Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Ranking TV Medical Shows

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

In celebration of Dr. Sydnee’s birthday, Justin brings a whole swath of medical show on TV since the year of her birth. From Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman to Nip/Tuck to The Pitt, Dr. Sydnee ranks shows for their accuracy and entertainment value until she’s finisher her bathtub birthday Prosecco. There is no democracy here, Dr. Sydnee’s opinion is the law. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/ Border Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/our-services.html

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. And welcome to Sawbones, Marital Tour of Missed Medicine. And I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy.

And I'm Sydney McElroy. And yes, yes, it's true, Sydney. It is your birthday today. As we are recording this, it is your birthday. Yes, it is my birthday. I have my birthday goblet with me. Yes. And, Sydney, in recognition of your birthday, I know last week I researched an episode about movie medicines, TV medicines.

Fake medicines. But I wanted to keep it alive. Keep the street going. A classic sawbones combo. And talk about medical TV shows. Now, this is something that we have done a lot of. We talked a lot of medical TV. Like individual episodes.

But this is your idea. And since it is your birthday, and even if it wasn't, I think it's a great one. We're going to go through, and here's what I've done. I've collected a list of, I think, every medical TV show released since you were born. Like just during your lifetime. We're only doing during your lifetime. And now you know I have not watched all of these, right? Right.

Like I've watched quite a few, but there are going to be more that I haven't, I would say, than that I have. Right. So this is not the one show that is not in this list, obviously, is MASH because it is much earlier and you need a much longer. That is obviously an S-tier show for you. So I don't get to talk about MASH? Well, this is your moment to talk about MASH. Every show that we're going to talk about today is in the shadow of MASH, I think. You can't even put them on the scale of mash because I think to rank it, to have a separate tier,

legitimately I thought about this, if you rank anything on the mash tier, it's ridiculous, right? Like in terms of like effect on you, effect on TV, effect on medicine on TV, there's literally no comparison. There's no comparison point. I just think it's mashing a class by itself. This is all true, but can I have like 30 seconds to talk about it? This is why I'm setting it up, right? The stage is about to be set by MASH. Okay.

So MASH. MASH is my favorite TV show of all time, and I would say the best medical TV show of all time. And I bet most people would agree with that in that specific category. I think that although it is set on the front lines of a war, which would make it seem unrelatable to most of us who practice medicine. Because while certainly there are other physicians who do, most of us don't have that experience. I think that what it is reflecting is the core of medicine, the constant battle we're in, which is that we are trying to help keep people alive and keep them well. And ultimately, we are all mortal.

And so we always lose that battle. And I think that's what they're talking about in MASH, but in a very literal way. Happy birthday to you. Does this lady know how to party or what? I think that's why it is so universally relatable, despite, being an experience that most of us will never have. Because of that, it's also funny. And a lot of times working in hospitals and medical settings, it's very funny. We are all making really dark jokes because it's how we cope. And I think that's, again, a universal experience. And I think that it reflects

a time in medicine when people thought doctors were like the doctors on mash. I mean, if you look at just Hawkeye, who is the doctor that I try to be like most of the time, he is exactly what you would hope your physician would be like, caring and competent, and will fight and advocate for you to the point of breaking whatever rules he has to to make sure that the right thing is done for you. And I think that's what we all wish doctors were like,

and I think it's interesting that there was a time where that was the way doctors were portrayed on TV, and that is not necessarily the case anymore. All right. That's just great. Sydney, we're... That's all I have to say. We're going to be doing a tier ranking today.

It is not a democracy. It is not a vote. It is just your call. Yes. For my birthday. Yes, for your birthday. If you disagree, that's fine. These are just my personal.

I have varying amounts of context for each one because there's a lot to get through. Are you ready? Trauma Center, 1983. I've never heard of this, but it started. Lou Phrygna made an entire season. It's kind of like an early ER. Came out the year I was born. Came out the year you're born.

That's why we're picking it up. Yes. It was a show about paramedics starring Lou Farigno. You know who Lou Friigno is? He is the Hulk. Yeah, the original Incredible Hulk as a paramedic, which this show already, can I just say? Sounds good. I would like to watch this already.

But this is a huge flop that was airing alongside St. Elsewhere. St. Elsewhere began just briefly before that. That's another huge medical drama that is like... And it was sort of like a soapy kind of situation, right? And that was looming very large in conversation, but just before you were born. Just Mr. Cutoff. I don't even know, honey, I don't know how to rank it. I never saw it.

I didn't know it existed until just now. Sounds like a D-D? Okay. Dugie Houser, M.D., speaking of famous D's. I did see Duggy Houser. All right, Duggy aired. Okay, I forgot about Dughey. Yeah, Duggy aired from 1989 to 1993.

Start, of course, Neil Patrick Harris as his breakthrough role as a medical prodigy, 16 years old. He becomes a doctor navigating a puberty and being a... I've seen Doogiehouser in a long time. I have watched it, but it's been a while. Yeah. I would guess that the medical expertise, like as far as getting it right, because that's always one of the things you consider. Is it funny? Is it entertaining? Is it true? The experience of being a health care provider, and is it medically accurate? Like, those are all sort of the

things I think about. I don't know how medically accurate. I also would suspect that at that time in TV, you weren't demanding that level of accuracy yet. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like ER sort of changed that game where you have consultants who tell you like, no, that's fake. No, no, no, no, we'd never. I feel like probably Doogie was pre that. So I bet if I watched it now, I'd be like, this doesn't make any sense. And I'd do it like that. This doesn't make any sense. Is it a C? Is it a D. D. Is it a B? Where are you feeling a Dugie Houser goes? Oh, but for Neil Patrick Harris, it gets a B. Wow. It's your list. St. Patrick Harris.

Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, 1993 to 1998, created by Beth Sullivan. It aired on CBS. Forget this. 150 episodes. Do you know what is embarrassing? I've never seen this show. Not once. I have Google. How is that possible? It is so you coded.

I know. That should be a miniseries we do. I have been called Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman more times in my career than I could count. And during my college, like the week that I, before I started college, because of the scholarship program I was in, the Yeager Scholarship Program, it's a wonderful program.

I was able, like, we had this little retreat where we all got to know each other and we played games. And one of the games was, what celebrity do I look like? And the celebrity they told me I looked like was Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. This is before I went to med school, before I was ever a physician. So the only reference I have was me looking up a picture of her to know who was this person that they thought I looked like at this point. So, Sid, it is a wealthy... It gets an A. Okay. So, okay, you've never watched it. You look like her. I haven't told people what it is yet. You didn't give me a chance to give the synopsis yet.

It gets an A. It's about a wealthy Boston doctor who is a huge racist. Whoa, Sid. Dang, I can't believe you gave this an A. No, she goes out to like the rural areas, like in the wilderness and takes care of people, right? She pushes kids into open well. No, no. She's a wealthy doctor from Boston who moves out to the Wild West to prove women can be doctors.

And she addresses like social issues too. I bet I'd love it. I should watch it. I should, I need to watch it. You should watch it. You should watch it. You should watch it. You should watch it.

I promise. I make this promise. And I'm making the promise on the podcast. So I have to. This one isn't even going to be close. I have to do it. 1994 brings us ER. ER. 331 episodes. I've watched every episode of ER, at least once, some multiple time. May I? Can I just, I love that you're so excited to talk about these. But if I could just set up what this show is before you tell me how great it is. I mean, it's an emergency room. I mean, for each. It's an emergency room. Yes. The title does. Give it away. Thank you, Sidney. Now you may proceed.

It's a massive, massive TV hit created by Michael Crichton, the dude behind Jurassic Park. It's a jug. I mean, this thing, if you weren't alive during this time period, which was 1994 to 2009, that's a long time for a TV show to be on, by the way. That's like a super long run. And I think a lot of people, when they talk about ER, they think about, like, sort of how there was all the relationship stuff happening. Like there were, like George Clooney, like sexy doctors who were saving lives. and also being super sexy.

And I think a lot of people talk about it in that context. What gets lost in the conversation is that I really think watching ER most of the time, they're getting it pretty right. It's not 100%. No medical show really ever is. But they're getting it pretty right. The stuff they're saying makes sense. The stuff they're doing makes sense. I'm always impressed by how real it feels.

Now, I have never worked in an ER that's busy to that level. We live in Huntington. Our ER is busy, but not like that busy. but it is true to the feeling and the very first episode follows you know mark green through a shift and the intensity of that non-stop 36 40-hour shifts that we used to work that aren't legal now don't worry but they were back in my day it's there it's a wonderful show it is and i i i i can't talk about mark green too much or i'll start crying okay so what is it yet wait what's is there is this is the best S is the best.

Yes. It's the S? Yeah. S too. Yeah. Yeah. ER changed the game. And it gave us John Carter.

Yeah. Of Mars. John Carter. And it made me want to go to, it made me want to go to Africa. Because they went with Doctors Without Borders. It changed my whole life. It changed everything for me. And at the same time, not for as long, was Chicago Hope.

Now, do you have any Chicago Hope familiarity or love? Never watched any Chicago Hope. This one felt, again, I have this impression that these were soap operas. Is it a soap opera? So that one is regarded as more soapy. It starred Mandy Patinkin and Adam Arkin. Oh, it's got Mandy Patinkin? And Adam Arkin, who I love.

But I love Mandy Patinkin. Well, you love Alan Arkin, right? You can't shave off a little love for Adam Arkin? I just don't. I don't know who that is. He's Allen's best friend and brother. I don't know what you were. I mean, I don't dislike this individual.

I just don't know who it is. So it's a sopier version of the medical approach. Doctors at the time thought it was less realistic than you are. But it was more about bioethics. More of bioethics in New York. Created by David E. Kelly, by the way. Oh. The creator of friends.

God, I double printed these. We got it. We must move faster. You can't, okay. But you can't, you can't, it's just as a doctor, if I want a doctor show, the relationships can be sort of in the background or around the edges, but I want to see the doctoring. What are you going to give it? I'd have no reference. A, B, C, D, S.

I don't know. S. A, B, C, D. It aired for six years. C. Just because Mandy Patinkin was on it. It gets a C for Mandy Pantin. Thank you so much. Because Ania Montoya is on the show.

I'm going to give a C. Mercy Point started in 1998. I've never heard of this one. Never heard of this. UPN for seven episodes starred Joe Morton and Brian McNamara. It was ER, but in deep space in the 23rd century. Oh, no, I don't want this. I can't judge anything.

I can't. It's canceled very quickly. No, you are taking away the reason that doctors watch medical shows, if they do, it's one of two things. Either it's me who wants to try to relate to it and see how much they get right, or you're the doctor who watches it to see how much they get wrong and criticize it. If it's set in the future in space, I can't do any of that. Some of these are like blips on the TV radar. So like you're not going to have much awareness of them. I don't know what do we even say?

They're getting a Z. A Z? Yeah. Z? I love that. Z. Z for no content. I don't even know where to put you.

Check this out. Should I even give you a letter? Should we give you a number? Should we say you're... This is interesting. You're 13. This is created by Stephen Botchcoe, the NYPD Blue Guy. City of Angels, 2000,

starred Blair Underwood and Vivica A. Fox. It was a drama that centered on a predominantly black medical staff operating an underfunded public hospital in Los Angeles. It was about managing chronic illnesses and populations without access to primary care. Sounds interesting. It does sound interesting. It's 24 episodes. It looks like one season, I would guess, of a drama at that time period.

It sounds superior to the movie, City of Angels. Okay, yeah, low bar. So B. Okay. Can I say, by the way, NYPD Blue? We're going to branch off into cop shows. Did you ever watch it? I just wanted to know.

No, I was too little. My parents said I couldn't. My parents had, like, we watched it together. It was like family TV for us for like a year. You saw his, you saw Dennis Freeman, not Dennis Freeman. But was it Dennis Farina's butt? I don't know. But I just know that there was a year of my life where I watched NYPD Blue, which is weird to think about.

I wouldn't, I do not watch cop shows now of any kind. In the words of Ian Malcolm must go faster, Scrubs 2001 to 2010. Another one of your faves, 182 episodes, very complicated relationship. Now this is kind of like both, right? This is both airing now and... I'm going to be honest. This is tough for me because if you had asked me before this new... it's not a reboot, it's just a continuation of the series.

If you had asked me before I watched that, Scrubs would be S-tier for me. Wow. I don't know if I have to drop it one. Whoa! And it's not because it's bad, it's because I don't know what they're doing. There's an episode of still buffering people who can go listen to you for more context on this. Is that fair? Yes.

The TLDR is I, in the original Scrubs, there was a very clear morality. this is hard, but we do everything we can, even if it means breaking the rules, to take care of our patients because this is bigger than a job. This is more than a job to us. And that is the central morality, usually Dr. Cox representing it

if you toss aside the sexism and homophobic comments. That is the morality of scrubs. In this new iteration, I don't know if that's the case. It may be heading towards a heel turn where, like, JD is wrong with the things he's saying,

with being like, well, this is the system and we just have to accept the system and that's it. If that's the new message from Scrubs, it's going to drop

to an A for me. So I don't know. Scrubs was a TV show about young doctors who were just getting started. It started Zach Brath and Donald Faison, and I'm curious to hear

what Sidney thinks of it. It's very funny and it was very true to the I will say the original series felt exactly like the residency experience. Is it getting an A? Yeah, I'm giving it an A. It will be an A.

If it will be an S if... If you can stick the landing. Yes, if we see that Zach Brath's character, J.D., is wrong, and he learns a very important lesson, especially from Elliot, because Elliot was really treated badly in a lot of the first seasons. And so if she is the new moral center... Yes. This is one that I, again, another one I've never heard of, it was on ABC.

It was called MD. aired in 2002, starred William Fickner and John Hanna. Here's the plot. Two renegade docs wage a war against their hospital's evil HMO administrator. I like the sound. No one watched it. No one liked it. Real doctors liked it, I guess.

Real doctors like, this good. I like this show. Yeah, I give it a B. It's a B, nice. I mean, listen, as a doctor who worked in a hospital, And I mean, I didn't have an HMO person to fight, but I did feel like I was fighting admin quite a bit. Okay. This is, we have a Ryan Murphy series on here, NipTuck.

That was about, I started in 2003 to 2010 to 2010. It was about plastic surgeons in Miami who were terrible people and they did a bunch of plastic surgery stuff, body modifications and a bunch of soapy stuff. It was a Ryan Murphy show. I know. And there's no way it was about the medicine, right? Like, it would have been about their relationships and the, yeah, and like the sexy stuff. And I don't, there are a lot of plastic surgeons who do, like, really important work for people. I don't know.

It's, no. No. No. That's my rating. No. Well, you have to, can you give it on. I'll never watch niptuck. Like, niptuck is the opposite of me.

You want to give a day then? Yeah. It's the antithesis of Sydney is nip tuck. Now, okay. If you were, if we were on opposites of a color wheel, the opposite color of Sydney is niptuck. Okay, so I do, I thought it was, okay, so I have to ask. Wait, we have to go to the billing department before you do more. Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, but like, we've only made it through eight shows.

Must go faster. I told you, we did too many. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that Escal lit macabre for the mouth. Okay. Okay, so you gave trauma center a D, but it sounds like we need something that's like with prejudice. Like, you need, like, you don't hate trauma center the way you hate Nip-tuck. So you need something that's like an F.

I like, yeah, I don't know what, what is that? F, like, you're flunked. You're flunked. You're flunk. It goes, can plunk, you're sunk. You're flunked. You're out. Here's a thing that I don't think our listeners know this about me, but I guess it's

appropriate to learn it on my birthday. I will write things off without having any familiarity with them. Really, no context. Just based on vibes. And it's a flaw in my personality, and I'm working on it. I have so many pages here to get through. And I'm sorry. Okay.

I've gotten better. I'm 43 years old. I'm better than I used to be. Okay. I think I let you have too much bathtub birthday prececo. Okay. Dr. Vegas came out in 2004 and it starred Rob Blow as Doc Vegas. And the fact that you haven't watched Dr. Vegas is actually wild. You would probably love Dr. Vegas. I probably would love Dr. Vegas. There's only one problem. I can tell you the plot of it, but it's like, is Dr. Vegas? He's a house doctor for a Vegas casino. It was 10 episodes. He left West Wing to do it.

Okay, that's what, no, that's what I was about to say. The only reason I don't want to give it a higher grade is that I know he left West Wing for it. And I love Sam Seaborne on West Wing. And so he, there's no way. I mean, how can he counterbalance the harm he did to this other show I love? What's the rule, Dr. Vegas? First, do no harm. You've already done harm.

You did harm. You left West Wing, Sam. Is that an F for Dr. Vegas? No. Okay. Really? I probably would like it. Because I do, I also enjoy Rob.

low, so probably a C. But don't get C. Yeah. I would probably like it. Let's be honest. House 2004. I mean, House. Go ahead and say what is House really.

House is a parallel to Sherlock Holmes. Yes. It's a secret Sherlock. It's a modern secret Sherlock. He's got a best friend named Wilson. Who's a doctor, but also House is a doctor in this one. Yeah, House a doctor in this one. He has a, I guess probably the main differentiator is he does have a, he does have.

have Sherlock's battles with drug addiction, but it stems from a physical injury, like a, wasn't a motorcycle accident he had or something? No, he had a blood clot in his leg. He had a blood clot in his leg. But it was, he had the motorcycle accident was later, wasn't it? That did happen. Yeah. I'm not imagining it.

But anyway. And there's a bus crash. There's all kinds of stuff. Okay. Starring Hugh Lorry, who, America, I wish, if you didn't know Hugh Lorry was British back then, nobody knew. And when he came out as British, that's not the right way of putting it. But when he started saying British stuff, everybody kind of freaked out because I don't think anybody on this side of the pond.

I know over on your side of the pond, you're listening to this from England. Yeah, if you're British, you knew this. You know this. You don't know. Whatever, however he learned to do an American accent, that's the way. He had us all fooled. He had us off. And sometimes you all are not fooling us, but he had us all fooled. The only person who is close.

I think Emma Thompson is a run for the money. But Hugh Lorry is American. I was shocked when I learned he was pleasant and British because he seemed so surly an American. And here's, okay, I love the character house. I like anti-heroes. I like complicated characters like that. And so I was drawn to the show and the characters as much as the puzzles. There are quite a few of the puzzles that hold up in terms of like presenting medicine that way.

Because that's how it is, right? Instead of just like this person's sick, it's a puzzle to solve. and that truly a lot of them are accurate. There definitely is a lot about the system of medicine that is just so out of left field. None of these physicians are doing the job that that physician with that training would be doing. You're not in the lab prepping specimens for yourself

and looking in microscopes and running centrifuges. You can't be doing biopsies and surgery and you're intubating people and you're taking the history and you're also robbing their houses sometimes like breaking into their houses this all got a little ridiculous

they didn't want to pay for other they didn't want to establish a broader world of the hospital I think this is the issue right they didn't want to establish a broader world of the hospital outside of this team they didn't want you to have to meet

the oral surgeon of this hospital or any tech who they were running the CT scanner Do you know who you don't want running the CT scanner? Me. Yeah. So what do you give it, said? All that said, I love it.

I loved the characters and it was enjoyable. But not an S. I don't even know if it... No, I think it gets an A. Okay. It gets an A. This isn't my list, but for whatever it's worth, I think... Also, Lynn is great in it.

Len is great in it. Lynn is so good in it. You have to take it. I think you have to take it house holistically because I think it really falls off in the latter seasons. But first half, I think, is S-tier. Second, I have I think is... beer to be dear that that's my i see that well i'm averaging it out to an a because i do think like he he shoots a corpse at one point yeah that's not that's not i don't want people to think doctors do this

stuff hey hey hun gray's anatomy has been airing since 2005 i don't need to tell you what gray's anatomy is but it is a medical drama it is in in in some ways i feel like it is sort of the we there is always one flagship medical show is that fair to like it feels that way right it feels like it was like you had St. Elsewhere, you had ER, you had scrubs and house both filled those voids. I think that they were both sort of that. And then once Gray's Anatomy came, well, you know, Gray's Anatomy, I think is more of that because it House and Grey's Anatomy started within a year of each other. And Gray's Anatomy definitely was bigger. I think it, it is more the doctor, the hospital show, you know what I mean, to which other shows will be referenced. And you had a cast

of characters that you could follow, not just sort of... 400 plus episodes. Yes, and there was a lot of romance, and it was sexy. It is the show, when I talk about how real Dr. Scrubs... By the way, you should say present tense, unless the sexiness has been banned, which would be quite a... Well, I stopped watching it at some point. Well, I'll tell you, when I stopped watching it is when McDreamy was no longer on it, because that seems sad to me. But when I talk about how Scrubs in real life don't fit the way that Dr. Scrubs on TV fit, I'm usually

talking about Gray's Anatomy. Everybody looks fantastic all the time, and that is not how most of us look in hospital-issued scrubs. That's just the truth. That being said, when it started, I really did love this show. I think that the struggles of the residents, I was not a surgical resident, but as a family medicine resident, I did have to do a rotation on surgery. I lived that life for a little bit, and I know what it's like. I know how hard it is. There's a lot that's true about their experience for sure. But it just I feel like there's this impression on media portrayals of doctors that were all a lot like sexier and having a lot more sex and that like sex is a lot is a much bigger part of practicing medicine than it really is. Why is that? I think it's every TV

show right. I mean like if you did like I mean any career I bet shows about like universities like Boston Commons, I bet there was a lot more romance and sex in Boston Commons than you have at the actual university. And I bet like Star Trek, you feel like, I don't feel like NASA and the ISS, I don't feel like there's been any sort of stuff like that happening. So there is, I think that addition is more of a TV convention. They also were much more willing to do really outrageous things medically to try to, instead of just like, there really is outrageous stuff that happens in the human body and in actual medicine that you don't have to fake. And instead, they're like, this person has like a live round of ammunition in them that

could explode at any second. And this person's encased in concrete. And these two people are impaled by a shared steel rod and only one life can be saved. Those situations generally aren't happening in hospitals. So a letter for Grace. I'd give it a B. I mean, for nothing else, like it's hung on this long. You ever heard about three pounds?

It came out in 2006. It starred Stanley Tucci and aired for eight episodes. No. No, sorry. It aired for three episodes. Eight of which aired. This does not merit discussion. Yeah, eight were created, three were aired, starring Stanley Tucci.

That's too bad. Stanley Tucci. Sorry about that one. It was about a brain surgeon arguing with his protege about the soul and science. It's named for. They say it's named for the average weight of a human brain. I don't know. This is why we do weird medical questions episodes.

Sometimes people will say things like this and be like, is that true? And because I'm a doctor, I feel like I'm expected to know. But like we don't talk about that in med school. I talk a lot about the function and like pathology and how to fix it. We're going to give it. I don't have no. It sounds like it wouldn't be very enjoyable. So a D.

Okay. There we go. Private practice. Did you get it? It was a spinoff of Gray's air for 111-11 episodes. It's not the kind of show that I would enjoy watching. It was about a... I was familiar.

Yeah. Well, I was just, I was going to say it's about one of the doctors does like a wellness clinic. She quits there and goes to do beach doctoring, I guess. It's just not the kind of, I don't, it's not the kind of show I'd be interested in, I don't, the kind of medicine I am drawn to is not as polished. It's not as pretty. So I don't know. But a lot of people liked it, especially people who like grays, I think, liked it.

So you will be a C. Let me see. Yeah. Now, we have not watched Nurse Jackie. That stars E.D. Falco, her follow-up to Sopranos. I did used to have a nurse Jackie. She was great. It was a New York hospital that she worked in, and she was kind of like, I guess, holding the whole thing together.

but we never watched it. She, I know she, like, had a secret, oh, she had a secret opioid addiction. It was very well received, I think, critically. I just, it always seemed a little dark for our case. It seemed dark, yeah. I mean, well, a lot of these shows also will echo the kind of perception of health care and the medical practice and people who do it.

And so I think sometimes you're seeing a show that's echoing, like, Americans don't trust doctors and they don't trust health care and they don't trust the establishment and they feel mistreated by it. And so we see a show where, like, it is portrayed in a darker light where nobody can just be in it purely for the right reasons and with all of the right.

I don't know. Nobody can just be a hero. I think that you see that. I don't know. But I won a bunch of awards, so it's probably like a bee, right? Okay. B for Nurse Jackie.

Trauma. It's a high-octane explosion-heavy show about San Francisco paramedics. It aired for 18 episodes on NBC. in 2009, 2010. Paramedics did not find it very plausible. Then I give it a D. Okay. I trust paramedics know about their jobs better than I do.

Do, do, do, do, you know what's good for you. The doc's going to make you feel better. Doc McStuffin's. Are you talking about Doc McStuffin? Are you talking about Doc McStuffins? If you don't know about Doc McStuffins, Doc McStuffins was a show about a doctor to pets. No, no, sorry.

No, this is important. Yes. This is an important distinction. Very important. I got it mixed up in my head. Domic Stuffins is a show about a little girl that is a doctor pretending to be a doctor to her toys, right? There is a spinoff that is about just animal toys. Yes.

That where she is a vet. But Doc McStuffins, those just toys. It's just toys. Even though they're animal-shaped toys, she is not a veteran. Right. Because, well, because if you take it out of this. fictional reality, if it was a child who was trying to practice medicine on actual animals, that's terrifying and disturbing and please don't do that.

So, no, I, you know what? I liked, we watched Doc McStuffins with our kids. They're of the right age that we engaged with Doc McStuffins. I thought it was a sweet, clever show, and it led to us having some doctor toys that the kids really enjoyed, remember the little Dr. McStuffin's medical card. He enjoyed pretending doctor was a good. And we did little fake x-rays on it. and took fake blood pressures,

and I liked that, because then they're, like, plain things that I understand and can explain to them. So, I mean, for kids, this is probably S-tier, right? Like, for kids? Yeah, I think it's fair.

We're giving an S-tier to Doc McStuffins. Now, I don't know if you have any memory of this show, but we did watch one episode of The Mob Doctor. I was obsessed with that. We never, yeah, and we never watched it anymore because I don't know that it would really enjoy it. It made it for 13 episodes, but it's about a young surgeon who is forced to moonline.

for the Chicago Mafia to pay off her. I love this idea, and if I'm ever offered this deal, I will take it. There it is. It's the kind of thing I would be good at. It's the kind of skill set I would have. You need me to adapt,

and also you don't want me to chart. It's perfect. You don't need me to do any notes about this, but you do want me to figure it out on my own. I was made for that job. Apparently, some of the mob doctor techniques, trauma doctors said mirrored stuff that would happen on battlefields and those sorts of mechanics were similar.

I would have been a good, I feel like I would be good in those situations. I would be a great mob doctor. She ever hear? Hey, listen. Did you ever hear about do no harm? Do you remember do no harm? It was in 2013. I was a shirt, but I don't know.

No, no, no. It was about a neurosurgeon who every night at 825, he would transform, go from like Jekyll and Hyde. It was a Jekyll and Hyde thing where he had two different personalities. I'm sure it was treated with the utmost respect of whatever real. Was it Hugh Jackman? No. No, it was... Just feels like something he would do.

Yeah. It was about a person with a split personality that happens every day at 825. No. No. What do you want to give it? No. I'll give it a like... This is for theater kids or something, right? You can't make up...

No. It's A, B, C, D, F, Z. Z, I think, is where we're at. You got to give it one of those. I mean, it sounds like a D, I guess. The Nick. Oh, yeah. Remember the Nick?

Oh, I almost forgot about the Nick. I loved the Nick. Very short run. Yes. But a great, I mean, like a short run, probably not for Cinemax, though, 20 episodes, starting Clive Owen. Do you want to tell people about the Nick? Well, it was set in the hospital was the Knickerbocker, the Nick.

That's where the name came from. And it was, what, 1912? or ish in that time period. I think that was about when it was set. It was about medicine at the time. He was a surgeon at the hospital at the time. And he also did cocaine and then heroin or heroin and then cocaine. I don't remember.

No, he was an opiate addict who was given cocaine to help him get over his opiate addiction. Okay. And then became addicted to that. The medicine of the time, because we do a medical history show, I feel like I can say this is pretty accurate. Disturbing in the ways that it should be disturbing, because it was, I mean, you know, I mean, to this day, we do stuff that probably is disturbing. We'll be in 100 years. Anyway, I loved it.

I thought it was very well done. John Hodgman was in it. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was great. He was the doctor who was pulling out all the women's teeth because they were hysterical. Yeah. Anyway, that was a great show.

You know, that's an S-tier show. Okay. That's a great show. Wow, joining the proud company with Docman Stuffins. Next up, the Night Shift aired in 2014 to 2017 on NBC. It was about ex-military doctors who work in Night Shift at a San Antonio hospital. I don't remember the show at all. I vaguely remember this, like so barely.

It aired for 45 episodes, but I do not remember it. I have no context. Give it a letter then. We'll move on. I feel bad. Did you watch Chicago Med? That's an air in forever. It's a Dick Wolf show started in 2015.

It's the Chicago universe, which I... There's the Chicago universe. There is a part... I know I'm not... This is not my episode. There's a part of me that sometimes wishes I watched all the Chicago shows. I love Chicago, so it feels like I should watch all their shows,

but like some of them are about like police and firefighters and stuff, right? Yeah. Do they have an SVU over there? I don't ever... Listen, I'm never watching an SVU anywhere. I don't care where. said. Chicago Med,

created by Dick Wolf. It is 2015 to the present. B. B. I love Chicago. Code Black? I don't know what this is. Oh, that was about the one of those,

is at an LA trauma center and she had Marshall Gay Hardin and God, this is, I stopped watching. What are they using Code Black to refer? Like, what is a a Code Black in this reality? Because I can tell you what a code black is in the hospital I worked at.

It's about. It's about the systemic failure of an underfunded trauma center. Code black is when the EMR goes down. I don't know if that, I don't know what the... So they'll call it Code Black Cernor, or Code Black, like, the radiology stuff you can't see. So it's not like scary. I mean, it's not scary to me. Dr. McRoy, I do need a letter.

I don't, if they're misusing Code Black, I guess it gets a D. Okay. They may be not misusing it. It could be a different context you're not aware of, but of course... I think generally code black just means like some sort of electronic system has gone down. Not nearly as scary as other codes.

Oh my God. Pure Genius aired from 2016-2017 had Dermott Mironi in it. It was about a tech value billionaire that opened up a hospital to cure rare diseases using futuristic app-based medicine and unlimited funding. aired for 13 episodes.

No one liked it. F with vengeance. The good doctor. The good doctor. Freddie Highmore is the good. doctor. I mean, I have seen a lot of clips of this on TikTok. It is about a surgical resident who has autism and Savant Syndrome. And that was, I've never watched it. I don't know how well how I handled stuff, but it air for quite some time. I would love to know. I see, I don't, I don't like to,

I would love to know what the autistic community has to say about this show. I mean, I hate to, I think that when you are, when your entire thing is about something that is specific to a population of people. They are the people who should tell us if it's a good show or not. It's why I feel like I can weigh in on a doctor show, right? So I don't feel qualified to weigh in on it because I want to know, like, do you feel like this was a fair depiction? Do you feel like you were well represented? Like, this was part of the conversation and it added to it in a positive way? Or do you feel like it, I mean, we have this sort of like stereotypical like Rain Man autistic version of a person that maybe isn't completely accurate, right?

And it's certainly not generalizable. And would you say that that was true about the good doctor? I don't know. I personally, without having watched the good doctor, this is not a judgment on the good doctor, just on the ads, I am typically suspicious of media that presents autism as some sort of superpower that, you know, that you can turn on that must be charged by the sun. And if you're in the moment of most dire need, if you activate your autism and it's full power, than you could solve the most complex equations.

Like if you could just be a little bit more autistic right now, you could finish the long division. And I am suspicious of media that presents autism in that fashion. I will also say this one thing before we move on. I have worked in medicine a long time. I have a lot of colleagues who, because of our age, maybe weren't diagnosed with anything, but are my age or older,

who probably, if they were kids now, would be diagnosed on the spectrum. Right? I think I have a lot of call. And I'm not saying this that I've diagnosed them. I'm saying they have self-diagnosed. They have come to this conclusion within themselves. And I will say that even if some of the social skills and some of the like communication things are harder for them, they have learned how to do it through their medical practice and grown. And so I would hope that the good doctor will show that that even if that is not, even if your skill set is different, that everyone can learn and grow. a new skill set that is helpful to their job, right? Because you need to, to be a good doctor. Even a great one. Give it a letter. Give it a letter.

I don't, I mean, I told you, I feel like that's not fair. Is it a? Yeah. A, okay, the A in this case just stands for autism because we don't know how well the autism is represented on there. So this is a conditional A. I would love for people just let out of autism to tell me.

And who have watched the good doctor. This is the crucial missing ingredient. We need that overlap of the autism. Autism and good doctor fan community. I've seen some clips on TikTok. Yeah. Oh, good. The resident.

Sid, do you remember the resident? It's the lowest F. It's the, what's the lower? It is about, Z wasn't lower than an F. Z was just like, I don't know, I threw over there. It's about an anti-establishment doctor who goes against the system. Do you know what sucks is that if you give that pitch, that's me? Like, I feel like that's kind of my career has been that.

It's your birthday, so I'm not going to try to rest. sure for that. Go ahead. Go ahead, Justin. In one way, am I not an anti-establishment doctor? Pretty proud of yourself there. I'm just kidding. Please don't make me back this up. Okay. Well, I don't know that it's something to be proud of. I think it's just the statement of fact.

I am an anti-establishment doctor who goes against the system. But the resident, I think, missed who, and this is where I talk about, like, that there are times in this country where we just decide like doctors are part of the evil that is the American health care system.

And then other times where we see them as like fighting to save us from it, this is in the resident, at least the little bit we watched, the physicians were part of the big evil. Yeah. And I think that's so unfair. I'm not saying there aren't bad doctors. They're bad everything. Whatever profession, there are people in it who suck, right? Yeah. We know this.

But the problem with the American health care system, you could certainly say doctors not fighting it harder. allows it to happen, I think that is a fair criticism to level at us. But we did not create it. We do not perpetuate it. We did not. We are not.

And we're certainly not trying to like make money off of, what was there was like a fake cancer clinic in it? Yeah, it was like a cover up of like there was, it wasn't just the ways in which the system was bad.

It was like the system is also an extra level of secret hidden bad. What you can level at us as doctors, And I will say this as a, I can speak as a physician. We do not fight hard enough because we are exhausted, because we are suffering moral injury,

and we don't feel like we can push back. And so we just keep getting crushed under the system and trying to find ways to escape it. We fight back in little ways, but we do not collectively act to change, fundamentally, change the American healthcare system. The numbers among us who are actually, acting to try to harm people are small and should not be the focus of an entire television

show. Do you remember New Amsterdam? It started in the same year as that one. It was about a medical director trying to fix a hospital by just shaking things up. Well, I feel like that one was better intentioned. We watched like an episode or two of it. We did. And you were going to give it a...

Let's see. Brilliant Minds is inspired by Oliver Sacks, who also insured. Inspired Awakening's, which is a movie that came out a long time ago with... Oh, then it probably should get an A because, like, that stuff's really interesting. Okay. Then we have... I just haven't seen it. The Pit.

It came out in 2025. I love the Pit. We're getting there. Yeah, the Pit. I love the Pit. I watched an episode of the Pit right before we recorded this episode. You can look up... It made me cry. All right.

What's the... Can you give me, like, 30 seconds on the Pit for people that don't watch... The Pit is for the Pittsburgh Hospital. It's a busy Pittsburgh ER. a busy Pittsburgh hospital. And it is, uh, the,

the, the big hook is that it is in real time. So an entire season is one shift. Okay. Each episode is an hour and it is like, what happens is what could happen in an hour. So you don't get any of the outside stuff that ER would show you like the relationships and the whatever.

Like it's all just through the interactions that they're having while engaged in patient care. The, this season is set on the fourth of July. So you have stuff specific to that. And then you've got doctors at all levels of training, students and residents. You've got nurses in training and then the seasoned physicians. Noah Wiley is back. Dr. John Carter, all grown up. It's not actually the character. It's just your head can. It's Dr. Rubenevich.

Okay. He's John. Okay. So is this an S-tier? This is an S-tier show. This is this show, I will tell you among people who work in healthcare. For me, I watch it because it's cathartic. It makes me cry. There are moments where I have to pause it because I can't catch my breath because it's too realistic to what it's like to work in health care today, even though I haven't worked in a busy ER to this level. I have colleagues who cannot watch it because of that, who feel that it is triggering and too traumatizing and too real. Too real. So thank you for making this show. I hope that people see that most of us who work in health care aren't jerks and are genuinely just trying to survive this system with you.

I hope that's what the pit is teaching people. There's two more here, Doc, that's a new one about a chief of internal medicine that loses her memory in a car crash. And Pulse is, I think, I think it was, that was a, um, they're too new. It's too new. It can't rank them yet. You didn't mention Dr. Odyssey. Oh, God, that's a really good point, Sydney. That was not on my list.

Where would you put Dr. Odyssey? Oh, that's an S-tier show. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Dr. Odyssey is an S-tier show. Yeah, listen, all of those categories that I used to assess, if you really, like, excel in one, it can overshadow that you didn't do so well in another. And Dr. Odyssey was hilarious. It was perfectly casted, top to bottom.

I don't understand why it was happening, but I loved it. It felt like something that I, like, had the flu and had a fever and dreamed, and then I got to watch on TV. I am so grateful for Dr. Odyssey. Okay. That's an S tier for Dr. Odyssey. Those are like the highlights, but I've got to be honest with you, Sid. I got like 40 others that we get into at some point. But I think that's a really great start ranking the medical shows from your lifetime.

Thank you so much for doing that with me. That was fun. Oh, well, thank you. I really wanted to, for my birthday, talk about medical shows that I enjoy. And you allowed me to. Even though you tried to stop me from talking about MASH. I don't know. Thank you, the taxpayers, for the,

use of their song, Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. And thanks to you for listening. And happy birthday, sister. Thank you. And thank you, Mash. Thank you, Mash, as always. As always, thank you, Mash. It's always told Joe a hole in your head.

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