that make the set of "ER" look like familiar turf.
"Life and death makes medical shows pretty popular," Baer said. "I think you're on the edge of your seat. There is inherent drama. There's inherent conflict. People are fighting. People have different ideas. Someone's gonna die."
In medical shows, doctors are no longer gods. They make mistakes and miraculous recoveries are few. Just like in real life — but on TV, everybody's better-looking.