Women in Medicine

It’s always seemed odd to me that even though society stereotypes women as caregivers, it doesn’t expect them to be doctors.  I understand why hegemonic expectations have historically relegated women to profesional “helper” roles (nurse, not doctor; paralegal, not lawyer; etc.) but in the medical profession, that’s had the odd effect of assigning the “caregiving” part of medicine to nurses and the “elite excellence” part to men.  One thing that’s cool about Code Black is that it turns those gender expectations on their heads, or at least complicates them.

We’ve had a couple of shows in the Winter/Spring focused on women in medicine.  They’re dramas, not procedurals, so it’s not surprising that they’re more about the lead characters’ emotional lives than about their medical skills.  It is interesting, though, that each features women wrangling against other women for decision-making power.  Perhaps even more interesting is that each presents its lead woman as highly intelligent and strong-willed, but prone to sentimentality.  Their good decisions are guided by their heads, but their bad decisions are driven by their hearts. 

On one hand, these things bug me.  On the other hand, both shows give us interesting portrayals of strong female characters, and a variety of them, with different strengths and weaknesses.   So I want to love these shows.  And I’ve enjoyed some things about each of them—Mercy Street more than Heartbeat—but not loved them.  Each falls just short of what I’d hoped for. 

Heartbeat (NBC, new.  Medical drama)

Watched: first three episodes

Premise:  Rulebreaking surgeon is very good at her job but very bad at her personal life

Promise:  The premise (“woman is good at her job but bad at her personal life”) has grown tiresome.  I think it jumped the shark somewhere around “Bad Judge.”  Anyway, this woman is basically the doctor version of Olivia Pope, a strong-willed risk-taker whose professional risks pay off better than her personal ones.  I am so SO tired of the woman who’s good at everything but gets all shudder-breathed when presented with their One True Love Who’s A Bad Idea.  It drove me away from Scandal and will drive me away from this show.  Were it not for that, she would be a complex, interesting character, with a lot of talent and a chip on her shoulder, who doesn’t understand the complexities of human interaction but has a lot of ingenuity and ability to connect.  And that seems like such an easy fix.  It wouldn’t be a panacea:  the show would still have problems.  Its heart is melodrama, and the actual superhero skill of the doctors is presumed and set aside to make room for personal-life drama.  It relies on hilariously outlandish medical problems. And its people of color are relegated to small novelty roles.  So I don’t know if I’d want to watch it regularly.  But at least I’d care a lot more about its main character.

Verdict:  I’m disappointed.

Mercy Street (PBS, new.  Period medical drama.)

Watched: Season 1

Premise:  A nurse works at a hospital during the Civil War, treating mostly Union soldiers and confronting the changing times.

Promise:  This show has a large ensemble cast of characters from Union and Confederacy, from different classes, races, and backgrounds.  Which means there’s a lot of potential here for stories about tough, high-drama choices.  This is a time of war, and the characters clash over the personal and philosophical:  whether and how to have compassion for their wartime enemies, how the races interact in a world where slavery is at the forefront of contemporaneous war--but neither as much as I’d like.  The show is at its best when confronting the tough stuff, and it does so sometimes. But most of the time, the tough stuff is a backdrop to much more ordinary power schemes and romances, so the show has blunter edges than I’d like.    

Verdict:  I liked it enough to watch the whole season over the course of a couple of days and to be glad it's renewed, but I still think it didn't live up to its potential.

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  Holding steady at 22 shows.  So…I guess I’m keeping up?