Trauma: Life in the E.R.
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Trauma: Life in the E.R. is a medical-based television reality show that formerly ran on TLC from 1997 to 2002 and now runs frequently on Discovery Health Channel. At its peak, Trauma was one of TLC's top-rated shows and spawned two spin-offs, Paramedics and Code Blue, both of which have joined Trauma: Life in the E.R. on DHC. Current real-life medical shows such as The Critical Hour and Babies: Special Delivery owe both their general format and their very existence to the success of one of reality television's first genuine hits.
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[edit] Show history
The show was produced by NYT Television (owned by The New York Times) and debuted in 1997. Like much of the medical-based programming on TLC (and DHC as well), the show was designed as a "real-life" version of a popular U.S. TV series. In this case, Trauma was designed to capitalize on the success of the NBC drama ER. The show follows the cases coming through Level One trauma centers and high-profile emergency rooms around the U.S. The first season consisted of several half-hour episodes, but by 1998, the series had expanded to a full hour, allowing for more time to follow cases as well as the lives of the doctors involved.
The show had no regular cast; every week featured a different hospital and a different group of doctors. Actor Michael McGlone narrated the series. Composer Chuck Hammer scored the series.
Most episodes centered around the physicians and nurses comprising the staff of a typical Level One trauma center, but occasionally a different type of staffer would be profiled to show their unique contributions to that specific hospital. For example, at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, the hospital's chaplain (a nun with the Sisters of Charity) was profiled in one episode, and another episode at Charity Hospital profiled the New Orleans paramedics, which was used as the pilot for the show Paramedics. Another episode followed a burn patient through his recovery at Vanderbilt University's medical center, allowing the show to profile the co-director of the burn center and one of the burn care technicians as a change of pace from the usual ER/Trauma cases.
First-run production ended in 2002, though the show lives on in reruns on both TLC and DHC. TLC stopped producing new episodes largely because the show was expensive and time-consuming to produce in comparison to other reality shows (each episode took 1-2 months to shoot and 3 months to edit, though several film crews worked simultaneously at hospitals around the country and each hospital's shooting footage was usually split into two or three episodes). In addition, new medical privacy laws forbade filming patients before they (or their next-of-kin) gave permission. Since the most of the patients filmed were in the midst of a medical emergency, obtaining the necessary production releases became difficult or impossible. (Before the new law came into effect, Trauma's videographers would usually request permission after they had begun filming. If a patient refused permission, the cases would not be included in a program.)
The series was one of the first cinéma vérité style programs to be shot almost entirely on hand-held MiniDV camcorders by teams of videojournalists who were responsible for both the reporting and videography.
[edit] Controversy
Trauma was one of TLC's most controversial shows from the beginning because it did not sugar-coat or downplay the violent nature of the cases that usually end up in a big-city trauma center. The show carries a disclaimer at the beginning and on the opening frames of every return-from-commercial bumper: "Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer discretion is advised". The warning is needed because the show does not shy away from letting the viewer see blood, guts, or even patient death. When the show debuted in 1997, such graphic presentations on television were quite rare.
Trauma was one of the first reality shows to deal with the controversial issue of health care professionals and AIDS exposure. Episodes set in San Francisco, California dealt with openly homosexual physicians, nurses, and other health care technicians and the risks to both physicians and patients when dealing with sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C. An episode set in San Antonio, Texas featured an E.R. intern who was stuck with a needle from suturing up an illegal immigrant patient whose health history was completely unknown, including the extensive medical testing and anti-viral drugs the intern needed to take to ensure she did not contract any diseases from the patient. Another episode set in Nashville, Tennessee featured a trauma surgical resident who was accidentally stuck with a needle while treating a patient who had shot himself after discovering he had Hepatitis C; the surgical resident was found to be negative for Hepatitis C but still went through the months of anti-viral medications to ensure he did not later develop the disease.
Episodes shot for both Trauma and Code Blue in New Orleans, Louisiana featured Dr. Eduardo Marvez-Valls, coordinator of E.R. and Trauma Medical Residents at Charity Hospital. Marvez-Valls, whose reputation as a dedicated instructor and physician was often featured in interviews with the doctors featured in Trauma and Code Blue, was both openly homosexual (Code Blue frequently featured Marvez-Valls at his home in the French Quarter, which he shared with his longtime partner, Robert Ripley) and suffering from end-stage AIDS. Dr. Marvez-Valls did not perform tasks that would involve excessive exposure to needles, such as suturing or IV insertion, but he continued diagnosing and treating patients in the E.R. and Trauma services at Charity Hospital even after the hospital was shut down by Hurricane Katrina, practicing medicine in tents and other temporary emergency rooms until his death from AIDS-related kidney disease in 2006 at the age of 52[1].
Patient privacy concerns have dogged Trauma from the beginning. In 2005, two men in Florida whose cases were featured on the show sued the producers for breach of privacy, claiming show crew and producers would disguise themselves as hospital personnel to obtain release signatures for the taped footage under false pretenses. Charles Sims, an attorney for the show's producers, has dismissed the men's claims and asserted that all releases were obtained properly.[2]
[edit] Life after cancellation
When Trauma was cancelled by TLC in 2002, NYT Television still had unused footage from a 3-month shooting session at Memorial Health Trauma Center in Savannah, Georgia. To make use of this footage, TLC agreed to renew Code Blue, a show originally conceived as a limited run series based on life at a single hospital, Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. The new version of Code Blue, now named Code Blue: Savannah, consisted of eight episodes crafted out of the unused footage from the Trauma shoot at Memorial Health Trauma Center. This version of Code Blue has a different shooting style, a different narrator, and a different narrative tone, making it more closely resemble an episode of Trauma: Life in the E.R. rather than the mix of hospital life and New Orleans local color that made up the original Code Blue.
