I am excited about the new show “NY Med,” which premiered last night on ABC not only because it’s a reality-TV “Grey’s Anatomy,” but also because it takes place at the Cornell and Columbia NewYork Presbyterian Hospitals (my alma mater and current school).
It was fun to see the shots of the buildings where I’ll be learning for the next three years, and also hopefully interning. Although the show started on a silly note with a patient who came into the ER with a 12-hour erection, overall, it was entertaining and insightful. The show struck a balance between realistically serious moments (a patient with inoperable liver cancer), happy endings (a mother of young children cured of her brain cancer), and funny moments (a patient’s wife with a crush on Dr. Oz).
It was refreshing to see that the doctors and nurses weren’t quite as glamorous or dramatic as their fictional counterparts, and were also tormented by occasional boredom. Nevertheless, they had their fair share of characters to treat (the man faking heart trouble to avoid jail) and romantic endeavors (the grateful patient who asked his nurse out) to contend with.
I’ve already had a taste of volunteering in one hospital and will eventually learn in many more, so it’s fun to have a realistic (if heightened) depiction on TV to balance out the soap opera versions I can’t resist.