Amateur physicians, or just those concerned about good health, may want to check out “Mini-Med School TV” (9:30 p.m. Friday, WTTW-Ch. 11), a new series designed to explain newfound medical wonders to us mortals.
A straightforward, unpretentious half-hour program, “Mini-Med School” is unlikely to win awards for high-tech complexity born of an expensive budget. Each episode starts with a brief look at a patient, followed by a lecture-demonstration and slide show. The specialist speaks from a stage, before a live audience, essentially a taped version of a schoolroom exercise. In terms of TV stylistics, it’s pretty basic stuff. The impetus for the series, in fact, stems from an increasingly popular series of actual classroom lectures around the country, intended to expand the layman’s knowledge and, it’s hoped, encourage immediate treatment when necessary. An informed patient is always a plus.
Presented by WTTW National Productions, the series’ first two episodes are set at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and feature Northwestern doctors. Friday, the topic is aneurysm and stroke, or, as Hunt Batjer, chairman of neurological surgery at Northwestern prefers to label it, “a brain attack.” Batjer is a shrewd choice to launch the program, an earnest lecturer with a droll sense of humor. In trying to convey the sudden severity of the headache that can be symptomatic of stroke, he notes, “It’s not the kind of headache you get when you’ve got a bad boss or a bad marriage.”
He goes on to explain two relatively recent but highly effective treatments, ones involving catheter invasion, platinum coils and stents to attack the aneurysm. Of course, medical news on TV is nothing new. In many ways, this is simply a 30-minute expansion of the five-minute medical rundowns now frequent on network news and the 24-hour news cable outlets.
But, judging from this opener, and a second episode on cardiac problems, “Mini-Med School TV” promises to be patient friendly, easy to swallow and painless to watch. It may well provide important, understandable information and at the same time show off some of the extraordinary medical pros in our own Windy City midst.
