Grey's Minorities

I have to say that I love the show Grey's Anatomy. Sure, sure, it's a doctor show and I'm a doctor and so either I'm supposed to hate it for not being nearly as boring and realistic as being a real doctor or I'm supposed to love it for how much it reminds me of my days as a stupid intern. Well, first off I'm an ER doctor and so my job isn't really all THAT boring. And I'm willing to suspend my belief that a top cardiothoracic surgeon would do an appendectomy, and OB physician would do lung surgery, and the not so unrealistic impression that everybody is sleeping with everybody else. And it does sort of remind me of some of my intern foibles; the competition for good cases and patients, the making of mistakes that may or may not have killed a patient, the need to stick together to survive. I remember the exhaustion of working over 100 hour weeks, getting to the hospital before the sun came up and leaving the hospital after the sun went down, standing in front of hospital windows just to remember that there is indeed something called sun and that the rest of the world lives in it.

And I'll admit that I've always had a thing for Patrick Dempsey. Oh... like FOREVER.

But the reason that I love this show so much is the deliberate attention it pays to minorities. The Chief of Surgery is black, the premiere cardiothoracic surgeon is black, the best and most respected resident is black and a woman. The premiere OB physician is a woman, the smartest of the interns are women. The smartest and most competitive intern is a Korean Jewish woman (played by the more than brilliant Sandra Oh) who is incidentally sleeping with the black CT surgeon. Many of the patients' stories are represented by minority people and beliefs like the patient who needed a shaman. And while there is no gay physician (yet), gay people have been represented in many story lines. But again, the cool thing is their story isn't about them being gay but hints at a gay issue. For example, there was a pediatric patient who had two dads one of whom was very skittish and protective. When the kid took a turn for the worse and the doctors had to drill a hole in his head at the bedside (I know, I know), the skittish one was asked to leave (because he was skittish and overly protective not because he was gay) but he demanded to stay in the room to be near his son and the two dads held hands tightly as their son of course pulled through. Clearly, this was a way to show middle america two gay dads and to hint at the issue of hospital visitation in gay households. Without shoving it down our throats.

And while at the water cooler the next day the GA conversation will always be whether or not Meredith will end up with McDreamy, even subconsciously they can't help but absorb the more important issues in front of their eyes week after week.