“Is this the strangest thing that’s ever happened in your OR?” Meredith Grey asks Preston Burke as she tries not to move the hand she has inserted inside a patient’s chest to stop him from bleeding and, more importantly, exploding. “I’d have to say that it is,” Burke confirms. “Good,” Meredith replies, “because I’m very competitive.” Burke nods with approval: “All the best surgeons are” (“[As We Know It],” 2-17). While she is trying to lighten a very tense moment, she is nevertheless pleased to be the “most” something, even if it is the strangest or most dramatic moment in the OR. Here lies the central tenet of Grey’s Anatomy: Competition is everything. Being a surgical intern is a life based on competition: getting through medical school, obtaining the internship, surviving it in order to become a surgeon (preferably, an eminent one).

Hospital dramas have been a mainstay on television since television’s earliest years. The jaded roll their eyes at the mention of a new one, complaining that “there are so many,” or something similar. And while there have been a considerable number, the tally pales in comparison with that of crime shows, or even soap operas. Perhaps hospital dramas cut a little close to home, since most people have been involved in at least one real-life hospital drama . . . but then again, who hasn’t been impaled by a pole and hoped for George Clooney or Katherine Heigl to save them? There’s as much wish fulfillment fantasy to  …