A Med School Memoir

What? You haven’t seen Gross Anatomy?

Shame on you.

Now, I’m not going to lie and suggest that Gross Anatomy is the best movie of all time. Hell, I don’t even think I can honestly say it was the best film of 1989. (I mean, 1989 was the year that Look Who’s Talking came out… I’m just saying.)

So, what’s so special about Gross Anatomy? Well, if you’re visiting this blog, I assume you have at least some interest in med school, and Gross Anatomy is easily the best movie about med school that I’ve ever seen.

Now, at one point, this movie was required watching for pretty much all pre-meds. That was a long time ago, however. Considering that this movie is older than the youngest batch of pre-meds out there now, it’s not hard to imagine why this movie has fallen out of fashion. Nowadays, pre-meds have Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs and House to watch and fantasize about how awesome it is to be a doctor. (Despite reality suggesting the exact opposite… but I digress.) Why would they need some cheesy movie from–gasp!–the 80’s?

Because it’s awesome–in that wholly earnest and embarrassingly heart-warming way that only movies from the 80’s are capable of being. The film follows Joe Slovak, a rebellious and passionate student making his way through his first year of medical school. Centered around the dissecting group in Joe’s anatomy lab, the film has all the classic med student stereotypes–there’s a neurotic guy who studies all the time, a status-minded douchebag, a student so focused on her education that she doesn’t have time for a personal life, and a married student who gets pregnant during first year. Also present is the intense-yet-compassionate anatomy professor who catalyzes Joe’s transformation from a flippant med student to a caring doctor-to-be. Here’s a youtube clip of that professor’s potent commentary during orientation:

One of the reasons that I like Gross Anatomy so much is that it doesn’t romanticize or glorify medical school. Instead, it strives to present a realistic take on the med school experience. The students are shown studying all the time and struggling to keep up with the breakneck pace of their classes. Unlike the current crop of shows that portray the medical profession as glitzy and glamorous, Gross Anatomy tries to show just how hard medical school is. The characters are tired, cranky, and stressed-out–a far cry from the over-sexed physicians on Grey’s Anatomy or the doofuses on Scrubs who seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time goofing off.

I won’t go into too much detail, because if you’ve seen the film, you don’t want me to rehash it here, and if you haven’t seen it, you really should just add it to your Netflix queue, STAT.

Tags:   Gross Anatomy · movies · must watch · review1 Comment