recently, there has been a sudden surge of professionaling (yes, that a word) shows. that is, reality competition shows based on some professional activity. like top chef, which is great. but i mean, more than just top chef. i mean, it seems that everyone now has a show about how to be a better whatever. top chef, top designer, top hairdresser. soon there will be top lawyer and top engineer and top kindergarten teacher. which brings me to the next idea: why not top doc. one syllable title, already catchy. physicians from different specialties can be pitted against each other in hopes of becoming the next top....doc, proving who can be the best. there already has been a surge of doctoring shows. house is pretty popular still and who's sleeping with whom on grey's anatomy still? but this would be a whole different genre of doctor tv--competition, intensity, personalities clashing to be the best.
of course, you'd have to pick from different specialties and stay true to all the stereotypes. there will be a short and angry surgeon guy, the constantly-working-out-athlete orthopod, the bitch ob/gyn with killer stilettos, the geeky pasty white radiology guy, the super sweet asian peds girl, the goofy funny ED guy with possible drinking problem, the weird and eccentric pathology girl with an eye for color patterns...you get my drift. all of them will be living in some apartment, distantly resembling a call room. assignments and next competition will come as a page...on the team pager.
quick fires will involve randomly timed events such as starting an IV blind-folded with oversized gloves, or getting through as much of closing a laceration in a 5 minute period as possible, or figuring out if it's cancer based on a quickly frozen slide, or getting the most of a history from a paranoid schizophrenic patient, or finding a lesion on a CT. i guess the idea would be to make all of these docs do random unrelated shit in a timed fashion to see who can pull it all together best...to secure immunity.
the actual events who have to, then, be a bit more challenging. you could always do a house-style event, where contestants would have some limited time to correctly diagnose an obscure illness and find the treatment for some abnormal presentation of schistosomiasis in an old lady who's never been to egypt, or wandering breast glands pouring breast cancer out of some dude's knee cap. you can also do hands-on things, like performing an lap appy through just one port on an extremely obese man, whose white count is so high the appy is about to burst. you can make them resuscitate shot victims in a moving vehicle without supplies, or deliver babies in un-anesthesized organic patients who want natural births but are having terrible decels. or complete a complete physical and vaccination on a 7 year old kid with ADD. the possibilities are endless. all of this will, of course, have to come with an explanation of what exactly is going on and how grave or delicate a situation is. like why is it necessary to assist in delivery in light of decels...or what decels even are, but this is what would really entice the audience: the learning and the difficulty of the situation. the challenge, if you will.
there are also some potential drawbacks, like HIPAA violations and patient rights, but i think as long as everyone signs a waiver and a consent..it would be just like consenting for a procedure...except when your doc is the guy being eliminated..that prolly doesnt speakk so highly of your, hmm..treatment plan.
well that sucks. i guess we cant have a top doc show after all. and no one will ever prove to be the best of the best, the best physician there could be on live, or carefully filmed, tv show. i guess i'll just leave it to next top engineer and continue to watch my top chef.
