Not as seen on television

An epidemic of medical dramas is spreading across our screens. But, says Dr Ed Walker, if you're hoping to learn about life in a real hospital, you're looking in the wrong place

What fewer people realise is that watching medical dramas on television can be just as nerve-racking. The urge to jump up and shout, "You don't do it like that!", or, "She's going to die, you idiot!", is only just outweighed by the tutting and eye-rolling in response to the supposedly subtle ways in which they try to explain the technical side, to keep the plot trundling along. "Shall I start the syntometrine now in order to prevent post-delivery blood loss, doctor?" I mean, really.

The granddaddy of them all, ER, is off our screens at the moment. Written by Michael Crichton (qualified physician, writer of Jurassic Park, and, recently, a US Senate witness on global warming), you could always rely on ER to be at least technically accurate. I learnt a whole new vocabulary from ER. Oxygen saturation became "PulsOx"; U&Es (urea and electrolytes) was the snappier "lytes"; and X-rays were roentgenograms. I can confirm that suggesting to someone that they need an appendectomy rather than a stuffy old appendicectomy does indeed make you feel a bit like George Clooney.

But, with no ER, medical-soap addicts need not worry. There is currently a small epidemic of them, the most heralded new US strain being House (Five, Wednesdays). There's a saying in medicine: if it's yellow, sits in a cage and sings, it's a canary. But if it's yellow, sits in a cage and sings, and you're in Dr Gregory House's team, it's a baby alligator with a rare form of jaundice and a strange tumour of the voice box. The clinical scenarios are ludicrously complex, and while they try to explain them, even I got a little lost.

In a recent episode, a 10-year-old girl fell into a coma and got blood clots from taking diet pills she'd stolen. Then she got skin ulcers, which, we were led to believe, were caused by an accidental overdose of warfarin received in the hospital. Luckily, Dr House was on hand to see through the evil machinations of the screenwriters, and spotted that her condition was caused by a rare pituitary tumour, which, when removed, also cured the obesity she'd started off with.

The only reason they get away with it is the character of Dr House himself, played by our own Hugh Laurie: likeable, irascible, incorrigible, and spectacularly rude to his patients. Not so much a bedside manner as a broadside attack. I have a theory that if every NHS employee were allowed, say once a month, to tell a patient exactly what they thought of them, no verbal holds barred, we'd all be a lot better off for it.

But that only works on US dramas, not in the NHS. We English don't do rude very well. I'm sure I'd find myself reverting to the Hugh Laurie stereotype: "You're still smoking, Mr Smith, aren't you? I know because you look as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo."

If you want a little more reality, you could do worse than to try Bodies, which began as a novel and has just started a second series on BBCs 2 and 3. It's written by Jed Mercurio, a real doctor, who put lots of doctors' backs up with his previous drama, Cardiac Arrest. They felt he portrayed doctors in a poor light, but what really upset them was the fact that he'd got out of medicine and earned his living in front of a nice, clean keyboard. That didn't swear at you, or threaten to sue you. Or bleep you at 3am.

You get a flavour of Bodies in the opening scene of the series, in which our hero, Dr Rob Lake, is delivering a baby through the most realistic artificial (I hope) vagina I've ever seen. It's a pity the characters aren't as carefully crafted as the genitalia. Apart from Dr Lake, who is, naturally, having regular, sweaty, joyous sex with the prettiest nurse on the ward, every other doctor is a complete horror. The consultants are incompetent or evil, only outshone by the managers, who are all evil and incompetent.

One other important feature is, so far, missing from Bodies. There's no helicopter. It's becoming increasingly difficult to turn on the TV without being faced with a plucky member of Hems (the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service). But Hems is so close to media saturation point that I hope one of them isn't snapped by News of the World buying a crafty pack of Marlboro Lights, or the game will be up quicker than you can say "Kate Moss's H&M contract". Your current choice of Hems viewing is BBC News 24 (real-life, real-time, London bombings etc), BBC1 and BBC3 (real-life, Trauma and Trauma Uncut), and ITV Wednesdays (The Golden Hour, drama, with special thanks to Hems for use of idea and uniforms).

The Hems website now carries a disclaimer, distancing itself from the "dramatic storylines" of The Golden Hour, which is odd because, despite its use of the latest visual trickery, flashbacks and moody coloration (EastEnders meets 24), I found the show tedious. It makes my usual procession of sprained ankles and breathless old ladies seem interesting.

The title is taken from a graph that shows how people die after major trauma. Some die immediately from "non-survivable" injuries, and some die weeks later from infection and multiple organ failure. But there's a group in the middle who die between one and two hours after the incident, usually from bleeding. If you can stop the bleeding, you can save their lives. If you have a helicopter with a medic, the theory is, you get there quicker and save more lives.

The show is as full of attempts at punchy drama as you'd expect. Nothing on the episode I saw was anywhere near as dramatic as the real events that unfolded live on the morning of 7 July, even though the main storyline concerned an explosion in a London office block. Had I been injured in the real incident, I'm not sure how impressed I'd be at my plight being repackaged as entertainment.

So, what do doctors watch for a slice of realistic escapism? A straw poll shows a clear winner: Scrubs (various times and channels, including Paramount comedy, Channel 4 and E4) is weird, wacky and simply the best medical drama there is. For the uninitiated, Scrubs features characters in the US hospital Sacred Heart. Dr John Dorian is the intern struggling not to kill too many patients, while desperately seeking the approbation of his mentor, Dr Cox. The characters are fully developed, you can believe just about every storyline (except, perhaps, the outside toilet on the roof) without the need for gory close-ups, and it makes me laugh out loud. While falling into the comedy category, it also manages some poignant moments, often reflecting on the futile nature of many modern medical interventions.

There is no sign of the popularity of medical soaps waning, and I really should be writing one right now. I could have a team desperately trying to save the life of a man crushed by masonry, to be confronted immediately after by the parents of a girl who has waited two hours with a torn fingernail, a lady with chewing-gum in her hair, and a retired colonel with a live ammunition shell stuck up his bottom. Real life really is stranger than fiction.

Dr Ed Walker works in emergency medicine