Most people in America have at least one program they can't live without. Most kids will rush
out of school to see cartoons like Batman or Gargoyles. Most homemakers set the ironing-board in
front of daytime talk shows like Sally Jesse Raphael or Oprah. My Grandmother will hold all calls
for The Young and the Restless. If you work during the day time hours, you may tape your favorite
shows or just find new ones, such as the late night talk show Jerry Springer or evening dramas
Law and Order and NYPD Blue. Although I can do without these programs, I have to have my
weekly dose of the night time medical drama ER.
I have to watch it every week because it keeps me in suspense. Something new is always
happening. Events are mostly unpredictable in a real hospital emergency room, and ER's story lines
are too. Almost everything has come through the emergency room doors, from a baby in a car
accident to a woman who thought she had been abducted by aliens.
You never know who or what
will come next! At times it seems like the writers take the scripts from the morning newspaper,
"Bus Load of Children in a Five Car Pile-Up!" or "Medical Intern Jumps in Front of the Evening
Train!" Once in a while there is a situation so intense that you almost hold your breath until it's
over. Whether the patient can be helped or not, you find yourself wishing and hoping for him or her
to live anyway. On one episode, for example, a pregnant woman was in a car accident along with
her husband. Her husband and her baby survived, but she didn't. During the entire time she was on
the operating table you could see signs that she just...