Source: NJ.com Health
To NY Med producer Terence Wrong… “reality TV” (is a) term has been so bastardized by manipulative footage and staged storylines that it has ceased to bear any resemblance to reality. His series, on the other hand, is about as real as it gets.
A tale of two cities, its unblinking cameras contrast emergency treatment at Newark’s University Hospital trauma unit with the mostly elective surgeries of New York’s Upper East Side…The eight-episode series premieres Thursday on ABC.
“I think it’s going to be positive for the institution. It’s going to showcase the care we give,” said David Livingston, director of the New Jersey Trauma Center based at University…”This is like having a chance to buy Apple stock at $20 a share.”
A parade of injuries comes to its doors, most via ambulance: a plane crash victim, a baby having difficulty breathing…(S)aid Wrong, “What we found in Newark that we didn’t find on the Upper East Side was way, way, way more young men coming with gunshot wounds. It’s a major Level One trauma center, and it’s a really good one. You don’t see that in most hospitals in most cities — but Newark has one.”
A man injured in a basketball game doesn’t let the pain keep him from flirting. A resident breaks his pelvis falling from a third-floor fire escape while trying to break into his own apartment — he lost his keys…A series of mothers — some distraught, others fed up — attend to their gun-shot teenage sons. The hospital treated 6,322 gunshot wounds in the last 11 years, according to Livingston.
In each episode, those stories alternate with calmer cases out of New York Presbyterian and other New York City hospitals…Life is not always so genteel on that side of the Hudson, however, as one twentysomething barhopper is so drunk they keep her in the ER to sleep it off.
University Hospital’s role as a teaching site is front and center throughout the series, with Tiffany Murano, director of the hospital’s emergency medicine residency program, shown guiding her students. She ended up in several episodes, much to her surprise…Doctors could opt out of participating in the show, although most didn’t…
Trauma surgeon Adam Fox…(said that) aside from the technicians attaching the microphone to him at the start of the shift, he was barely aware of their presence…His main concern was that the editing process might cut out portions of the diagnostic process, making it appear to other doctors that he’d forgotten or skipped those steps…
Getting the consent of patients to film them wasn’t hard, Wrong said. Those who were having elective surgery wanted to let others see what the process was like, while those experiencing some kind of an emergency simply accepted the camera’s presence. (His videographers dressed in scrubs, but wore ABC News badges.)
One of the “star” patients was Tim Monticchio, who was involved in a plane crash outside the Linden Airport…(H)e was asked upon his arrival if he could be filmed. He agreed and is looking forward to seeing his segment of the series. “I thought it would be cool, so I said yes,” he said recently. “And I was also in shock.”