George Clooney’s Classic 15-Part Medical Series Is “Major Cringe” For Real-Life Surgeon Due To 1 Character Detail

George Clooney and his turn-of-the-millennium show ER have been named as an unrealistic medical drama, but it isn’t the only show to be put under the knife.

One of Clooney’s first tastes of fame came as Doug Ross, a pediatrician at the fictional Cook County General Hospital. He starred alongside Noah Wyle, who played John Carter, another physician in Cook County. Wyle recently regained his fame as a television doctor in The Pitt, and that hit show has put TV doctors under a microscope.

In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns for The Pitt season 2, Dr. David Shapiro commented on the fictional medical practitioners that impacted him as he entered the non-fictional field of medicine. He said, “I watched ER with major cringe, [even] though they did some modern stuff.”

The modern attribute Shapiro noted was Eriq La Salle’s being cast as Peter Benton, a black surgeon on ER who appeared as a prominent character in the first eight seasons. Shapiro said, “He did a great job, and he was a mentor to people, and he really did well depicting it. But he also fed into these stereotypes of what surgeons are,” referring to the idea that surgeons are “irreverent” or rude to their patients.

He also mentioned Hawkeye Pierce from MASH, Ben Casey, a fictional surgeon in the ’60s, and Trapper John from the ’70s, who fit into the off-putting surgeon stereotype that, according to Shaprio, is no longer an acceptable bedside manner for physicians. Shapiro admitted that he’s never seen Grey’s Anatomy or St. Elsewhere, so he couldn’t speak about the temperament of those characters.

Still, he said The Resident and The Good Doctor were “okay” as daytime dramas. Scrubs didn’t show a lot of actual medical moments since the comedy was set around the doctors’ personal lives, not their relationships with their patients. Finally, he said the film Doctor Strange was a “good description of what a surgeon could be, but it’s also completely the opposite of what some people are these days in that arrogant, old-fashioned surgeon model of self-centered arrogance, that just doesn’t exist.“

Shapiro went on to say, “I want people to like surgeons, I want patients not to fear surgeons.” Real-life patients can be influenced by what they see on television, and some assume all surgeons are as arrogant as the ones on TV, but “that’s not the way many of us are.“

As viewers stream George Clooney’s vintage medical drama ER and the modern series The Pitt on HBO Max, it’s important to remember that the characters and procedures shown are a creation of Hollywood, not a representation of real life.