Sunday, June 20, 2010
Boston Med on ABC: Will palliative care be highlighted?
If you have watched even a little TV in the past week or read the entertainment section of your newspaper, you may have heard about the summer TV series Boston Med on ABC. The premiere of the eight part series is this week on Thursday June 24th at 10/9c and covers three Boston area hospitals (Massachusetts General, Brigham and Woman's and Children's Hospital Boston). So if this is anything like Hopkins in 2008, I wonder how will palliative care be portrayed?
Boston has a great concentration of palliative care faculty in these three hospitals: Billings, Block, Dahlin, Jackson, Wolfe, etc. So it would be a great opportunity to showcase some of the best palliative care has to offer. I imagine they would try to advocate for some camera time for palliative care, but with editing and subject selection at the whim of the directors (and hospital execs?) I could see where it may be cut out. As of writing this I have not heard if they were part of any filming, nor do I know if they are under any restrictions because the show has not aired yet.
It is already known there will be a patient who dies as the film crew is following as that patient becomes the donor for the 2nd face transplant in the nation. While these amazing advances make for great television, I hope there is time for some of the less fantastic, but very important palliative care issues, which should make for a compelling dramatic narrative without much production as anyone who has worked in palliative care knows.
Are there any Pallimed readers who would be interested in watching each show and every week giving us a synopsis with coverage of palliative care themes and opportunities? Email me ctsinclair@gmail.com and we can collaborate.
