A medical drama is a television program or film in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment. Most current medical dramatic programming go beyond the events pertaining to the characters' jobs and portray some aspects of their personal lives. A typical medical drama might have a storyline in which two doctors fall in love. Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 work on the nature of media, predicted success for this particular genre on TV because the medium "creates an obsession with bodily welfare". Currently, the longest running medical drama in the world is the British series Casualty, airing since 1986, and the longest running medical soap opera is General Hospital running since 1963.
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