Surgeons get all the girls

Just finished watching the latest episode of Boston Med. In case no one knows what this show is about, it follows physicians at MGH, the Brigham, and Boston Children's and the cases that they handle. Pretty much a hospital documentary that has been edited for maximum entertainment value, complete with tear-jerking, sun-setting-over-horizon, lonely tear drop type of theme music. All in all, it's a decent show with good stories. And to top it off, two of the CT surgery residents on the show actually trained at BCM. The show however, does suffer from a surgery heavy bias. The majority of the patients are surgery patients. Transplant surgery especially, is heavily featured. Surgeons are framed as the selfless heroes of our day and just all around nice guys with the exception of one surgical intern who's name is "Bar-douche". No explanation required there. The only two nonsurgical physicians featured are an emergency physician and a neonatologist, both procedure heavy specialties.

This very apparent slant of the show's content begs the question "Why is surgery so much more entertaining than medicine?" But of course, we all know the answer to that question. Surgery yields quick and unmistakable results. There is no uncertainty in whether or not a gallbladder or an appendix was removed. When surgeons see their patients, they think "I will fix you." Something is wrong, they make it right. This is comforting to most people, knowing that in a world so full of uncertainties, there is someone who can give you a definitive answer. Surgeons are paid for results.

Surgery also translates well into stories because there is a clear problem, climax, and resolution. The protagonists and antagonists are clearly defined in every situation. Could you imagine if they tried to weave a story out of a medicine patient's disease course? There would be more twists and turns than the last 10 chapters of a Dan Brown novel. It is my general opinion that the personal lives of internists make for much more entertaining television than the patients they treat. Take Scrubs for instance, the patients were always a subplot.

Medicine will never receive the fame and glamor of high-profile surgery and therefore will always command a lower income and less respect among the public. Because the majority of an internists work is accomplished in his mind and yields no concrete results, people are unable to recognize the extraordinary value he creates. 

Medicine does not pride itself as much on inventing the right solutions as it does on asking the right questions. 90% of sentences that arise from mouths of internists begin with "I wonder..." whereas 99% of surgeons begin their sentences with the words "I can...". Therein lies the fundamental dichotomy of the healing arts. 

Just as questions beg answers, medicine feeds surgery. Rare is the contrary.