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When “St. Denis Medical” co-creator Eric Ledgin found himself in the hospital last year, he didn’t tell the doctors and nurses attending to him that he was deep into production on a new medical series about their profession. At least not at first.
The hit NBC comedy hadn’t premiered yet, so no one knew about his fictional hospital, where expertise and good-hearted chaos battle for supremacy. Rather, his unexpected stay was a chance to observe the world he was building in action –– and he was already noticing parallels.
“I ended up having a kind of Matt-like nurse,” he tells Variety, referencing the sweet but inexperienced nurse played by Mekki Leeper on the series. “He was a very young guy who was a little neglectful, but not out of lack of care.”
Eventually, Ledgin revealed his day job, and now jokes that if it had gone badly, “it’s totally going in the show.” But he’d hardly be the first inspired by the everyday miracles and heartbreaks shared by medical professionals and their patients. That endless supply of narrative fodder is why Hollywood continues to tap the vein that is the medical genre — now more than ever.
In the last year, several new medical series have debuted across broadcast and streaming services, each with a distinctive take on the tried-and-true model. On Max, “ER” alums Noah Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill reunited for “The Pitt,” which depicts in real time one tragically elongated shift for the seasoned veterans and new residents of a Pittsburgh emergency department. On Netflix, “Pulse” embraces the soapier side of health care to tell the story of a Miami hospital enduring everything from a sexual harassment scandal to a hurricane.
On broadcast, the genre continues to occupy ample airtime with “Grey’s Anatomy” heading into its 22nd season this fall and “Chicago Med” leading off NBC’s weekly “One Chicago” triad, returning with its 11th season in the fall. Joining those shows this year were three new residents: “St. Denis Medical,” NBC’s mockumentary comedy following the staff of Ledgin’s underfunded Oregon hospital; “Brilliant Minds,” also from NBC, following Zachary Quinto examining the brains of neurological patients; and Fox’s “Doc,” an introspective drama about Dr. Amy Larsen (Molly Parker), a doctor recovering her memories and skills after a bout of amnesia.
Like so much in Hollywood, this proliferation of medical shows is cyclical, but why is this genre so enduring?
“Doc” showrunner Barbie Kligman has watched these shows evolve from the trenches of writers rooms over the past 20 years. The daughter of a general practitioner, she got her start as an assistant on “ER,” and then went on to write for “Everwood,” “Private Practice” and “Code Black.” When it came time to adapt the Italian series on which “Doc” is based, she says executive producer Hank Steinberg offered a reasonable answer for why people keep coming back to the last place anyone wants to find themselves in the real world.
“He told me, and I think it’s very true, that you may go through your entire life and never find yourself in court or needing a lawyer or at the police station,” she says. “But even if you don’t find yourself at a hospital, which is unlikely, you will find yourself at the doctor’s office. This is incredibly relatable for everyone, and the stakes are clear.”
This has been the cornerstone of medical series forever, but with more outlets for these stories today, hooking audiences who may feel like they’ve already seen every crazy medical crisis becomes the challenge. That’s what drew Gemmill back to the genre as showrunner of “The Pitt.” He was initially hesitant to return after years on “ER,” but when plans to reboot the NBC series fell through, the idea to experiment with real-time storytelling felt like an adrenaline rush.
“All of us had to really think about how this is going to work,” he says. “How are we going to keep these patients around for four or five hours? What are we gonna do with all these background actors? Everything was a learning curve, and that was great because it reinvigorated us and forced us to think about how to do things differently than we’ve done for many, many years.”
There’s also the matter of time. Whereas some prestige Emmy contenders only air 7-10 episodes every few years, the medical genre is built on dependable annual runs and sizable episode orders that fortify audience loyalty. “The Pitt” ran 15 episodes, while “St. Denis Medical” clocked in at 18. Both will repeat these orders in Season 2.
Time especially matters when building the character at the core of “Doc.” The midseason series only had 10 episodes in Season 1, but it was renewed for a 22-episode sophomore run — something Kligman admits is daunting but exhilarating.
“It is nice because the more time we get with Amy to see how she interacts and behaves and responds to a particular case, that is just more insight for not only us, but also for her into who she is,” she says.
Ledgin’s comedic take on the hospital ecosystem also taps an important tool for surviving the grind of the medical field — gallows humor.
“The thing that struck me most being in healthcare spaces is that these are funny places,” he says. “We’re all in this together and if we need to joke about it, it doesn’t mean that we’re cruel or that we have bad intentions. It’s how we are moving through our day.”
That humor is something that binds all of these series, even if they prescribe treatment in different ways.
“I have always loved drama, and I’ve especially always loved drama with humor sprinkled in there too. And when I say humor, I don’t mean jokes. I mean recognizably human moments that people laugh at because they recognize it in themselves or someone they know,” says “Chicago Med” showrunner Allen MacDonald. “A laugh is an emotional reaction. It’s almost self-protective, because they laugh because it kind of makes them want to cry too.”
Finding humanity in the inevitable heartache of the genre is why Ledgin, Kligman and Gemmill all agree the hunger for medical shows will never be DOA.
“I always expect this genre to be around,” Gemmill says. “Timing is always a huge part of it, and we’re at the right place at the right time when people are looking for something. I don’t know what it is necessarily that our show provides. I think it’s a little bit of hope, and that you can see people that you wish would be there when you need them.”
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