There are plenty ofmedical showsstreaming onNetflix, so fans of the hospital set and adjacent TV shows have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the streaming platform.Medical TV shows have always been a favoriteof networks and viewers alike. The setting is naturally compelling and allows for a large ensemble, including guest stars and recurring characters, to come and go. There are also plenty of opportunities for more mundane “life-in-an-office” episodes that show the inner workings of operating something large and bureaucratic like a hospital.
While most medical TV shows are classified as dramas, almost every one of these shows has a surprising amount of humor layered into the story as well. It’s a necessary juxtaposition to balance the tense and often heartbreaking events that can happen at a hospital. This fusion usually means that medical TV shows are more well-rounded than other job-related TV shows, like police procedurals andLaw & Order-like TV shows.Netflix has just about every kind of medical TV show available to stream, making it a great go-to for fans of the storytelling style.
10 Medical Drama Tropes That Would Never Happen In Real Life
Although medical drama TV shows are known for being overly dramatic, it’s astounding that many of the genre’s tropes are completely unrealistic.
Pulseis Netflix’s first original English-language medical procedural. While the streamer has green-lit medical series outside of the US in the past,Pulseis the streamer’s answer to combining what audiences love of classic procedurals likeERand modern soapy medical dramas likeGrey’s Anatomy.
The series centers on Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) and Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell), a third-year resident and the chief resident of emergency medicine, respectively. While the two are navigating a complicated working relationship, they also have a complicated romantic relationship that bleeds over into the emergency room. Much of the series spins out from their relationship with one another, from their coworkers in the hospital to their family lives outside of it.The series is very much focused on what it is like to form relationships in the pressure cooker of emergency medicine.
One of the aspects that makesPulseunique is its location. The medical drama is set in Miami.While Florida has been the setting for many crime shows, it is not often a setting for a medical series, and Miami has a unique cultural appeal that influences those working in the hospital and how they spend their time outside its doors.It also is a magnet for hurricanes during the season, which the show demonstrates.
The Resident
Cast
The Resident is a medical drama that follows a senior resident named Conrad Hawkins and other staff members at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. The series provides a look into the practices of the healthcare industry that are frequently scrutinized by those who must participate, as well as the personal lives of the staff as they attempt to juggle an increasingly difficult work/life balance.
InThe Resident, a 2018 medical TV show that ran for six seasons and is now available on Netflix, the staff members of the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia go about their daily duties while also trying to work around the limits imposed by their money-conscious healthcare industry.Matt Czuchry stars as Sr. Conrad Theodore Hawkins, the resident of the title. His time in the Marines has given him experience in unconventional medical practices but also struck him with PTSD.
With an effective ensemble cast,The Residentis an enjoyable series no matter who is on-screen at any one moment. The series can drift to melodrama and even outright medical horror at times, but moments of humor help to balance out the tone.The Residentis also unafraid to look under the hood of hospitals and the medical system, dealing with difficult questions about the industry.
Baby Fever
Baby Fever is a 2022 film about a fertility doctor who accidentally inseminates herself with her ex-boyfriend’s sperm while drunk. She must navigate the complexities of her unexpected pregnancy while trying to rekindle the relationship with her former partner.
The Danish seriesBaby Feverstars Josephine Park as Nana, a fertility doctor who is fed up with not having a baby of her own. One evening while drunk, she decided to inseminate herself with her ex-boyfriend’s sperm. Half-medical drama and half-romantic comedy,Baby Feverhas a similar vibe to other female-led dramedies likeInsecureandFleabag. Park’s performance is outstanding, and well worth the watch alone.
The Danish title forBaby FeverisSkruk, a Danish slang word meaning “Screw Up”.
After impregnating herself, Nana finds herself in the difficult position of having to explain her pregnancy and attempt to win back her boyfriend at the same time. All the while, she continues dealing with work as a fertility doctor, helping her patients through problems that she herself is experiencing at the same time. Charming, sweet, and often very real,Baby Feveris an underseen but well-made medical TV show.
30 Best TV Shows On Netflix Right Now (April 2025)
From classics like Suits and Seinfeld to twisty sci-fi like Stranger Things, the best shows on Netflix have something for everyone.
Much ofDoctor Slump’s drama does not happen in a hospital setting, but it is still abeloved medical K-drama. That’s becausethe series focuses on second chances - both in the medical profession and in the personal lives of the two main characters.
Doctor Slumpfollows Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye), a hardworking woman who finds herself constantly taken advantage of by coworkers at the medical office where she works and Jeon-woo (Park Hyung-sik), a renowned plastic surgeon.The two knew one another in medical school and their paths cross again in life just as they both enter into “slumps” in their personal and professional lives.
They were academic rivals once upon a time, and now, they specialize in very different medical areas. They also do not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Despite all of that, there is a definite spark between them as they end up sharing a home out of necessity and end up forming a deeper connection.
Diagnosisis a Netflix documentary miniseries based on a column of the same name that appeared inThe New York Times Magazine. Dr. Lisa Sanders was an ABC News journalist, drawn to mysteries in the medical field, who, after 10 years, decided to pursue a career in medicine. She then began writing the column,Diagnosis, that highlighted medical mysteries one week, and revealed the diagnosis in the next week, allowing readers to play along.
The column was adapted into the hit medical TV showHouse M.D., for which Sanders served as a medical consultant.
The Netflix miniseries came out in 2019 and follows seven of Sander’s most recent medical mysteries. Sanders is a fantastic lead for the documentary, clearly explaining the cases, like a mystery writer outlining all the clues for a story. The show also only investigates less-lethal mysteries, ensuring that the often intimate videotaping doesn’t feel ghoulish or excessive. Even when the case isn’t fully solved, the journey through the episode is a fascinating one.
Virgin River
Virgin River is a romantic drama series released in 2019, centering on a recently divorced nurse who relocates from a big city to the redwood forests of California. There, she starts a new life and encounters an intriguing local man, setting the stage for a complex narrative of personal and community relationships.
InVirgin River, Mel Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge) is a nurse practitioner and a midwife who decides to leave her home in Los Angeles after a series of painful events. She answers an ad for work in the town of Virgin River, a remote Northern California village, hoping to start fresh. Despite assuming that life in Virgin River will be less complicated than in the big city, Mel comes to realize that there are plenty of headaches, even in the smallest towns.
Virgin Riveris based on Robyn Carr’s romantic novels of the same name.
Virgin Riverhas been such a hit that it even broke a renewal record, with its announcedseventh season makingVirgin RiverNetflix’s longest-running English-language drama. It’s a gentle and sweet show that makes for a very cozy watch. Despite the seeming low stakes of the series, there’s plenty of excitement, both of the medical and personal kind.
Virgin River Season 7: Cast, Story & Everything We Know
Netflix’s cozy romance series Virgin River returned for its sixth season in 2024, and the show has already been renewed for season 7.
Doctor Cha
Doctor Cha is a South Korean television series that follows the story of a doctor who runs a clinic in a small town, where he becomes entangled in the mysterious events and secrets of the town’s residents.
The one-seasonDoctor Chastars Uhm Jung-hwa as the titular, Dr. Cha Jeong-seok, a full-time stay-at-home wife, who, after 20 years, decides she wants to return to her medical career after surviving an unexpected crisis. Dr. Cha ends up as a resident at the same hospital where her husband, Seo In-ho (Kim Byung-chul), is the chief surgeon. There, Dr. Cha learns more about her own capabilities and more about what she’s been blind to in her life after all those years at home.
It’s like if Nathan Fillion-ledThe Rookiewas set in a South Korean hospital and watching Doctor Cha grow into herself is a joyful experience. Despite being out of the game for so long,the nearly 50-year-old woman is able to bring her wealth of life experience to the hospital and the doctors she works with, proving age is just a number.
Few other medical shows have attempted to employ a musical angle. Sure,ScrubsandGrey’s Anatomydid one-off musical episodes.Hospital Playlist, however, combines the idea of the high-pressure medical field with friends letting off steam by singing together.
The series follows a group of friends who initially met in medical school. Now, they all work in the same hospital, but in different departments. It follows their medical work, their personal connections, and their romantic entanglements, all alongside some great musical covers.
While the show focuses on some more dramatic storylines, like a broken marriage, it is also laugh-out-loud funny.It manages to ride the line of comedy and drama in a way that makes it even more entertaining than the typical medical K-drama.It also has two seasons with long-standing rumors of a third still being in development because of its popularity. It’s rare for modernK-dramas to last beyond their first season.
Call the Midwife
This period drama, created by Heidi Thomas, chronicles the lives of a group of midwives in East London from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The series explores the social and medical challenges of the era, focusing on the personal and professional experiences of the midwives and their community.
Call the Midwifefirst premiered in January 2012 and has been running every year since, swapping out main characters every few years as the decades change. The large, principal cast is filled with many talented British actors who are able to nail the look and sound of 1950s and 1960s doctors and nurses. Each season of the show centers around a new disease outbreak, a medical problem that has only recently been discovered, or some other country or worldwide event that affects the lives of everyone in London.
Societal and personal issues are considered at length, making for a moving and absorbing drama even when the cast is constantly turning over.
The series primarily follows the midwives and nuns of Nonnatus House, who do most of their work in the destitute parts of the Poplar district, in the poor section of the East End.It’s a nostalgic, gritty, and carefully crafted series set in post-war London, a time period not often examined on TV, at least not from the lens of a medical show. Societal and personal issues are considered at length, making for a moving and absorbing drama even when the cast is constantly turning over.
Grey’s Anatomy
Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama series revolving around surgical interns, residents, and attendings at the fictional Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The show features the professional and personal lives of these medical professionals, led initially by Dr. Meredith Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo. Created by Shonda Rhimes, the series highlights the complexities of medical cases while delving into the interpersonal relationships among the hospital staff.
The crown jewel of Shonda Rhimes' television empire,Grey’s Anatomyhas been running since 2005 and is showing no signs of slowing down.Grey’s Anatomyhas primarily followed Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) over its many seasons, watching her grow from surgical intern to the chief of general surgery at the fictional Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle, Washington. Numerous notable actors have made their way through the beloved series, including Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, and Patrick Dempsey.
Grey’s Anatomyis arguably one of the greatestmedical TV showsof all time, creating the blueprint for the modern medical drama. Anything that came after it was incapable of not at least nodding to the series. Pompeo’s fantastic lead performance is just one of many memorable ones in the stacked cast. Even at its worst,Grey’s Anatomyprovides some of the best primetime television still airing in this world of streaming, and now it’s available on Netflix.
