ro be true to the time of the Korean
War," says Dishell.
"I also interviewed a lot of doctors
who had been in Korea or Vietnam and
got stories from them. A lot of sets were
developed because one of the doctors I
found had home movies. There were a
for of stories that we did based on actual
things that happened in the war."
Dishell, 1,vhose mother, Toddy
Dishell, and brothers Don and Ken still
live in suburban Detroit, would begin
work on each episode by going over a
script outline and evaluating what
would work or wouldn't work medically
and figuring out how to make it right.
When he got the first draft, he saw
spaces blocked out for medical dia-
locrue and he would write in the lines
that were needed. He'd read over subse-
quent drafts and the final script.
"I spent a lot of time with Chad
Everett," Dishell recalls. "He used to
come into the operating room and watch
me work. I offered to take Alan Alda
into surgery, but he said he'd be on the
floor, fainted, in two minutes. What
Alan wanted to know was how I feel
when I'm in surgery and how I feel when
I have to tell a patient he's going to die.
"They recently had a M*A *S*H
reunion at the Museum of Radio and
Television, and Alan told an anecdote
about how I advised him that his char-
acter was getting too involved [with the
patients], and it totally changed the
way he played the scenes.
Although Dishell loved his media
work, particularly producing and report-
ing medical news stories, he gradually
cur back to spend more time with his
three now-grown children, who work
behind the scenes in the music industry:
Adam, 31; Shana, 29; and Melissa, 26.
"My kids came to me and [com-
plained] that I was hardly ever with
them anymore, and my wife and I
decided it was time for me to come
back and be with the family," Dishell
recalls. "The first thing I stopped
doing was the news. Then M*A*S*11
went off the air and eventually Trapper
John went off the air."
Over the years, Dishell has taken on
shorter-term projects, including West
Side Medical, Chicago Medical and
Emergency. He tries to keep away from
shows where the interest in accuracy is
not paramount. Occasionally, he gives
talks about his media work and shows a
gag reel of some of the outtakes.
"My daughter wants me to write a
book, and 1 may do that at some point,"
says Dishell, who is trying to arrange to be
in Michigan for the All Classes Reunion
associated with the U-M Medical
School sesquicentennial celebration. El
ROLE MODEL from page 83
affirm the greatness of life.
There is a science to the series
and an art to the interaction of
patients who come under the
microscope of the medics at the
TV teaching hospital.
And Braugher's Benjamin Gideon
is a cut above in depicting cutting-
edge technology that is at once heal-
ing and harrowing.
But in nursing others on to good
health, the doctors under Gideon
get on with their treatments of
patients while impatiently treating
each other with a tricky mix of
respect and distrust that leads to
better medicine and bitter pills to
swallow. Jealousy and ego are staff
infections as common to this crew
as they are at any hospital.
For Groopman, on-call consult
ant to the series, Gideon's Crossing
is on target. "The series very close-
ly captures the true stories of my-
patients and also the emotional,
clinical and spiritual dimensions
of [my] writing," he says.
And when it comes to spirituality,
that sense of spirit is often a Jewish
one. "There is definitely a Jewish
perspective to what T bring to my
work, and a very large Jewish dimen-
sion to my writing," says Groopman.
"This series has enormous poten-
tial" to educate, he says, and "it
should give people the courage to
question and challenge physicians."
If they are to do that religiously
and regularly, they should also
take into account the spiritual side
of medicine. Gideon's Crossing
crosses boundaries between the
here-and-now and the hereafter.
"It is important for people not to
be afraid of the spiritual dimen-
sion," says Groopman.
"The operative quote is from
Maimonides," Groopman notes.
"Every morning when he woke up,
he said, 'Let me look at a patient
neither as a rich man or a ,poor
man, as a friend or as a foe, but let
me see only the person within.'"
Within Gideon Crossing is an
inspired implant of such poetic phi-
losophy — one that will do no
harm to series TV and one that can
possibly do much good. ❑
Gideon's Crossing premieres 10 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 10, on ABC, then
moves to its regular time slot at
10 p.m. Wednesdays on Oct. 18.
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