arts & entertainment

They Play Doctors On TV

Cast members from U.S. television series tour Israel and "practice" real-life medicine.

From medical dramas: Kevin McKidd and Sarah Drew of Grey's Anatomy; Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps, Jesse Spencer, Amber Tamblyn and David Shore of House.
From non-medical shows: Gregory Smith and Travis Milne of Rookie Blue; Lucas Neff and Shannon Woodward of Raising Hope.

Joshua Hamerman
The Jerusalem Post

F

or the second time in a month,
actors who portray doctors on an
American television series were
able to simulate medical procedures at
Israeli hospitals.
During June, Kevin McKidd and Sarah
Drew, who portray Dr. Owen Hunt and
Dr. April Kepner, respectively, on the ABC
show Grey's Anatomy, visited the robotic
surgery laboratory at Hadassah University
Medical Center at Ein Kerem. The famous
guests were allowed to use the robotic
tools to complete procedures, just like
their characters.
McKidd and Drew participated along
with Gregory Smith and Travis Milne, who
co-star in the ABC police drama series
Rookie Blue, and Lucas Neff and Shannon
Woodward, from the Fox sitcom Raising
Hope.
The Grey's Anatomy, Rookie Blue and
Raising Hope delegation members also
toured the Hadassah University Medical
Center-Hebrew University Biotechnology
Park and Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother
and Child Center.
In late May, members of the cast of
Lisa Edelstein
the Fox series House
(Dr. Lisa Cuddy), Omar Epps (Dr. Eric
Foreman), Jesse Spencer (Dr. Robert
Chase), Amber Tamblyn (medical stu-
dent Martha Masters) and David Shore,
the show's creator, executive producer
and lead writer — used robotic surgical
tools during a visit to the Sheba Medical
Center's medical simulation ward at Tel
Hashomer, the only simulation center of
its scope internationally, where medical
staff, students and army medics and phy-
sicians from around the world undergo
extensive training.
"It's humbling to see the work that real
surgeons do:' McKidd told the Jerusalem
Post.
McKidd's mother, Kathleen, accompa-
nied him to Israel.

—

"My mom's always wanted to come to
Israel and visit Jerusalem:' he said. "This is
a lifelong dream of hers:'
McKidd briefly traveled to Israel 15
years ago when, during a family vacation
in Cyprus, the Scottish actor took a ship to
Israel for a one-day excursion.
He acquired many Israeli friends during
the filming of the movie Bunraku, written
and directed by Guy Moshe and produced
by Ram Bergman, in Romania in 2008.
"I have a group of Israeli friends in
Los Angeles — they're great people and
the people here [in Israel] are the same,"
McKidd said.
"I encourage travel across the board, not
just to Israel, but this is a very interesting
country to visit and I would encourage
people to come and see the country and
the surrounding places."
The Grey's Anatomy, Rookie Blue and
Raising Hope actors began their tour in
Tel Aviv, and their itinerary included stops
in Jaffa, Sderot (where the actors spoke
to film and TV arts students at Sapir
Academic College), Nazareth and Safed, as
well as climbing Masada, floating in the
Dead Sea and swimming in Lake Kinneret.
Smith and Milne extended their stay so
they could travel to Eilat and to Petra in
Jordan.
During a press conference at Jerusalem's
Inbal Hotel, Drew said the most mov-
ing places she visited during the trip
were the Western Wall and the Garden of
Gethsemane.
"There's so much history here so I
would encourage people to make the
trip out:' said Drew, the daughter of a
Presbyterian minister and the wife of a
professor specializing in Second Temple-
era Judaism. "I felt completely safe the
entire time I've been here — I think it's
a good thing to let people know not to be
afraid to come she said.
Lisa Edelstein of House, who is Jewish,
and has announced she will not appear
in the series' eighth season, stumbled try-
ing her hand at simulated arthroscopic

surgery.
"I'm so glad this is not a living person:'
she said at the Sheba Medical Center
while shifting the controls over a robotic
dummy, eyes fixed on a computer screen
that revealed her would-be patient's inter-
nal organs. "I think I just mangled its
liver."
The cast looked on as medical students
re-enacted a particularly dramatic scene
from the last season of the show in which
a patient who was crushed under a fall-
ing building has his leg amputated and is
rushed to the operating room.
Among the team of medical students
was Yuval Lotan, an avowed fan of the
Emmy Award-winning House, which stars
Hugh Laurie (who was not available to
come to Israel as he was touring else-
where) as a curmudgeonly genius doctor
who leads a team of young physicians in
investigating mysterious infectious dis-
eases and other ailments at a New Jersey
hospital.
"The show is good entertainment, but
at medical school we learn what not to
do from it:' Lotan said. "After all, this is
Hollywood we are talking about."
The visiting cast from House also toured
the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon,
where they visited the pediatric cardiol-
ogy intensive care unit and met with
children from the West Bank, Iraq, Africa
and Romania, among other places. All of
the children were brought to the hospital
by an Israel-based humanitarian project
called Save a Child's Heart to receive life-
saving treatment.
Save a Child's Heart, also known as
SACH, brings children with heart disease
from the developing world for cardiac care
in Israel while also working to improve
cardiac care centers in their native coun-
tries, on average saving some 200 chil-
dren's lives a year.
"The work that Save a Child's Heart is
doing is an important reality check:' said
Shore, who is Jewish and has two broth-
ers living in Israel. "It's good for the Jews,

it's good for Israel, but really it's good for
humanity."
At the hospital, Edelstein played with two
young girls from Zanzibar who had under-
gone surgery recently and spent time trying
to connect with a girl from Iraq. Nearby,
Tamblyn gave her sunglasses to a young
Palestinian boy from the West Bank.
The delegations' weeklong trips, orga-
nized by America's Voices in Israel, is all
part of a public relations effort to bring
high-profile Americans on visits to the
Jewish state.
Irwin Katsof, director of America's
Voices, said the project's purpose in bring-
ing celebrities on such trips was to make
them goodwill ambassadors when they go
home.
"We want them to talk to their friends,
perhaps do an interview to let people
know Israel is more than just wars;' Katsof
said. "These people have an impact. The
amount of free publicity we get from them
going back and speaking on a news show
is phenomenal."
The House cast's visit coincided with
Israel's somber marking of Memorial Day,
and the cast members described watching
as Israelis came to a halt at the sound of a
siren to stand in silence for those killed in
the country's wars.
"It was very emotional:' said Edelstein,
who also has relatives in Israel, including
descendants of a great-aunt who was a
founder of Kibbutz Dafna on the border
with Lebanon.
Memorial Day was followed by
the abrupt shift into celebrations for
Independence Day.
"You guys know how to party:' said
Tamblyn, laughing in an exchange with
reporters.
The group had stayed out late the night
before exploring Tel Aviv's vast club scene.
Also on the touring list were the Galilee
(stopping off in a spa), Jerusalem and the
ancient desert fortress of Masada. I1

JTA contributed to this story.

June 30 • 2011

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