As COVID-19 was causing schools and businesses to shut down back in March, I had been coincidentally in the thick of NBC’s Grey’s Anatomy. During the longest year of my life (aka March), I watched season 10, episode 18, in which a flu runs through the hospital. I had a stomach ache watching this fictitious transmission. A patient sneezed on a doctor, that doctor touched the medical charts, and the next doctor to receive the charts touched the elevator button. It was a moment in which I quite badly wanted to step into the scene to stop the characters from the mistakes they were about to make. I then thought of how frequently people now wash their hands. Or, in desperate times, use hand sanitizer. And the sight of characters without masks just felt . . . off.
But, since Grey’s is frequently discussed — likely because it is incredible how Shonda Rhimes has created content for 17 years — I want to bring a different medical show to the spotlight: Scrubs.
As my friends know, my family loves to watch TV together. The timing of Scrubs was excellent in that we started it in March and ended it right before Notre Dame kicked off the fall semester. It was not only an excellent temporary distraction from the stresses of daily life but also helped me understand the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quite different from Grey’s, this 2000s sitcom offers punchline after punchline and has a consistent cast throughout the show. Main character JD (Zach Braff) kicks off the pilot as an intern at Sacred Heart Hospital. The series follows his time at the hospital with his colleagues.
Aside from the fast-paced sense of humor and moments of impeccable irony in Scrubs and the ridiculous comedic bits taking place inside the mind of JD, this show is a reminder of how different life is now. Watching the characters struggle with day-to-day problems is quite the contrast to the problems of today; they cannot simply resolve themselves by the end of the episode. That being said, watching Scrubs is a refreshing escape into a world where all problems seem manageable with a positive attitude and absurd imagination. Getting lost in the world of Sacred Heart Hospital was a distraction from the real world around me, and, if I am being honest, distractions are not always bad. If a distraction is what you need to finish that paper you have no motivation for or to calm down after a hard day, then welcome it.
Plus, it has actually been interesting to watch medical television from a different lense. Although it is fictitious, hopefully it will bring to peoples’ attention just how much medical workers risk by going to work each day. While their situations can be quite funny, the audience is still well aware of the hard work, dedication and exhaustion of the doctors and nurses. But you can enjoy a nice laugh while doing so. And, as everybody knows, laughter is great medicine.
Though an episode of Scrubs will by no means fix the problems, diving into something lighthearted can be helpful, depending on the mood of that day. No one knows how to navigate life amidst the pandemic; we are all new to this, so why not just feel a little bit better?
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