The residency is either 3 or 4 years, depending on the program. For example, we have 9 residents per year in our training program, and we have a three-year program. So every three years, nine doctors graduate and find jobs elsewhere, and nine more new doctors, just out of medical school, begin work with us. The senior physicians who teach the residents are much more stable and tend to stay with one institution for a number of years. I think Chicago's a very cosmopolitan city.
Medical dramas are really human dramas that have to relate to a wide audience.
Chicago is a great city for ethnic neighborhoods, and has a good racial mix which has brought appeal throughout the country. In terms of whether or not the procedures you see employed are the ones we'd use in a real ER, the answer is almost always yes. However, you have to remember they're trying to portray a story in a short period of time. For that reason, they may show the ER physician performing a diagnostic procedure which usually would be performed by a radiologist or other specialist. In both ER's, the nurses clearly ran the show.