A comparison of two hospital dramas - Casualty and ER.

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A comparison of two hospital dramas - Casualty and ER.

This essay will compare the two hospital dramas, Casualty and ER.

Casualty is a British hospital drama. It is shown on BBC1 at 8:05 on a Saturday evening .It has been one of the biggest and most popular hospital dramas ever made in Britain. The fact that it’s lasted over ten series, has been sold to many countries around the world, and it still manages to pull in big audiences speaks for itself. The series is set in the fictional town of Holby, and is set in the hospital, Holby A+E.

ER, on the other hand, is an American based hospital drama. It is shown in America on NBC, at 10:00 on a Thursday night and also in Britain on E4, at 9:30 on a Thursday night. ER has been one of the most successful dramas in America, during the 90’s. The show is so popular and is regarded, in America, so good that it is paid a staggering £10 million an episode by the American broadcasting company, NBC. This amount shows how highly the American people regard the show.

There are many similarities and differences between the two. I think that ER was so popular with a British audience because of the fact that it is American, and is regarded as very glamorous to the British people. On the other hand I think that ER lacks reality. For example, Casualty has a lack of nurses and doctors, stress, realistic patients with realistic injuries. ER, on the other hand, has patient’s with, for example gun shot wounds. Now in real life patients wouldn’t be rushed in every day with gun shot wounds. This, in my mind, is one of ER’s only weaknesses’.

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The two programmes both deal with the same conventions. These are called conventions of hospital dramas. Doctors and nurses in the two programmes both have to deal with moral dilemmas. Disputes between doctors and nurses arise. The use of technical language is used a lot to make the viewers respect the doctors for what they are doing and make the program seem more realistic. The viewers also treat them as professionals. Doctors and nurses home life often affects their work. A doctor or nurse often has a hidden secret, which could affect his/her work. A junior doctor often disagrees ...

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