Doctors Offer Topics For Hospital Shows

Though it may seem as though the writers for hospital shows like “Chicago Hope” and “ER” are spending their time thumbing through the New England Journal of Medicine looking for new doctor stuff to turn into scripts, it doesn’t happen quite that way.

They let the doctors on their staff keep them up to date.

A forthcoming example: The CBS drama “Chicago Hope” will base the main story line of its Wednesday episode around a new technique for cardiac surgery that was suggested to the writers by the show’s technical adviser, Dr. Gregory Fontana.

Fontana knew about the technique, a minimally invasive approach to heart surgery, because he has used it in his work as a cardiac surgeon at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

“I would say it’s the most significant advance in cardiac surgery in the past 20 or 30 years,” Fontana said.

Weiss said the technique is commonly used in bypass operations and valve repair, even on patients with holes in their hearts.