The 1990s ratings dominance of ER (NBC, 1994–) grew from a long tradition of telling stories of life and death through the heroic figure of the doctor. Its roots lie in movies like Young Dr. Kïldare (1938) and Now Voyager (1942) as much as the transformation of the American physician him/herself. Like ER, many shows have balanced disease and trauma, of which they may in fact provide public information, and the human character of the medical staff confronting them.

Early medical shows, from the 1950s Medic (NBC, 1954–6) onwards, made these issues primarily male, although nurses and female patients might provide emotional interests. Richard Chamberlain was television’s brash young Dr Kildare (NBC, 1961–6), before he became king of the miniseries. Vince Edwards defined a similar role in the rougher-hewn Ben Casey (ABC, 1961–6), with its solemn opening invocation of “Man/Woman/ Birth/Death/Infinity.” Both were based in hospitals, which also provided storylines for generations of medical shows as well as daytime soap operas like General Hospital (ABC, 1963–).

Early shows also tended to be white unless a specific point about integration was to be made. Later, the black middle class would appear in Julia (NBC, 1968–71), showcasing an African American nurse, as well as the long-running Cosby Show (NBC, 1984–92).

Bill Cosby’s character of the wise, warm Dr Clifford Huxtable, however, drew on another tradition of medical representation—the kindly family practitioner epitomized by Robert Young in the long-running Marcus Welby, M.D., (ABC, 1969–76). Young was already known to many viewers as the sitcom father in Father Knows Best (CBS, NBS, ABC, 1954–63); working with a younger sidekick and Hispanic nurse, he covered not only a catalog of American diseases, but also topics such as sex-change operations. Like his precursors, he rarely lost a patient or faced existential or political crises.

The medical format has also been adapted to different contexts and programming stressing youth, age, gender (a few nursing shows as well as the doctor hunk) and intersecting with other formats. Quincy, M.E. (NBC, 1976–83) and Diagnosis Murder (CBA, 1993–) blended doctor and crime stories, while Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman (CBS, 1993–9) brought the respectable female physician to the Old West.

The ensemble cast of St. Elsewhere (NBC, 1982–8), with its fallible physicians, provided a precursor to both the action-driven ER (where hunk male doctors still outnumber females) and its sometimes more surreal rival Chicago Hope (CBS, 1994–).

Together, these shows have broached medical issues ranging from AIDS to healthcare cutbacks, interwoven with yuppie personal dilemmas of job versus work, gender and racial discrimination and dealing with older parents. Malfeasance and malpractice became issues as well in all these shows.

Medical comedies have been less compelling overall. Yet M*A*S*H used bloody medical humor to examine the premises of war (albeit a distant Korea) and to become one of America’s mostwatched series. Bob Newhart also brought clinical psychology into a sitcom.

Doctor/medical shows intersect with changing attitudes and issues in American health, although almost all have taken for granted the social transformation of American medicine, in which the doctor has become wealthy, glamorous and powerful in association with his/her control of life and death. Moreover, these roles are reinforced by medical reporting on television, especially in local reports and information shows, and by the apparent roles of physicians in television advertising over decades. While these shows may educate audiences about disease, the need to entertain, resolve and attract transforms the image of the physician healer and expectations for medicine itself.