Dr Domhnall McAuley looks at Scrubs through the eyes of a health professional
Scrubs is like a trip to the medical zoo. Each junior doctor is stranger than the next. A zany, superficial, soufflé that one could barely describe as a medical drama. It looks like it came as a job lot in a garage sale at an American TV station.
Buy two episodes of Friends and get Scrubs free. After five minutes you think, they cannot be serious. Exaggerated, overblown, unbelievable and peopled by the worst caricatures of the junior doctor.
As far from ER and Casualty as you could get, it steers clear of any important social or medical issues. Patients are wallpaper-background to the interactions between doctors and staff. But, there is something compulsive about it - just enough truth to give it a message. You could mistake it at first as a witty side swipe at junior doctors, but there is an unsettling undertone that will be strangely familiar to many medical graduates. The banter and bonhomie of the junior doctors club hides some major issues. They are not a happy lot. There is a price to pay.
Barbie doc is young, beautiful, cool, intelligent and desirable. She has it all. For her, work comes first. Patients come before a dinner date and even her superman boyfriend gets fed up. Even kind, good natured and optimistic medical students live a fairly stunted emotional life as junior hospital doctors. Normal relationships are difficult. Ask your medical friends.
And the lads. Fun loving, easy-going, good buddies, searching for something different in the future, yet wanting to reminisce about the past. JD, drifting into Ally McBeal moments, is both character and commentator; Turk, comfortable in his friend's company, struggles to communicate with anyone else. Their macho, beer-drinking lifestyle portrays the ultimate male bonding.
Then, just when you thought the storyline had gone completely daft, and you reach for the remote control, they throw in some deep and meaningful message.
So, what about the rest of the script? Nurses don't seem to play a big enough part. Where is Liam Doran when he is needed. The hospital? Described as a "great place to work except for the sick people".
And the other characters? Colourful, eccentric, larger than life (literally). But, while the picture painted is far removed from the reality of any Irish hospital, there are some aspects that are vaguely familiar: the constant tension between professional groups; the petty politics of the ward; the self-important pecking order. And every junior doctor will recognise Dr Cox, the consultant.
A comedy, perhaps. But it doesn't shy away from highlighting the introverted navel-gazing world of medicine. The hierarchy, scare tactics, patronising seniors and the emotional sacrifices. It may have bar-room humour, and junior hospital doctor jokes about urine samples in the canteen - and I loved the name tag on the urine bottle; I.P Freely.
But don't dismiss this as medical piffle. It's humorous, funny, and entertaining, but some doctors might find it strangely unsettling. Throwaway comments ring too true. It's all good fun, lighthearted easy viewing, and the glamour of medicine camouflages normal life, the conflict between work and friendship and emotional immaturity. Nothing is ever quite what is seems.
• Scrubs is broadcast on Network 2 on Monday nights at 9.30 p.m.Dr Domhnall McAuley is a Belfast-based GP.