Monday Mornings

This program has become my new Sopranos... that's the one I eagerly looked forward to the new episode all week long! I did some Google searching on the series only to find out that it has begun with sort of a "ho-hum" from viewers and critics.

I think the chemistry between the characters is in line with the likes of Seinfeld or, again, the Sopranos... and it hasn't really even had the chance to mature yet. The casting is great and the varied personalities and 'ethics' of the characters captivating. The M&M sessions (Morbidity and Mortality) are well done and I find myself thinking what I would do in the situation.

When I listen to what most Americans are talking about on TV (Idol, Housewives, etc) I realize this isn't going to appeal to the masses. I hope it can survive!!

This show is about shedding some light on a process that is hitherto unknown or little known to public. As Sanjay Gupta, the author of the original novel by the same name (and a NYT bestseller) pointed out in one of his interviews, "As surgeons, we spend a lot of our time educating patients. If the show is authentic, then people may learn stuff from it and become more empowered patients. They may see what happens after something goes wrong and how the hospital and the doctors deal with it. It can be very humanizing. Often times when something goes awry in a hospital, the communication completely breaks down. (Read @: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/02/04/

We all visit doctors at one time or another in our lives, and most of the time, do not know what questions to raise. At least I did not. In the past 30 years, I have seen lot of changes in the medical profession. Now we have doctor's assistants, nurses, nurse's assistants and a host of others to whom we keep repeating our medical history before we actually sit down with the doctor. Dr. Wilson says the boy's father is out of the picture, which indicates that he has spoken to the mother about him. Between the two of them, the question of his medical records got lost. The point here is it is a slip up and it can happen. That is what the story is about. We need to know what all matters.

Dr. Gupta said that he originally intended it to be nonfiction, but later changed it to fiction. Naturally, fiction means creating tension, some drama. This is serious stuff. I have seen comments on other sites that seem to agree with me. I for one am looking forward to other episodes. One thing I could say is the length of commercials. The breaks are too long and hurt the flow of storyline. Cutting it to half will certainly improve the flow.

Absolutely brilliant. The hour just flew by. Based on CNN's Chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta's book of the same name, the show revolves around the Monday morning M&M (morbidity and mortality) conferences held at all major hospitals. The goal of these meetings, chaired by the Chief of Medicine, is to review cases where a death occurred and hold doctors accountable for their actions. By doing so, it is hoped the entire staff learns something.

I completely disagree with the previous two posts about this show. The premise here is fresh and new, and is much more realistic than other "feel good" shows where physicians are never made to answer to their superiors for their mistakes and everything is tied up with a nice pink bow at the end of 60 minutes. The M&M conferences are REAL, they happen every week in real hospitals. Monday Mornings has been compared to House and ER, but in my view, it more closely resembles Chicago Hope (another David E. Kelley production) and St. Elsewhere in style and content. This show is not directed at the same crowd as ER, and ER fans may not like it. It's more philosophical and deals more with the psychological and ethical side of medicine than just "fixing people". Yes folks, people DIE in this show - otherwise there would be no mortality cases to pick apart and find fault with at the Monday morning M&M conferences.

Unfortunately, what makes this show great and sets it apart may end up being its downfall. Smart, philosophical shows sometimes have difficulty finding an audience (how else can you explain hits like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Keeping Up With the Kardashians????), but if the right people find the show and tune in, it should succeed. And I hope it does.

This is a thoroughly entertaining medical drama. I don't know what the negative posters expected. I suspect they are just negative people who like to find fault with everything.

The character development is superb. Stand out performances by VingRhames, Keoung Sim and Alfred Molina. There's really not a weak cast member. Story lines are good. It's not frenetic like ER, nor as bizarre as House. It's closer to Grey's anatomy with a strong focus on the medical issues and less on the soap opera aspects.

My family members in the health field agree this show is pretty much on target.

Check it out.

I was very skeptical of this show to say the least. That's because I can't remember a single hospital show that I liked, ever. Monday Mornings ended up being a pleasant surprise. Maybe pleasant is the wrong word—the show is neither for the squeamish on the visual nor the emotional side.

One preview I read stated that Monday Mornings was special because it showed us a side of the medical system that we haven't really seen before in other hospital shows. I rolled my eyes a bit at that, because what it usually means is coating the topical parts of the show with some completely unrelated melodrama elements to show the "human side" of it all. Well, Monday Mornings does show the human side alright, but not in the way I would have expected.

The focus and unique element of the series are the eponymous Monday morning meetings of surgeons. The main topics discussed are cases of patients who died while in the hospital's care—namely those where the decisions or conduct of the surgeons might have been a factor in the patient's death. These meetings are highly dramatized for the sake of television, but they drive home the point of what immense pressure lies on a medical professional's almost every decision. And how hard these situations are for them personally, even before they have to take professional responsibility, and justify their decisions.

It's a part of the medical system we don't very much like to think about. With all the research, high-tech equipment and drugs marketed as miracles, a good deal of eyewash makes us want to believe that in our day and age, no one needs to die if we just have the technical means to heal them. But when we first decide to seek medical assistance, when we are diagnosed, how accurate the diagnosis is, if the doctors make the right calls at the right time, and whether they react correctly to the way we are responding to treatment—at any imaginable stage, the human element is a huge factor and source of error. Portrayed in other shows as the "gods in white", Monday Mornings makes it a point to show that, for doctors, mistakes being a matter of life and death doesn't change the fact that they are human beings who occasionally will make them. It's an uncomfortable truth that who treats you can make a crucial difference in your life. But medical science so far wasn't able to make us clairvoyant. Judgement calls, and bad judgement, are an everyday part of it.

While there are some stereotypical characters, they're less cringe-inducing than on most shows. There's the workplace sweethearts, but their relationship (so far) hasn't overshadowed the actual plots. There's the tyrannical supervisor who, just barely, manages to not turn into a caricature. And the Asian overachiever is actually funny ("What's the worst that could happen?" – "Dead. Worst is always dead." – "Have you done this before?" – "Once." – "How did it go?" – "Dead.") The first episodes averted more cliché lines than they gave in to, opting instead for more honest and realistic conversations. Going by genre alone I expected it to be painful to watch, but it really wasn't.

There is only so much you can do to keep hospital routine, even from such a different perspective, fresh enough for a television show. Monday Mornings has yet to show if and how it will manage to do that. Most other shows just add so many personal and relationship plot lines for the medical staff, that the entire show essentially ends up being a random soap opera in front of a hospital backdrop. Others... well, actually, the only other one I can think of is House, M.D., who borrowed from crime shows to become more of a thriller. I'm curious to see whether Monday Mornings will carve its own path. But so far, my verdict is that it's definitely worth having a look at.