Short abstract
ITV 1, Mondays at 10 pm from 12 July to 16 August
Rating: ★
My medical school was always keen to remind us that passing yourself off as a doctor was a serious offence. But this six part fly-on-the-wall documentary series, following a group of third year medical students at Southampton University as they start their clinical training, has no such qualms about pretending to be something above its station. This series opts for the sexy title Young Doctors and in doing so sets the tone for the show, which seems more interested in high ratings and sensationalism than offering an informative or revealing perspective on medical students' lives.
Figure 1.
We are introduced to Camilla who “knows what she wants—she wants to party, she wants to be in charge, and she wants to become a surgeon”; and Barney, “a vicar's son from Salisbury who works hard but likes to play even harder.” This is more like an episode of Friends than a documentary—with each character reducible, in the producers' eyes, to a snappy, throwaway line.
We see Barney studying hard at his desk as the soundtrack plays celestial organ music. Cut to pounding pop anthems and “dishy” Barney, rather the worse for wear, strutting his stuff on the dance floor. The social lives of these poor students get as much airtime as their clinical studies, and it soon gets dull.
When we do get to see the “young doctors” on the wards things start to pick up, partly because the real stars of the show are the patients. Mr M looks on unfazed as blood gushes from his arm while Jacob frantically tries to stem the flow. “You've got to learn,” says Mr M, sharing a smile with the sheepish-looking Jacob. There's also humour, when Lizzy tells the camera that her first clerking “wasn't too bad considering she was deaf, partially blind, and Swiss.”
What do we learn from this type of programme? Sadly, not much. But there is the odd revealing moment, such as when we hear that Lizzy may not go on to practise medicine: “Medicine is a hard degree, but it's [just] a degree,” she tells us. “I'll see at the end if I still am keen to take that career path, and if not I'll just travel the world and be a beach bum.”