The 10 Best Medical Shows On Netflix Ranked

There are plenty of medical shows streaming on Netflix, so fans of the hospital set and adjacent TV shows have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the streaming platform. Medical TV shows have always been a favorite of networks and viewers alike. The setting is naturally compelling and allows for a large ensemble, including guest stars and recurring characters, to come and go. There are also plenty of opportunities for more mundane “life-in-an-office” episodes that show the inner workings of operating something large and bureaucratic like a hospital.

While most medical TV shows are classified as dramas, almost every one of these shows has a surprising amount of humor layered into the story as well. It’s a necessary juxtaposition to balance the tense and often heartbreaking events that can happen at a hospital. This fusion usually means that medical TV shows are more well-rounded than other job-related TV shows, like police procedurals and Law & Order-like TV shows. Netflix has just about every kind of medical TV show available to stream, making it a great go-to for fans of the storytelling style.

10

Pulse (2025)

Danny Simms Might Self-Sabotage Her Medical Career

Pulse is Netflix’s first original English-language medical procedural. While the streamer has green-lit medical series outside of the US in the past, Pulse is the streamer’s answer to combining what audiences love of classic procedurals like ER and modern soapy medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy.

The series centers on Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) and Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell), a third-year resident and the chief resident of emergency medicine, respectively. While the two are navigating a complicated working relationship, they also have a complicated romantic relationship that bleeds over into the emergency room. Much of the series spins out from their relationship with one another, from their coworkers in the hospital to their family lives outside of it. The series is very much focused on what it is like to form relationships in the pressure cooker of emergency medicine.

One of the aspects that makes Pulse unique is its location. The medical drama is set in Miami. While Florida has been the setting for many crime shows, it is not often a setting for a medical series, and Miami has a unique cultural appeal that influences those working in the hospital and how they spend their time outside its doors. It also is a magnet for hurricanes during the season, which the show demonstrates.

9

The Resident (2018-2023)

Doctors At An Atlanta Hospital Deal With The Healthcare Industry

The Resident

Release Date

2018 – 2023-00-00

Network

FOX

Showrunner

Andrew Chapman

Writers

Amy Holden Jones, Hayley Schore

In The Resident, a 2018 medical TV show that ran for six seasons and is now available on Netflix, the staff members of the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia go about their daily duties while also trying to work around the limits imposed by their money-conscious healthcare industry. Matt Czuchry stars as Sr. Conrad Theodore Hawkins, the resident of the title. His time in the Marines has given him experience in unconventional medical practices but also struck him with PTSD.

With an effective ensemble cast, The Resident is an enjoyable series no matter who is on-screen at any one moment. The series can drift to melodrama and even outright medical horror at times, but moments of humor help to balance out the tone. The Resident is also unafraid to look under the hood of hospitals and the medical system, dealing with difficult questions about the industry.

8

Baby Fever (2022-Present)

Josephine Park Stars As An Unconventional Fertility Doctor

Baby Fever

Release Date

June 8, 2022

Network

Netflix

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  Olivia Joof Lewerissa

  Simone Helle

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  Charlotte Munck

  Niels-Anders

The Danish series Baby Fever stars Josephine Park as Nana, a fertility doctor who is fed up with not having a baby of her own. One evening while drunk, she decided to inseminate herself with her ex-boyfriend’s sperm. Half-medical drama and half-romantic comedy, Baby Fever has a similar vibe to other female-led dramedies like Insecure and Fleabag. Park’s performance is outstanding, and well worth the watch alone.

After impregnating herself, Nana finds herself in the difficult position of having to explain her pregnancy and try to win back her boyfriend at the same time. All the while, she continues dealing with work as a fertility doctor, helping her patients through problems that she herself is experiencing at the same time. Charming, sweet, and often very real, Baby Fever is an underseen but well-made medical TV show.

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7

Doctor Slump (2024)

A Medical Series About Second Chances

Doctor Slump

Release Date

2024 – 2023

Directors

Oh Hyun-jong

Writers

Baek Sun-woo

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Much of Doctor Slump’s drama does not happen in a hospital setting, but it is still a beloved medical K-drama. That’s because the series focuses on second chances – both in the medical profession and in the personal lives of the two main characters.

Doctor Slump follows Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye), a hardworking woman who finds herself constantly taken advantage of by coworkers at the medical office where she works and Jeon-woo (Park Hyung-sik), a renowned plastic surgeon. The two knew one another in medical school and their paths cross again in life just as they both enter into “slumps” in their personal and professional lives.

They were academic rivals once upon a time, and now, they specialize in very different medical areas. They also do not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Despite all of that, there is a definite spark between them as they end up sharing a home out of necessity and end up forming a deeper connection.

6

Diagnosis (2019)

A Documentary Series Starring The Pioneering Dr. Lisa Sanders

Diagnosis is a Netflix documentary miniseries based on a column of the same name that appeared in The New York Times Magazine. Dr. Lisa Sanders was an ABC News journalist, drawn to mysteries in the medical field, who, after 10 years, decided to pursue a career in medicine. She then began writing the column, Diagnosis, that highlighted medical mysteries one week, and revealed the diagnosis in the next week, allowing readers to play along.

The Netflix miniseries came out in 2019 and follows seven of Sander’s most recent medical mysteries. Sanders is a fantastic lead for the documentary, clearly explaining the cases, like a mystery writer outlining all the clues for a story. The show also only investigates less-lethal mysteries, ensuring that the often intimate videotaping doesn’t feel ghoulish or excessive. Even when the case isn’t fully solved, the journey through the episode is a fascinating one.

5

Virgin River (2019-Present)

A Medical Romantic-Drama Set In A Remote Town

Virgin River

6/10

Release Date

December 6, 2019

Showrunner

Patrick Sean Smith

Directors

Martin Wood

Writers

Sue Tenney, Jackson Rock, Jackson Sinder, Amy Palmer Robertson, Tesia Joy Walker, Natasha M. Hall, Patrick Moss

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In Virgin River, Mel Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge) is a nurse practitioner and a midwife who decides to leave her home in Los Angeles after a series of painful events. She answers an ad for work in the town of Virgin River, a remote Northern California village, hoping to start fresh. Despite assuming that life in Virgin River will be less complicated than in the big city, Mel comes to realize that there are plenty of headaches, even in the smallest towns.

Virgin River has been such a hit that it even broke a renewal record, with its announced seventh season making Virgin River Netflix’s longest-running English-language drama. It’s a gentle and sweet show that makes for a very cozy watch. Despite the seeming low stakes of the series, there’s plenty of excitement, both of the medical and personal kind.

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4

Doctor Cha (2023)

A South Korean Housewife Decides To Enter The Medical Field

The one-season Doctor Cha stars Uhm Jung-hwa as the titular, Dr. Cha Jeong-seok, a full-time stay-at-home wife, who, after 20 years, decides she wants to return to her medical career after surviving an unexpected crisis. Dr. Cha ends up as a resident at the same hospital where her husband, Seo In-ho (Kim Byung-chul), is the chief surgeon. There, Dr. Cha learns more about her own capabilities and more about what she’s been blind to in her life after all those years at home.

It’s like if Nathan Fillion-led The Rookie was set in a South Korean hospital and watching Doctor Cha grow into herself is a joyful experience. Despite being out of the game for so long, the nearly 50-year-old woman is able to bring her wealth of life experience to the hospital and the doctors she works with, proving age is just a number.

3

Hospital Playlist (2020-2021)

A Group Of Friends Work And Play Together

Few other medical shows have attempted to employ a musical angle. Sure, Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy did one-off musical episodes. Hospital Playlist, however, combines the idea of the high-pressure medical field with friends letting off steam by singing together.

The series follows a group of friends who initially met in medical school. Now, they all work in the same hospital, but in different departments. It follows their medical work, their personal connections, and their romantic entanglements, all alongside some great musical covers.

While the show focuses on some more dramatic storylines, like a broken marriage, it is also laugh-out-loud funny. It manages to ride the line of comedy and drama in a way that makes it even more entertaining than the typical medical K-drama. It also has two seasons with long-standing rumors of a third still being in development because of its popularity. It’s rare for modern K-dramas to last beyond their first season.

2

Call The Midwife (2012-Present)

Midwives In East London Deal With The Changing 20th Century

Call the Midwife first premiered in January 2012 and has been running every year since, swapping out main characters every few years as the decades change. The large, principal cast is filled with many talented British actors who are able to nail the look and sound of 1950s and 1960s doctors and nurses. Each season of the show centers around a new disease outbreak, a medical problem that has only recently been discovered, or some other country or worldwide event that affects the lives of everyone in London.

The series primarily follows the midwives and nuns of Nonnatus House, who do most of their work in the destitute parts of the Poplar district, in the poor section of the East End. It’s a nostalgic, gritty, and carefully crafted series set in post-war London, a time period not often examined on TV, at least not from the lens of a medical show. Societal and personal issues are considered at length, making for a moving and absorbing drama even when the cast is constantly turning over.

1

Grey’s Anatomy

The Longest-Running Scripted Primetime Show

Grey’s Anatomy

9/10

Release Date

March 27, 2005

Directors

Rob Corn, Kevin McKidd, Debbie Allen, Chandra Wilson, Allison Liddi-Brown, Jeannot Szwarc, Tony Phelan

Writers

Shonda Rhimes, Julie Wong, Jen Klein, Tameson Duffy, Meg Marinis

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  Ellen Pompeo

  Dr. Meredith Grey

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  Chandra Wilson

  Dr. Miranda Bailey

The crown jewel of Shonda Rhimes’ television empire, Grey’s Anatomy has been running since 2005 and is showing no signs of slowing down. Grey’s Anatomy has primarily followed Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) over its many seasons, watching her grow from surgical intern to the chief of general surgery at the fictional Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle, Washington. Numerous notable actors have made their way through the beloved series, including Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, and Patrick Dempsey.

Grey’s Anatomy is arguably one of the greatest medical TV shows of all time, creating the blueprint for the modern medical drama. Anything that came after it was incapable of not at least nodding to the series. Pompeo’s fantastic lead performance is just one of many memorable ones in the stacked cast. Even at its worst, Grey’s Anatomy provides some of the best primetime television still airing in this world of streaming, and now it’s available on Netflix.