Medical Drama

Il saggio vuole offrire alcuni spunti di riflessione sulla messa in scena della morte e del dolore da essa causato in uno dei maggiori successi seriali dell'epoca contemporanea, Grey's Anatomy, dove il lutto diventa veicolo emblematico di una narrazione melodrammatica.

Background: In modern-day medicine, there is plenty of evidence-based communication studies implying that good physician-patient communication provides better diagnosis and treatment, as well as patient satisfaction and compliance with the therapeutic plan. Medical educators who promote better communication to strengthen the physician-patient relationship believe that shared decision-making is the most favorable model after the era of paternalistic and consumeristic models as the dominant types of interpersonal communication between doctors and their patients. On the other hand, different media, especially medical dramas, if properly targeted, can be used as an educational tool for health workers and a cultural factor for the whole society to ameliorate the current difficulties in the physician-patient relationship. Objectives: Therefore, this study aimed to determine how the Iranian national TV medical drama represents the physician-patient relationship. Methods: We used a qualitat...

Background: In modern-day medicine, there is plenty of evidence-based communication studies implying that good physician-patient communication provides better diagnosis and treatment, as well as patient satisfaction and compliance with the therapeutic plan. Medical educators who promote better communication to strengthen the physician-patient relationship believe that shared decision-making is the most favorable model after the era of paternalistic and consumeristic models as the dominant types of interpersonal communication between doctors and their patients. On the other hand, different media, especially medical dramas, if properly targeted, can be used as an educational tool for health workers and a cultural factor for the whole society to ameliorate the current difficulties in the physician-patient relationship. Objectives: Therefore, this study aimed to determine how the Iranian national TV medical drama represents the physician-patient relationship. Methods: We used a qualitat...

Introduction Since their inception, TV medical dramas have been popular with the general public, and especially with medical students. Some educators in biomedical disciplines have used these dramas to illustrate professionalism and bioethical dilemmas. The first season of The Good Doctor, an American TV series, consisted of 18 episodes that showed the life of a young autistic physician with savant syndrome who is starting his residency in surgery. His personality gives rise to conflicts with colleagues and patients. It is hypothesised that The Good Doctor might be useful for teaching bioethics to health sciences students. Methods We used content analysis for an exploratory and descriptive study of the first season to determine whether the episodes had enough scenes involving bioethical dilemmas to justify empirical studies of its teaching value. Two research questions were posed: What depictions of bioethical conflicts can be useful? And, what characteristics of the representation ...

Resumen

En la actualidad, la traducción audiovisual (TAV) cobra vital importancia debido al interés que tiene la audiencia por temáticas diversas como el entretenimiento, la educación, la información, la cultura, entre otros que permean la vida cotidiana. Por esta razón, las series de televisión han abordado diversas temáticas con el fin de captar una mayor audiencia y esto ha conllevado la realización de dramas procedimentales que recrean temáticas profesionales diferentes como pueden ser judiciales, policiales o médicas; todas con un uso de lenguaje especializado. La presente investigación de carácter exploratorio realizará un análisis de la terminología médica utilizada en los subtítulos profesionales y fansub, puesto que agrega una dificultad adicional a su redacción; por lo anteriormente mencionado, se analizará la terminología médica en ambas modalidades de subtitulaje con el fin de comprobar si existen diferencias notables entre ambas opciones que permitan determinar si una modalidad posee mayor calidad que la otra o si poseen calidades similares en esta característica. Para realizar este análisis, se eligió una muestra de tres dramas médicos pertenecientes a tres cadenas de televisión distintas que trabajaran con empresas de subtitulaje diferentes con el fin de tener una muestra de subtítulos profesionales importante; en el caso de los fansub, se utilizó el sitio web Seriecanal debido a su creciente importancia en la proliferación de fansubs en países del habla hispana.

Palabras clave: terminología, traducción audiovisual, subtitulaje profesional, fansub

Abstract

Nowadays, audiovisual translation (AVT) is of vital importance due to the audience's interest in different subjects such as entertainment, education, information, culture, among others that permeate daily life. For this reason, the television series have approached diverse topics in order to capture a greater audience and this has entailed the realization of procedural dramas that recreate different professional domains as they can be judiciary, police or medical; all with a use of the corresponding specialized language. This exploratory research will conduct an analysis of the terminology used in the professional subtitles and fansub, since it adds an additional difficulty to their writing; therefore, the terminology in both modalities of subtitling will be analyzed in order to check if there are notable differences between the two options that allow us to determine if one modality has higher quality than the other or if they have similar qualities in this characteristic. For this analysis, a sample of three medical dramas from three different television networks working with different subtitling companies was chosen in order to have an important sample of professional subtitles; in the case of fansub, the website Seriecanal was used due to its growing importance in the proliferation of fansubs in Spanish-speaking countries.

Keywords: terminology, audiovisual translation, professional subtitling, fansub

The first episode of E.R. (1994-2009) was a revolution and opened a new era in the production of TV medical dramas. Years later, Grey's Anatomy (2005-active), among other series, became a cultural phenomenon in the USA. The success of this TV genre is related to its subject matter and some debate has been raised concerning its influence on audiences. In order to discuss the interaction between what is displayed on the screen and the viewers' point of view, we have chosen a few examples of TV medical shows to explore their role in the configuration of the global experience with respect to to specific illnesses. Our hypothesis is that directors and writers expect the viewers to share and embody these representations. Our aim is to map the cultural patterning of this encounter (viewers with TV medical dramas) and shed light on how it engages and constructs the experience of viewers. Through the analysis of some shows produced in the US, the UK and Spain, we conclude that medical dramas cannot be reduced to the condition of entertainment, and that their ethnographic gaze opens up suggestive research perspectives in the sphere of the construction of health, disease and care processes, and of the associated personal and collective experiences.

Recensione a "The Knick", medical drama diretto da Steven Soderbergh e diffuso in agosto 2014 da Cinemax e HBO. Ci si concentra su un episodio, "Working Late a Lot", eleggendolo a testimone della serie in merito alla rappresentazione dell’evolversi dell’esperienza narcotica borghese di inizio '900.

Throughout modern American medical history, a tremendous amount of energy has been invested in policing and erasing bodies that have challenged the prevalent model of gender binarism by their sheer indeterminacy. As a result of this, these troubling intersex bodies have almost disappeared from the American national consciousness and thus also from American culture. However, as a consequence of the growing intersex movement that emerged during the early 1990s, the question of intersex births and rights has resurfaced. During this period, intersexuality also became the subject of unprecedented media attention and in 1996 the US TV drama Chicago Hope was the first medical drama to portray the reaction to and the treatment of intersex children by modern medicine. Since then almost every mayor medical drama has dealt with this issue in at least one of its episodes. It is precisely these representations from 1996 to 2014 that this thesis examines. As this thesis asserts, the portrayal of intersex people in medical dramas gains special significance because these shows are imparted with an aura of medical authority and thus have the potential to either reaffirm or challenge marginalized status of intersex people, and, along with that, the underlying heteronormative gender system. Thus, this thesis explores the intersection between the medical authority of medical TV dramas and their depiction of intersexuality, heteronormativity, and the resulting effects. Consequently, this thesis determines whether and to what extent these representations of intersexuality in the respective episodes of these shows can be said to either challenge or reinforce the marginalized and pathologized status of intersex individuals and with it heteronormativity in general. Moreover, it explores the question of whether a development in the depiction of intersexuality has occurred as a result of intersex activism and changes in the medical communities approach to intersexuality. This is accomplished by comparing early representations of intersexuality from Chicago Hope and ER, and shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, which preceded the 2006 “Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders” with those of later shows such as Private Practice, House, M.D., and Saving Hope which followed the statement. In the process, this thesis determines whether portrayals of intersexuality during the two periods challenge the traditional treatment paradigm and with it the imposition of heteronormative standards onto the unruly bodies of intersex children, or whether they merely represent what Judith Butler has termed ‘high het entertainment.’ To achieve this, it utilizes the concept of heteronormativity in conjunction with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and ‘high het entertainment,’ and Michel Foucault’s conception of the ‘medical gaze.’ In this manner, it demonstrates that rather than unfolding the deconstructive potential of intersexuality, the portrayal during the first period is used to reinforce heteronormative standards in that the shows utilize their medical authority both to portray intersexuality as a pathological aberration and to impose heteronormative standards onto it and the respective patients. Moreover, although the shows following the “Consensus Statement” are increasingly skeptical of the traditional treatment paradigm they nonetheless perpetuate gender binarism and the belief that sex determines gender, and misrepresent the history of the medical treatment of intersex children. As such, these episodes—much like their earlier counterparts—can be identified as an example of what Butler calls ‘high het entertainment.’

<http://cstonline.tv/the-return-of-the-surgeon>
This short piece looks at how cultural ideas about technologization, subversive practices and policy-making in early 20th century medicine are circulated on television. 'The Knick' offers not only a figuration of a specific moment in the history of medicine but also a commentary on the ways this history is construed and emulated (as historiography) - via television.