The hospital documentaries produced by Terry Wrong, including Hopkins and now NY Med, are among the rare examples of nonfiction TV shows that benefit from being on a broadcast network as opposed to cable. That's because Wrong makes fast-paced, suspenseful, yet poignant documentaries — he works unabashedly in a commercial manner, and so his work stands up to breaks for TV ads, and it deserves to reach the widest possible audience.
The healthy ratings for NY Med are exhilarating; this eight-week series, now about midway through its run, contains some of Wrong's best work. Set primarily in New York-Presbyterian Hospital, NY Med scurries along beside surgeons and ER nurses, and lingers on patients dying of everything from gunshot wounds to breast cancer. If one dashing real-life hero emerges here, it may be Dr. Sebastian Schubl, who honors his New Orleans internship, post-Katrina, with a black scrub cap. But the true stars are the nurses, such as Katie Duke and Diana Costine, who are caught between doctors' orders and unruly patients, giving their all and taking no guff. A-
