Scripted Childbirth: Genre and the Construction of Subjects and Objects in TV Medical Drama.

Grey's Anatomy, one of the most-watched primetime medical dramas in the USA, has been on the air for two decades now. Though scholars have examined the influence the show has on medical students and the viewing public, the import of the narrative structure and genre conventions of the show in exerting that influence has been underanalyzed. In this article, I map the general narrative formula of the show, which positions doctors as the subjects and patients as the objects, in order to demonstrate how such a formula works to humanize physicians and consolidate biomedical authority.