August 23, 2019
Central Mass. HEALTH - Fall 2019
The TV doctors of Central Mass.
Photos/ Allan Jung
Dr. Stephen Tosi embodies Colonel Sherman Potter through his steady and supportive leadership.
In addition to both working with children, Dr. Jeremy Aidlen is the Dr. Doug Ross of Central Mass. because of his steady demeanor in high-stress situations.
By Livia Gershon
There’s something inherently dramatic about the practice of medicine. Doctors face split-second decisions, work with people in some of the most difficult moments of their lives, and cooperate with the rest of their team in high-pressure situations with the potential to stir strong emotions.
It’s no wonder hospitals and other medical settings have been at the heart of popular television shows going back to the 1950s.
Although far from the more sensational aspects played for drama and humor on television, Central Massachusetts healthcare providers are often faced with the same situations as their popular TV counterparts and display some of the same traits audiences have come to know and love.
A supportive commander
From 1972 to 1983, Americans followed the comedy and drama of a rag-tag Mobile Army Surgical Hospital operating during the Korean War in the popular show “M*A*S*H.” Serving at the commanding officer of the unit for most of the show’s run was Colonel Potter, a strong leader and excellent surgeon who helped keep of the spirits of the wise-cracking doctors he led.
In Central Massachusetts, Dr. Stephen Tosi serves a similar role as the president of UMass Memorial Medical Group.
“I used to love M*A*S*H,” Tosi said. “It was something I watched all the time.”
Prior to his career in Massachusetts, Tosi himself served in a military medical unit, working on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. He performed surgery and cared for people with a variety of medical problems in conditions – much like the mobile hospital setting of “M*A*S*H” – far from the high-tech teaching hospital setting where he works now.
Still, even serving as the head of a large, multi-campus organization in Worcester, Tosi embodies much of the same spirit as Colonel Potter, helping to keep his doctors in good spirits despite the difficult, stressful nature of their jobs.
“We try to really make this a great place to work for our physicians,” he said. “There’s a big problem across the country with physician burnout.”
Tosi said another reason he identifies with Colonel Potter is the “M*A*S*H” commander’s company clerk, Walter Eugene “Radar” O’Reilly, who was known for his preternatural ability to accomplish tasks before being asked. Tosi said that reminds him of UMass Senior Executive Assistant Wendy Schellhammer.
“I have called her Radar O’Reilly for years,” Tosi said. “She has this uncanny ability. I think she reads my mind.”
A steady hand in pediatric emergencies
Elsewhere at UMass, pediatric surgeon Dr. Jeremy Aidlen reminds some of his colleagues of a very different TV figure, pediatrician Doug Ross from the medical drama “ER,” famously played by George Clooney. Like Ross, Aidlen has the ability to stay cool while performing serious medical procedures on young children.
“I’m able to be calm,” he said. “I’m able to focus on the many years of training that got me to where I am now and to understand that the team that’s at the bedside with me, including myself, we’re the best equipped to help the people in need.”
However, Aidlen said the constant romantic and personal drama on “ER” doesn’t echo what he finds at UMass.
“We work very closely with a lot of people in high-pressure situations, so we develop strong relationships with our colleagues,” he said. “But I think the soap opera stuff is a bit far-fetched.”
Where protagonists in medical dramas tend to respond to the stresses of their high-pressure jobs in self-destructive ways to make for entertaining viewing, Aidlen said he makes sure to find healthier ways to relax.
“Spending time with my two healthy kids is one of the biggest joys in my life,” he said. “I like to exercise to blow off steam, I play guitar, and I like to drive a car fast around a track.”
A puzzle solver, without the drug addiction
When Dr. Michelle Hadley, a cardiologist at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, was asked which TV doctor she most resembled, she went to her patients. They suggested Dr. Gregory House, the brilliant and troubled diagnostician from the show “House.”
“My patients had mentioned the thoroughness of House, the extensive time spent coming up with a solution and a plan, and not always just stopping because the answer can’t be found,” she said.
Hadley clearly doesn’t resemble House in all respects. She’s a hugger, not a grump, though she said a bit of sarcasm sometimes helps her connect with patients. And, like Aidlen, she doesn’t have the same personal problems as her fictional doppelganger, whose Vicodin addiction was a constant source of conflict in the TV series.
“I have no addiction, except for my patients, which is a problem sometimes for my family,” Hadley said.
Still, Hadley, who often works with pregnant women with serious heart disease, does have to help her patients through moral dilemmas and heartbreaking choices worthy of any hospital drama. And she said she encounters her fair share of medical mysteries as well.
“It does happen,” she said. “It’s not as often as once a week on “House,” but no, absolutely, I have a few patients where I’m sure they’ve got some autoimmune disease that we just don’t have a name for yet.”
Hadley said another way she resembles House – and many of the other fictional doctors audiences love to watch – is the joy she gets from the excitement and difficulty of practicing medicine.
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