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“Boston Med” features a lesbian doctor and real-life drama

“There’s no McDreamy or McSteamy here,” says Amanda Grabowski, one of the nurses featured on the new ABC News series, Boston Med. The eight-part documentary chronicles the real-life drama of life, death and the toll they take on doctors, nurse and patients at three of Boston’s top hospitals: Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women’s, and Children’s Hospital Boston.

There may not be any Owens or little Greys either, but there is an Arizona, of sorts. Kelly Wright is a second year resident in Ob-Gyn at Brigham and Women’s, and an out lesbian.

The ABC episode guide says about Wright:

Working in women’s health, she says, people assume she is pro-choice and liberal. In fact, she is a devout Christian who won’t perform abortions, unlike most of her fellow residents.

Her personal views don’t seem to get in the way of her work, but her work definitely gets in the way of her life. Like the other doctors who pay a big personal price to meet the demands of their schedule, Wright’s story includes the loss of a relationship.

“I’ve never loved like that before,” she says in Episode 5. “This person left me for somebody else. She just tried to put the blame on me, because I wasn’t there. It’s hard to be in a relationship with a doctor.”

Wright also voices her career doubts (her mother’s advice: quit) when faced with cases such as a woman who died hours after giving birth.

The other doctors on Boston Med are equally compelling. In the first episode, Dr. Maria Troulis reconstructs the jaw of a cop who was shot during a robbery. Dr. Will Curry is a skilled second-generation African-American brain surgeon, but still gets mistaken for the janitor. Dr. Pina Patel is a fourth-year resident who struggles to assert herself and prove she can run with her Ivy League peers.

One of my favorite scenes showed a group of male nurses who vacation together to let off steam and complain about the residents. “They’re visitors. I live here,” says one elder statesman in the group.

Like Grey’s Anatomy and House, Boston Med shows some fascinating and emotional cases, only these are real and much more graphic. There’s the jaw reconstruction, a fetus with a serious heart defect, a man desperate for a heart transplant who runs out of time, and in the series finale, the second face transplant ever performed in the US. Incredible.

The series has been getting rave reviews and with Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer Terence Wrong at the helm, it’s no wonder the press is throwing around words like, “mesmerizing, exhilarating, funny and at times heart-wrenching.”

Boston Med premieres tonight at 10PM /ET on ABC. Check it out. This is how TV should be.

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