Health and Medicine on TV

To the Editor: If physicians and nurses are not yet aware that it is the television medium that provides almost the entire American public with its perception of what a doctor or nurse is (and is supposed to be) like, perhaps the October 8 article by Gerbner et al.* will jolt them into awareness. I have only a cavil or two, and I offer them hesitantly. I think it would be worthwhile to add a touch of explicit detail. Television is fostering two utterly unrealistic expectations about American doctors: that doctors always return their calls, report test results, and.