TV REVIEW : Doctors Profiled in ‘L.A. Medical’

Are doctors our most genuine heroes? They’re coming in for some harsh scrutiny as the nation revamps its health care system, but in the three-part “Life & Times” special “L.A. Medical” (at 7:30 tonight through Thursday on KCET-TV Channel 28), doctors are held in awe.

Specifically, surgical doctors--the all-critical specialists, the pitchers of a hospital’s team. The hospital under observation by producer Nancy Salter is UCLA Medical Center; its chair of the surgery department, Michael Zinner, is tonight’s hero.

Zinner literally narrates his operation on patient Paul Hsieh for stomach cancer, describing each step of an increasingly complicated process. It is only during surgery that Zinner can actually see how far Hsieh’s cancer has spread; the battle is to remove as much cancerous tissue as possible. Zinner seems impressed--and perhaps a little intimidated--that Hsieh, an aerospace engineer, intensively studied his own illness. This is not only a case study of a failing student who made himself into a surgeon, but a patient taking control of his own medical battle.

Wednesday’s report profiles UCLA breast cancer program founder Susan Love, who says that she is bringing a sensitized, feminist approach to breast cancer treatment at a mainstream hospital. She is shown treating both old and young patients, but she seems as dedicated to debunking breast cancer myths: Positive diagnosis isn’t cause for panic, but for a cautious, measured plan of healing; younger women are overreacting to breast cancer fears, while more at-risk older women aren’t paying attention to the danger as they should.

But for a terrific bedside manner matched with astonishing surgical skill, Thursday’s hero, head of UCLA neurosurgery Keith Black, is someone to behold. His cool in an operating room is astonishing, considering the unimaginable delicacy and precision required to clear away tumors while avoiding brain damage. At the same time, his research may be providing the kinds of innovations that are constantly changing brain surgery methods. And you can see how much patient Beverly Nishimura appreciates Black.

Be warned, though: None of these segments avoids closely observing the surgeons’ work; even including Frederick Wiseman’s relentlessly honest “Near Death,” few TV visits to surgery rooms have been so explicit as these. Filmmaker Stan Brakhage once used the phrase that applies to viewing these frank, bloody, stirring reports: The act of seeing with one’s own eyes.