Trauma: Life in The E.R. - Show History

Show History

The show was produced by NYT Television (owned by The New York Times) and debuted in 1997. Like much of the medical-based programming on TLC (and Discovery Fit and Health as well), the show was designed as a "real-life" version of a popular U.S. TV series. In this case, Trauma was designed to capitalize on the success of the NBC drama ER. The show follows the cases coming through Level One trauma centers and high-profile emergency rooms around the U.S. The first season consisted of several half-hour episodes, but by 1998, the series had expanded to a full hour, allowing for more time to follow cases as well as the lives of the doctors involved.

The show had no regular cast; every week featured a different hospital and a different group of doctors. Actor Michael McGlone narrated the series. Composer Chuck Hammer scored the series.

Most episodes centered around the physicians and nurses comprising the staff of a typical Level One trauma center, but occasionally a different type of staffer would be profiled to show their unique contributions to that specific hospital. For example, at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, the hospital's chaplain (a nun with the Sisters of Charity) was profiled in one episode, and another episode at Charity Hospital profiled the New Orleans paramedics, which was used as the pilot for the show Paramedics. Another episode followed a burn patient through his recovery at Vanderbilt University's medical center, allowing the show to profile the co-director of the burn center and one of the burn care technicians as a change of pace from the usual ER/Trauma cases.

First-run production ended in 2002, though the show lives on in reruns on Discovery Fit and Health. TLC stopped producing new episodes largely because the show was expensive and time-consuming to produce in comparison to other reality shows (each episode took 1–2 months to shoot and 3 months to edit, though several camera crews worked simultaneously at hospitals around the country and each hospital's shooting footage was usually split into two or three episodes). In addition, new medical privacy laws forbade recording patients before they (or their next-of-kin) gave permission. Since the most of the patients were in the midst of a medical emergency, obtaining the necessary production releases became difficult or impossible. (Before the new law came into effect, Trauma's videographers would usually request permission after they had begun taping. If a patient refused permission, the cases would not be included in a program.)

The series was one of the first cinéma vérité style programs to be shot almost entirely on hand-held MiniDV camcorders by teams of videojournalists who were responsible for both the reporting and videography.