Medical dramas and comedies like ER and Scrubs have been part of the TV schedule going almost back to the beginning of television. Whether it’s to bring laughs or tears (or sometimes both), medical shows are one of the most sure-fire ways for producers to come up with a hit show. Not all have been as enduring as, say, House, but the shows on this list all have their own followings, and most have been huge hits. Here is our list of TV shows set in a hospital.
ER
It’s hard to argue against ER being the most popular medical drama of all time. Set in the fictional Cook County General Hospital in Chicago, the show set ratings records for years. When all was said and down, the Michael Crichton-created show ran for 15 seasons, and 331 episodes. Of course, it also helped launch the careers of George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Noah Wyle, and others, in addition to starring the likes of Anthony Edwards, Angela Bassett, and Eriq La Salle.
St. Elsewhere
The fictional Saint Eligius is the name of the hospital where the iconic St. Elsewhere TV show was set. The show, which dominated the awards shows in the 1980s, was a staple of NBC’s lineup, although it never achieved ratings dominance. Still, for six seasons, the show took home a slew of Emmys with its incredible cast, which included William Daniels, Stephen Furst, Howie Mandel, Mark Harmon, Ronny Cox, Bruce Greenwood, and, last but hardly least, helped launch the career of Denzel Washington. Not too shabby.
Grey’s Anatomy
The only show that might give ER a run for the claim of top medical drama of all time has to be Grey’s Anatomy. The seemingly endless show has been a hit for most of the 21st Century, and will certainly go down in history as one of the most popular shows of all time. The fictional hospital has had a few names over the years, including Seattle Grace Hospital and Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
Nurse Jackie
Set in the fictional All Saints Hospital in New York City, Nurse Jackie is, as the title implies, just as much about the titular nurse and her personal life as it is about a hospital. Unlike some medical dramas, this one really digs deep into how working in a hospital is really hard on the people who do the selfless work. It has its lighter moments, for sure, but it isn’t afraid to hit hard, emotionally.
The Resident
One of the more recent shows on this list is Fox’s The Resident. It focuses on a star doctor, played by Matt Czuchry, working at the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, but all the doctors, nurses, and orderlies are important. As are the hospital administrators, who are often at odds with those folks.
Scrubs
Arguably, the funniest show on this list has to be Scrubs. The hit sitcom, set in the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital, is famous for its hijinks and shenanigans from its core cast of Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, and John C. McGinley (among others). ran for 9 seasons and almost 200 episodes, and remains very popular in syndication and on streaming services.
MASH
MASH stands for “Mobile Army Surgical Hospital,” and the show, while not set in a traditional hospital, is one of the most iconic medical shows of all time. The Alan Alda-led show’s legacy is one of the biggest in television history, with a final episode that set the record for the most-watched TV show of all time, which stood for decades.
Chicago Hope
Mark Harmon’s first role came in a medical drama on ER, and like that classic, he also joined the ensemble cast of Chicago Hope later in its run. His character was famous at one point for uttering an expletive on network TV. That’s the kind of show Chicago Hope (set in a hospital with the same name) was, hard-hitting and unvarnished, in a great way.
General Hospital
Although not a prime time show or a streaming show like most on this list, you can’t deny the popularity of the daytime soap, General Hospital. The enduring show has aired more than 15,000 episodes since it first debuted in 1963. The cast of characters in the fictional town of Port Charles, many working at the hospital, has changed many times over the years, but the popularity of the soap opera has endured.
The Pitt
It didn’t take long for The Pitt, which you can watch with a Netflix subscription, to make a name for itself as one of the best (and most realistic) medical dramas of all time when it won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series after its first season. Star Noah Wyle, who first burst onto the scene
House
House, starring Hugh Laurie as the titular Dr. Greg House, is many people’s all-time favorite medical drama, including mine, if we’re honest. Laurie is just so great as the brilliant (but always salty) doctor leading a team of top young doctors at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital to diagnose rare medical conditions. Just remember, it’s never Lupus.
Nurses
While the CBS drama Nurses only lasted parts of two seasons and just 25 episodes, it was popular enough with critics to earn an Emmy for its lead actress, Michael Learned. Set in New York at the fictional Grant Memorial Hospital, this show, which co-starred Brady Bunch star Robert Reed, didn’t get the fair shake it deserved.
City Of Angels
Although it was only on for parts of two seasons, City of Angels is most notable for being the first network medical drama to feature a predominantly African-American cast, led by the great Blair Underwood, Viola Davis, and Vivica A. Fox. It was also notable for helping launch the careers of Gabriel Union and Maya Rudolph, who both had supporting roles on the short-lived CBS show
Doogie Howser, M.D.
Doogie Howser, M.D. is often used, unfairly, as a punchline these days, but in the early ’90s, it was a very popular sitcom. Of course, everyone knows that plot. Neil Patrick Harris plays a precocious teenager who becomes a doctor at age 14. Sure, it’s ridiculous, but the show was genuinely funny at the time, and it launched the career of Harris, who is still making audiences laugh decades later.
Dr. Kildare
The world lost actor Richard Chamberlain in early 2025, when he died at age 90. He’ll always first be remembered for his lead role on the early NBC medical drama Dr. Kildare, which aired for five seasons between 1961 and 1966. The show was one of the earliest of its kind in TV history and, in many ways, influenced most of the shows that came after.
The Knick
The Knick only ran for 20 episodes, but each one was intense and, frankly, fantastic. The show earned multiple Emmy nominations during its brief two-season run on Cinemax. It starred Clive Owen and André Holland as surgeons at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York, who were essentially inventing modern medicine, which made the show as gross to watch as it was engaging.
Chicago Med
You can’t argue with producer Dick Wolf‘s success rate. In addition to the wildly successful Law & Order franchise, Wolf is also responsible for the Chicago franchise, which started with Chicago Fire, then added Chicago P.D., and closed the loop with the medical drama Chicago Med about the doctors in the emergency room of the fictional Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. The show has been on the air for 10 seasons and remains, along with its sister shows, a key part of NBC’s primetime lineup.
Mercy
Not every medical drama turns into the next ER. Take, for example, the short-lived Mercy, which aired for one season in 2009-2010. The show starred Taylor Schilling, Jaime Lee Kirchner, and the late Michelle Trachtenberg as three nurses working at the fictional Mercy Hospital in New Jersey. It was a good show, but it got caught up in too many tropes to stand out on its own.
Lenox Hill
This is a unique entry on this list because Lenox Hill is actually a documentary series, which first streamed on Netflix in 2020. It follows a handful of doctors at the very real hospital of the same name in New York City and is an amazing look at the reality of so many shows in this genre.
Childrens Hospital
We’ll forgive you if you aren’t familiar with Childrens Hospital, which started as a web series, but then had a seven-season run on Adult Swim. It never quite found the largest audience, but the absurdist dark comedy still has a dedicated fanbase.
Marcus Welby, M.D.
It’s easy to forget that for many years, ABC was never a top network of the “Big Three.” CBS and NBC tended to dominate the ratings in the 1960s, but that all changed in 1970 when Marcus Welby, M.D., in its second of seven seasons, became the first ABC to top the ratings for the 1970-1971 primetime season. Robert Young played the titular doctor, who was, in a way, the prototype for later TV doctors like House, as he was often at odds with other doctors on how to treat patients at the fictional Lang Memorial Hospital in California.
AfterMASH
Let’s be honest here: AfterMASH never quite hit the artistic highs (or ratings, for that matter) of its parent show, MASH. It wasn’t as big a bomb as some other spinoffs, but it was hardly a roaring success either. The show followed Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) home after the Korean War, and included a couple of other characters from MASH, but it didn’t have the humor or the intensity of the original show.
The Night Shift
To be honest, The Night Shift is a little forgettable in the pantheon of medical dramas, but over four short seasons on NBC, it definitely had its moments. Ken Leung is the perfect actor for a doctor on the night shift, so for that reason, I wish we’d gotten more of the show.
Code Black
The healthcare system in the United States (and indeed, the world) is often understaffed and overburdened. Especially big city emergency rooms. This is the basic premise of Code Black. Based on a documentary of the same name, the CBS show showed the harsh realities doctors and nurses face in present-day Los Angeles, and while it only lasted three seasons, they were three hard-hitting ones.
St. Denis Medical
If you’re a fan of The Office and The Paper, then you might want to give St. Denis Medical a chance with your Peacock subscription. It does for hospitals what Parks and Rec did for government workers, and it’s always fun to see a more light-hearted show centered in a hospital.
The Good Doctor
Showrunner David Shore has created some of the best shows in the last 30 years or so, including NYPD Blue and House. Another medical drama of his creation is The Good Doctor, which ended a seven-season run on ABC in 2024. The show focused on Dr. Shaun Murphy, a brilliant young doctor with a unique ability to understand symptoms at almost first glance. Much like Shore’s other great doctor character, Greg House, Murphy (Freddie Highmore), has a Sherlock Holmes-like mind, and that works really well in medical shows.
Brilliant Minds
Zachary Quinto played one of the most ruthless TV villains ever on NBC’s Heroes, and in 2024, he returned to the Peacock network. Instead of an all-powerful super villain, he plays a brilliant neurologist at a hospital in The Bronx in the aptly titled, Brilliant Minds.
Pulse
Like a lot of shows, sometimes it feels like Netflix gives up on them too quickly. Pulse, which was canceled after one season in 2025, felt like it was just finding its footing.
Casualty
The longest-running primetime medical drama is not Grey’s Anatomy, but a British show from the BBC called Casualty. The show debuted in 1986 and is set at the fictional Holby City Hospital in Southwest England. With well over 1,300 episodes, it’s still got a ways to go to catch General Hospital, but for primetime, it blows everyone else out of the water.
Carol’s Second Act
There simply aren’t enough medical sitcoms, and it’s easy to understand why. The gravity of so many medical situations means that it’s hard to keep things light-hearted. Still, it’s great when one gets a chance. like the short-lived Carol’s Second Act on CBS. The show, starring Patricia Heaton as a middle-aged intern, only lasted 18 episodes, but I don’t think it could have worked if they’d had a little more time. It is a fun premise.
The Doctors
Did you know that General Hospital was not the only soap opera set in a hospital that debuted in 1963? The Doctors, which aired on NBC for 20 years and more than 5,500 episodes, debuted on the very same day, April 1st, 1963, as its ABC rival, but the popular show aired its final episode in 1982.
New Amsterdam
If I’m honest, New Amsterdam is one of the more generic shows on this list, but if you’re a fan of the genre and you haven’t seen it, you’ll probably like it. It’s not the most groundbreaking show of all time, but it will satisfy your itch for a TV show about life in a hospital.
