 In 2004, David Shore and Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, pitched the series (untitled at the time) to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes. Attanasio was inspired to develop a medical procedural drama by The New York Times Magazine column, "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders, who is an attending physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), and Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) is modeled after this teaching institution. Fox bought the series, though the network's then-president, Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don 't want to see white coats going down the hallway". Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of the many influences that led to the show's ultimate form.
