There's just something about medical drama that we can't get enough of. Is it our relentless fascination with our bodies and health? Or is it all about the awe and respect we hold for people in authority? According to one television commentator, "everybody is looking for heroes, and a doctor can be heroic".
Other say that increasing concern with the medical system plays a role in the popularity of medical drama; a televised slice of life in healthcare organisations helps demystify the complex hierarchy of these uncommunicative institutions. But then again, it might it be our time-honoured obsession with lashings of blood and guts. Watching at a safe distance is, it seems, the kind of temptation we find almost impossible to resist. Ah, the joy of writhing on the couch as yet another victim, roaring with pain, his blood splurting into some unsuspecting doctor's eye, smashes through the doors of the emergency room.
And that "on my count - one, two, three", then the agonised scream of the patient crashing off the ambulance board and on to the hospital bed.
Long before television, people clambered to public hangings and queued to watch a spot of drawing and quartering. What are we like? Very fussy. We don't think much of the real thing anymore - news reports about war zones horrify us into demanding our politicians call an end to it all. We'd rather our pain and agony came sandwiched between illicit romps in the suture room and a spot of marital difficulty outside the OR.
Part of the appeal of medical drama is that "they organically present life and death situations", said one US television network boss recently; but it's life and death neatly distanced from reality. Think of how music helps to achieve this. In reality, there is very little sound at the scene of a disaster initially. But a relative silence would create a sort of intensity which would serve more to shock than entertain, and entertainment is the name of the game.
Your average medical drama has all the traits of a real casualty department, but there is of necessity a lack of reality about it all - a bit of a weekly weep, fine, but not a lot of TV producers want to see the audience heading out for therapy in their droves. So we'll take a bit of the real thing, plus plenty of romance, relationship dynamics, human vulnerability, and a lorry load of sex appeal.