"[...] Where doctors save lives and make love, often simultaneously.
Our stories, ripped from the headlines. Our passions, unbridled.
Our cafeteria, eh… Make love to me, Ann."
Our stories, ripped from the headlines. Our passions, unbridled.
Our cafeteria, eh… Make love to me, Ann."
— Jeff!Abed, Community, "Virtual Systems Analysis"
A series focusing on the practice of medicine in a hospital setting.
Provides an opportunity to educate the public on medical realities (e.g., initial misdiagnosis; correcting fallacies about well-known illnesses; the continued abysmal quality of hospital cafeterias).
Like the Police Procedural or Law Procedural, these are vehicles for short stories.
See also Artistic License – Biology, Artistic License – Medicine, Artistic License – Pharmacology, Death Tropes, I Need an Index by Monday, and Science Marches On.
Medical Drama tropes:
- AB Negative
- Afraid of Blood
- Afraid of Doctors
- Afraid of Needles
- After-Action Healing Drama
- As You Know
- Billy Needs an Organ
- Blood Transfusion Plot
- Clean, Pretty Childbirth
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable
- Code Silver
- Confess in Confidence
- Contamination Situation
- Convenient Coma
- Crisis Point Hospital
- Death by Childbirth
- Doctor's Disgraceful Demotion
- Dr. Jerk
- Easy Sex Change
- Flatline
- Flatline Plotline
- Going Cold Turkey
- Good Doc, Bad Doc
- Hollywood Science
- Hospital Gurney Scene
- Hospital Hottie
- Hospital Paradiso
- Incurable Cough of Death
- Injection Plot
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy
- Instant Emergency Response
- Instant Sedation
- The Intern
- It Never Gets Any Easier
- Kiss of Life
- Lethal Diagnosis
- Magical Antibiotics
- Magical Defibrillator
- No Control Group
- Office Romance: Well, Hospital Romance.
- One Dose Fits All
- One of Our Own
- The Patient Has Left the Building
- Patient of the Week
- Putting the "Medic" in Comedic
- Radiograph of Doom
- Roadside Surgery
- Ruptured Appendix
- Shot to the Heart
- Soap Opera Disease
- Suck Out the Poison
- Surgeons Can Do Autopsies If They Want
- Taken Off Life Support
- Tap on the Head
- Televisually Transmitted Disease
- Urgent Medical Alert
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!
- Worst Aid
- You Did Everything You Could
Examples of medical dramas:
- All Saints
- ANZAC Girls
- Becker
- Ben Casey
- Black Box
- Black Jack
- Call the Midwife
- Casualty
- Charite
- Chicago Hope
- Chicago Med
- Club der roten Bänder
- Code Black
- Combat Hospital
- A Country Practice
- Complications
- Doc Martin
- The Doctors (soap opera)
- Doctor X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon
- Doogie Howser, M.D.
- Dr. Kildare (film series)
- Dr. Kildare (TV series)
- Dr Pat (one feature in an anthology series)
- Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
- Emergency
- Emergency Ward 10
- Emergency Couple
- Emily Owens, M.D.
- ER
- Everwood
- FAITH
- The Flying Doctors
- Garth Marenghis Darkplace
- General Hospital
- A Gifted Man
- GP
- Good Doctor
- The Good Doctor
- Green Wing
- Grey's Anatomy
- Hart of Dixie
- Hawthorne
- Holby City
- Hospital Playlist
- House
- In Aller Freundschaft
- In Aller Freundschaft Die Jungen Aerzte — Spin-Off, set in a Teaching hospital, with some reappearing characters from the original series
- In Aller Freundschaft Die Krankenschwestern — Another Spin-Off,focused on the nurses
- Island Son
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
- The Knick
- Marcus Welby, M.D.
- M*A*S*H
- Medic
- Medical Center
- Medivac
- Men in White — 1934 play, probably the Ur-Example
- Mercy
- Mercy Street
- Monday Mornings
- Mystery Diagnosis
- New Amsterdam (2018)
- The Night Shift
- Nip/Tuck
- Nurse Jackie
- The Nurses
- Nurses (2020)
- Offspring
- Off The Map
- Open Heart (TV Show)
- Open Heart (Visual Novel)
- Painless
- Peak Practice
- Private Practice
- Proof
- Providence
- Quincy, M.E.
- Ray the Animation
- Red Band Society
- The Resident
- Royal Pains
- Rush 2014
- Scrubs
- Saijou no Meii
- Saving Hope
- St. Elsewhere
- Super Doctor K
- Team Medical Dragon
- This Is Going To Hurt
- Three Rivers
- Transplant
- Trapper John, M.D.
- Trauma Center
- Untold Stories of the E.R.
- Who Is Julia?
