Although it is far from the classics of medical dramas, the appearance of “All About Doctor Tang” is still the beginning of medical dramas to get rid of “urbanization” and “idolization”.
Wang Wenjing
As a medical industry drama, the just-concluded TV series “All About Doctor Tang” is generally recognized by the audience for its professionalism and fast pace. Although like the previous medical dramas, Tang Jiayu gained no suspense at the end of the drama, and Ye Yiming, an anesthesiologist, changed from a tacit partner at work to a close lover in life, but the focus of the drama is always as a cardiac surgery expert Dr. Tang, who led the team to carry out a series of stories of daily treatment and medical research. Under this main line, there are interpersonal relationships and marital relationships that she has no time to manage, as well as the “Dr. Tang’s history” that her childhood experiences have contributed to her choice and adherence to her career ideals. Thank goodness, “Everything about Dr. Tang” is finally no longer about a vigorous love affair in the hospital. The typological narrative based on the doctor’s perspective finally matches the title and the surface.
As an industry drama, the medical theme integrates multiple value dimensions such as medicine, human nature, emotion, and ethics, and has the natural dividend of telling wonderful stories. It is more universal and empathetic than education, law, police and other industries. After its broadcast in 2012, “Xin Shu” was very popular. In fact, “Xin Shu” is not as outstanding as “Everything About Doctor Tang” in terms of medical treatment scenes and professionalism. Because it focuses on the doctor-patient relationship, responds to hot topics in real life, and resonates with the audience emotionally and ethically. But since then, medical dramas seem to be more intoxicated with the industrial environment created by “white coats” and “operating rooms”. In the hospital, they fall in love, talk about life ideals, and talk about family grievances, but they don’t talk about medical majors. The medical professional content in dramas such as “The Surgeon” and “Emergency Doctor” is becoming less and less. The profession of doctor may become a container for beautiful men and women to reach the top of their careers, or become a scene of revenge and love for them. Professional The lack makes it impossible for these works to enter the context of industry dramas for serious evaluation, which may also be the background and opportunity for “All About Doctor Tang” to qualify with technology and professional reputation.
“All About Doctor Tang” returns to the medical industry itself, focusing on multiple difficult medical cases in cardiac surgery. It tells 28 independent character stories in the length of 36 episodes. Through the character and perspective of “Doctor Tang”, It presents the professional experience of the critically ill group of the Heart Center of Anhe Jisheng Hospital fighting on the lifeline of the patient. Intensive patient stories carry “total aortic replacement”, “aortic dissection rupture”, “cardiac angiosarcoma”, “cardiac pheochromocytoma”, “Marfan syndrome”, “Behcet’s disease”, “two-way Green operation”, etc. The professional medical vocabulary is presented one by one in the solid and specific discussion of the plan and the details of the surgical process, and the fast-paced “unit drama” expresses the professional level of the drama as an industry drama. In August last year, my country’s first in vitro magnetic levitation artificial heart completed its first clinical trial. “All About Dr. Tang” has made various efforts around the development of the full magnetic levitation artificial heart. It is an eager dialogue between the show and reality, and its relevance is no less In 2014, “Grey’s Anatomy” applied the 3D hologram technology that had just been successfully developed that year. The sense of technology and reality effectively strengthened the quality density of medical dramas as industry dramas.
Nearly 70% of the scenes in the play are concentrated in the operating room, ward or doctor’s office. The content basically revolves around the reception of the critically ill group led by “Dr. Tang”, the operation, the communication between doctors and patients, and the discussion of treatment plans by the doctor team. For “Doctor Tang”, saving her life with superb cardiac surgery and proving herself is almost the whole of her life. She is either doing surgery or thinking about how to do it better. This has become Tang Jiayu’s professional sketch. The “Cardiac Medicine Knowledge Class” set up at the end of each episode also provides a concise and brief explanation of the diseases, surgical methods, and medical instruments related to cardiac medicine, whether from the perspective of image structure or from the perspective of popular science effects. Both show the form of medical industry drama consciousness. Therefore, “Everything About Dr. Tang” is everything that starts from the doctor’s career, and is also everything related to the medical field. Doctor Tang is a doctor first, and “Everything About Dr. Tang” can return to the category of medical industry dramas. It may express the truth of art under the logic of professional life.
However, if not falling in love and returning to the profession is the good news that “All About Doctor Tang” brings to the audience, then the bad news is that its advantages are nothing more than that.
It seems that the dramatic conflict in the play is full enough: Tang Jiayu, a “surgical star” who returned from the Kemed Medical Center, took over as the director of the Heart Center of Anhe Jisheng Hospital, and firstly faced the two difficulties of technical research and interpersonal relationships: One is that Liu Feng, the vice president of an old classmate, pinned the hope of developing a “full magnetic levitation artificial heart” on her; the other is the hostility of Song Baode, the former head of the heart center, and other medical staff to the “airborne” female director. with doubts. Under such pressure, Tang Jiayu not only faced setbacks such as the failure of the operation for Xue Zhenglun, the old director of Renwai Hospital, the amputation of 17-year-old Wei Chaoyang, and the death of Wang Xuechun because the artificial heart was not put into use earlier. The marriage with Zhao Jinan also came to an end after being repaired to no avail.
However, after careful analysis, whether the main line of research and development of the “full magnetic levitation artificial heart” or the sub-line of Dr. Tang’s personal workplace and emotional world, the predicament she faces is essentially not related to medicine.
First of all, the research and development of artificial hearts has been an important subject of the diligent efforts of the medical and scientific circles in my country since the 1950s. In 2011, the development of the fully magnetic levitation artificial heart was successful, and in 2021, the in vitro magnetic levitation artificial heart made another breakthrough. As the main line of the play, although this technology has strong practical significance and a sense of the times at the technical level, just because it is a technical carrier that represents the development law and direction of the medical field, there is relatively limited space for emotional and ethical discussions. . In other words, the pursuit of medical progress, as the dream of all mankind, lacks a core conflict in itself. On the other hand, the overseas medical drama “White Tower”, through the medical events of the university medical school and the bribery of experts and professors, exposes the complexities of intrigue and power struggle in the medical world, the nobility of treating patients and saving people in medical ideals and the darkness of power struggle in medical reality. dramatic conflict. In the process of promoting the entry of rare drugs into medical insurance, the Hong Kong drama “White Strongman” has formed an unsolvable logical paradox with the unsupportable financial status quo, thus forming a sufficient dramatic tension and making the theme of the play more profound.
Not only that, but in the process of Tang Jiayu’s continuous maturation and improvement of her professional image, her professional motivation is also insufficient. She initially rejected Liu Feng’s suggestion to develop a fully magnetic levitation artificial heart, but faced with the objective fact that there is a shortage of donors common in cardiac surgery, especially Wang Xuechun’s death after losing a donor, Tang Jiayu was deeply affected and determined. She has a career path in both surgery and scientific research. But it has to be said that this professional motivation is very limited. How the newly arrived director of the heart center conquered his colleagues in Anhe Jisheng Hospital could have been a very interesting clue throughout, but “All About Doctor Tang” still prepared the protagonist halo for Tang Jiayu, and the first episode was Luo Xinran’s dissecting artery After the replacement surgery became famous in the first battle, Dr. Tang started the “fighting monsters and upgrading” mode, whether it was for her colleagues Song Baode and Liao Xiaobo who were behind her “stumbling blocks”, or her cheating husband Zhao Jinan and Liu Feng’s wife who misunderstood her, Dr. Tang Killing demons and subduing demons all the way, following the logic of “Shuangwen” to show the demeanor of a “big heroine”, whether Xue Zhenglun’s heart autotransplantation failed, or Li Ping, who suffered from domestic violence for a long time, died in the rescue after a car accident, Dr. Tang’s Workplace setbacks are always paid for by external objective reasons, which actually does not help to create a three-dimensional and realistic Doctor Tang, and the popular style also weakens the play’s exploration of industry development and medical care work from a professional perspective.
Compared with Dr. Tang, Qin Dazhong, Wu Minmin, Liao Xiaobo, Ouyang Zhenyu, Long Xiangdong, Jiang Bailie and other supporting roles have more full and playful characters. They missed it for the medical care career and marriage and love, and they found it again because of the medical care career. Self-worth has become the most brilliant part of “Everything about Doctor Tang”.
Formal professionalism soars and ideological profundity is lacking. This is the impression left by “All About Doctor Tang”. Although it is still far from the classics of medical dramas, in any case, its appearance is the beginning of medical dramas to get rid of “urbanization” and “idolization”. In the next ten years, our trust in medical dramas may gradually form, not Just stop at “The World” and other similar documentaries. If one day, we dare to find a husband who loves her for Dr. Tang, and let her concentrate on scientific research; we dare to show her fragility, helplessness and even mistakes in the process of treatment; we dare to let Dr. Tang wear a dress that is not so straight , a white lab coat that’s not so clean… Maybe that’s a more convincing and impressive Dr. Tang, maybe that’s all about Dr. Tang.
(The author is a senior visiting scholar at the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)