| Hopkins | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 7 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Rudy Bednar Terence Wrong |
| Editor(s) | Pagan Harleman, Faith Jones, Cindy Kaplan Rooney |
| Running time | 43 minutes |
| Production company(s) | ABC News |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | June 26, 2008 – August 7, 2008 |
Hopkins is a seven-part documentary TV series set at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a teaching hospital in Baltimore, Maryland (USA).[1][2][3] It premiered in the United States on June 26, 2008 on ABC[3] and is currently airing in syndication on the We TV Network. The theme for the show "So Much to Say" was written by songwriter Matthew Puckett. The series won a Peabody award.
Created as a real-life adjunct to the ABC hit Grey's Anatomy,[1] it follows the professional lives of hospital caregivers and their patients. The show is a follow-up to the ABC Special Hopkins 24/7, from 2000.[4] Boston Med, which aired on ABC in the summer of 2010, was produced by the same team behind Hopkins.
The fourth episode of the series featured a young boy with a serious, irreversible heart condition. His heart was barely functioning at a level high enough to keep him alive, and he went into cardiac arrest during a heart biopsy. During a discussion among the boy's doctors about the course of treatment, Dr. James Fackler, a pediatric critical care specialist, was shown saying, "It's my opinion that we should just let the child die." This comment incited controversy among viewers, who considered it insensitive.[5]
In a video on ABC's Hopkins website, Dr. Fackler elaborated on what he meant, explaining that if the boy required a heart transplant, mechanical life support (ECMO) would not keep him alive long enough for a new heart to become available.