Medical TV Shows

Medical dramas endure because hospitals concentrate everything television wants: life-or-death stakes on a timer, brilliant flawed people in close quarters, and a fresh story walking through the door every week. The genre's secret is that the cases are the engine but never the point — the point is the staff you end up knowing better than your own coworkers.

Three shows define its poles. Grey's Anatomy turned a Seattle hospital into the longest-running primetime medical drama in American history; House fused medicine with detective fiction and built it around TV's great misanthrope; and Scrubs proved a half-hour comedy could say truer things about doctoring than most dramas. Rankings follow our quality score — longevity and sustained acclaim count — with brand-new medical series rounded up in the recently premiered section.

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