You’ve done six years of a medical degree. You’ve probably got student loan debt heading past six figures. You’re now in your postgraduate clinical training as a junior doctor in New Zealand’s biggest, busiest hospital. You’re juggling long, stressful shifts and your first experiences of making life or death decisions at work, with a home life, partner, children and family expectations.
Why would you want a television camera following you around?
That’s what five trainee physicians working at Middlemore Hospital signed up for in Diary of a Junior Doctor, a five-part documentary series that captures the work-life imbalances at the beginning stages of a medical career.
For Gisborne transplant Dr Keriana Kingi-Nepe, agreeing to be one of the five featured on Diary of Junior Doctor came about after some colleagues put her name forward and despite some initial hesitancy. Meeting the producers, she saw the show would be “about being a doctor, but it was also about being ourselves and being human.
“I then thought about my grandparents – they were the first people to come to mind when I imagined who would watch the show. I’m the first doctor in my family so I thought it would be special to show them what my work day looks like.”
For South Auckland local, Dr Shadie Lupo, who has done some acting – including being an extra in sitcom Raised by Refugees – it offered a unique opportunity.
“And ultimately I thought my mum would really like to watch it.”
As well as Drs Lupo (when filmed, a first-year house officer), and Kingi-Nepe (sixth year), the other doctors include expatriate Irish obstetrician and gynaecologist Shannon Halpin (seventh year), and emergency care specialists Steve Tolmay (third year), and Faseeh Zaidi (second year).
The show’s producer-director Rachel Currie says the other three had their own reasons for participating.
“Steve’s wife loves medical dramas and she told him he had to do it. Faseeh likes to challenge himself and Shannon wanted everyone to see babies.”
But all five had a common motivation: “Part of being a doctor is communicating healthcare, and they all saw value in that.”
The first episode offered for preview juggles three storylines. One has Tolmay at home with his fiancée and best man flatmate, who’s also a junior doctor, then on a shift that involves a record 242 patients waiting in the Middlemore emergency department, where he’s dealing with cases ranging from critical injuries from a car crash to suspected strokes.
Another follows Lupo on one of her first days at Middlemore, which finishes with her sitting in her car, feeling teary and overwhelmed. Halpin seemingly breezes through a shift of diagnoses and delivering babies before heading to the airport to pick up her partner, former All Black Brad Webber, who’s returned from his club season in France.
Currie’s independent production house, Storymaker, has specialised in medical-adjacent productions like How Not to Get Cancer, and the disability series Unbreakable. They had brought her into contact with Middlemore and spawned her idea for a series that is much more ambitious, going beyond the usual fly-on-the-wall emergency department show.
“The spark came from Middlemore Hospital. I’d filmed there before for other projects, and the work and dedication of the junior doctors really inspired me. They are a small army of young people carrying out high-stakes work. And they were so cool. Seeing that frontline experience really stuck with me.”
The show has taken Currie five years from idea to broadcast and 18 months from the first filming to completion of editing. Doctors’ shift schedules often meant 10-hour filming days, which didn’t just involve the junior doctors but their superiors, too.
“The consultants were incredibly generous with their time. We wanted to see that a hospital is a learning environment. To be a doctor is also to be a teacher, and that’s something we don’t often see or appreciate.”
As the first episode shows, Diary of a Junior Doctor also captures patients in some vulnerable moments, ranging from emergency department admissions to a woman about to have her leg amputated. The crew worked under the rules that approaches to patients were made through their doctors and filming required patient sign-off.
“We couldn’t have made the series if it were not for the generosity of the patients.
“Once filming started, we simply observed and stayed out of the way.”
The show arrives at a time where most headlines about New Zealand hospitals have the word “crisis” in them. But Currie is diplomatic when asked what the series says about the system that junior doctors go through and the state of the health sector.
“Junior doctors work hard to gain the knowledge they need to save our lives. Their goodwill helps keeps the system together and it’s important we recognise and value that.”
Diary of a Junior Doctor, TVNZ 1, Tuesdays, 7.30pm, from June 3, and TVNZ+
