Strong Medicine
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"Strong Medicine" is also the title of a novel by Arthur Hailey.
Strong Medicine is a fictional medical drama with a focus on women's health issues, as well as progressive social politics and class conflict. The television series has aired on the Lifetime network since 2000. It is distributed by Sony Pictures. The series was created, and is produced in part by comedienne and activist Whoopi Goldberg, who made a cameo in the series pilot. The show employs a variety of regular and guest writers.
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Background
The show centers around the staff of fictional Rittenhouse Hospital in Philadelphia, largely involving the operations of the ER and a free women's health clinic, run by inner-city success story Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado. The urban facility receives a diverse mixture of patients, from upper- and middle-class patients, which generally allows the hospital to finance the free clinic, and lower-class or poor patients, who come to take advantage of Dr. Delgado's hospital-funded services.
The staff and its visitors tend to be racially, politically, and economically diverse. A core class/political duality in the episodes' storylines tend to be driven by comparisons and contrasts (and often cooperation) between liberal lower-class Delgado, and her fellow women's health practitioner across the lobby, who sees paying patients and generally has more conservative values -- this role has been filled by various characters, most recently Dr. Dylan West. The show often places the characters in ironic, soul-searching situations in which they are forced to question the solidity of their personal beliefs or else cause them to fight for what they believe in.
Main characters
Main characters on the show as of 2005 include:
- Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado
- (Rosa Blasi-Finn) Delgado runs the free clinic, and hosts a weekly informal women's health group (most 2003 and 2004 episodes open with a scene from these meetings). Both as an inner-city resident and a doctor to many lower-class patients, Delgado regularly comes face-to-face with bitterly ironic situations involving the difficulties of the lower class with government, debt, drug abuse, and exploitation. Her character exhibits a perennial cleverness which allows her to wheedle or persuade positive outcomes from seemingly hopeless cases of victimization. She has a teenage son, Marc, who has been at college since the 2004 season. In the spring 2005 season she married Jonas Ray, a local millionaire CEO; at the start of the fall 2005 season Ray's millions (and stability) are called into question by an embezzlement scandal.
- Dr. Dylan West
- (Rick Schroder) Replacing Dr. Campbell's role is West, a male women's health specialist. His gender raises initial eyebrows, especially with Delgado, who has also had past negative experiences with him. He has his own troubled past and seems to be seeking to redeem himself from something at Rittenhouse. He is a diabetic, which becomes a recurring plot device. He has tremendously bad luck in romance, with many love interests dying. One such former love interest arrives at Rittenhouse needing a new heart to survive; West is unable to save her life, but gains a daughter, Araya (Eileen April Boylan), he never knew he had.
- Peter Riggs
- (Joshua Cox) A nurse, Peter is generally progressive, open-minded, and an eager advice-giver. He practices Buddhism and believes in the principles of holistic medicine. He is often a kindred spirit to Delgado. Often, Riggs' character makes a balanced sociopolitical observation that influences a positive action by one of the two doctors; other times he is the protagonist of action. Often shown as a lady's man with several girlfriends, has settled into a relationship with Kayla.
- Lana Hawkins
- (Jenifer Lewis) Hawkins serves as the front receptionist for the RWHC, or the Rittenhouse Women's Health Center. A former drug addict and prostitute long since rehabilitated, she got her job with the help of Delgado. She has two sons, one an officer in the Navy, the other a con artist who once pretended he had a wife and son to trick his mother out of money. Hawkins is the hospital's eyes and ears, i.e. chief gossip, as well as matchmaker, and general benevolent schemer and rule-bender. Lana often refers to herself in the third person.
- Kayla Thornton
- (Tamera Mowry) A new doctor and young African-American medical prodigy, Thornton is a fast study at Rittenhouse, entering residency in the 2004 season and becoming a depended-upon ER regular by the 2005 season, despite occasional disbelief by patients that she is a qualified doctor. Thornton rooms with various fellow staffers in her search for affordable housing; first in Dr. Campbell's house, but with Lana after Campbell's departure, and later with Peter, with whom she has a budding relationship. She was later selected chief resident.
Former characters
- Dr. Andy Campbell
- (Patricia Richardson) A former military doctor, Campbell came on the staff during the 2002 season to replace an analogous character (the much more ambitious and strict Dr. Dana Stowe, played by Janine Turner). Her patients tend to be upper-middle-class, and often include minor local celebrities and professionals. Her character ostensibly lives the almost typical suburban nuclear family lifestyle, aside from her status as breadwinner. She has two teenage daughters, Jesse and Lizzie. Campbell was named United States Surgeon General (which was also a stated ambition of her predecessor) at the end of the 2004 season and left the show.
- Dr. Robert "Bob" Jackson
- (Philip Casnoff) Chief of staff of Rittenhouse Hospital, he is the stoic, administrative figure and also ultimately in charge of decisions regarding funding, especially to the women's clinic. Jackson considers himself a personal friend of Dr. Campbell (as he was with Dr. Stowe), but generally is more impersonal and sometimes butts heads with Dr. Delgado over financial or liability issues, and with Lana over administrative issues. A recurring subplot throughout the series was Jackson dealing with his beloved wife's advancing MS condition. He even briefly left her, unable to watch her succumb but eventually went back to her. Jackson's character was laid off by hospital owner Octavian prior to the start of the 2005 season.
- Dr. Dana Stowe
- (Janine Turner), an ambitious doctor and scientist seeking a cure for cancer; she is rigid and stoic and has a poor bedside manner. Like her successor Andy Campbell, she was good friends with Jackson. Her character left the show at the end of the 2001 season after adopting two challenged infants, choosing to put her medical ambitions aside to pursue a successful motherhood.
Major plot developments
Major show plot developments as of 2005:
- Campbell kicks out her husband, Leslie, after he hits her during a domestic dispute, forcing her to examine domestic abuse issues as well as single motherhood. Campbell and Leslie have been married for thirty years without any violence in the home, and Leslie is presented as changing from a loving husband to a violent maniac over the course of a few weeks.
- Delgado loses her boyfriend, Mickey, to murder perpetrated by one of her patients, forcing her to face her moral objection to the death penalty.
- Campbell becomes involved with another doctor, cardiac surgeon Dr. Milo Morton (Richard Biggs).
- Delgado becomes involved with Ben Sanderson (Grant Show), an administrator brought on after Rittenhouse is bought by a health care conglomerate. Sanderson later leaves to be reassigned to a facility in Miami.
- Campbell's love interest dies in an accident (a development forced by the death of actor Richard Biggs due to an undiagnosed heart condition). Leslie, having sought therapy to control his anger, helps Andy through her pain and they mend their relationship to friendly terms.
- Delgado becomes involved with Jonas Ray (Nestor Carbonell), a local self-made billionaire with a good heart but a large soulless corporation.
- Campbell brings a new hospital resident, Dr. Kayla Thornton (Tamera Mowry), into her home.
- Thornton and Riggs begin a relationship after a season of occasional plot hints.
- Campbell leaves Rittenhouse to become U.S. Surgeon General. (Patricia Richardson will leave Strong Medicine, possibly due to a major part on The West Wing (television) in the 2005 season.)
- Campbell is replaced by Dylan West, with whom Delgado has had past dealings, and encounters various life struggles as he tries to overcome his demons.
- West discovers he has a daughter, and suddenly becomes a father for the first time, as a single parent of a rebellious teenager.
- Hawkins receives her degree in psychology, and Lu enlists her to consult for her women's group, as volunteer work towards her Master's degree.
- Delgado and Jonas get married, and Lu struggles to get accustomed to a wealthier life, while trying to reconcile it with her inner-city loyalties.
- Lu discovers she is pregnant with Jonas' baby.
- Kayla is named chief resident after narrowly missing it due to a complex emergency house call.
- After personally bringing sick South American children to Rittenhouse for treatment, Jonas is plagued by an embezzlement scandal at his company, bringing his fortune and stability into doubt.
Spinoff
Near the end of the 2004-2005 season, a special episode "First Response" aired, prominently featuring three new characters: Kate and Zack, both EMTs, and Dr. Vanessa Burke, head of the new Rittenhouse Trauma Center and adopted African-American sister of Kate. The TV Home website reports that this episode will serve as the kick-off to a potential Strong Medicine spinoff series, Strong Medicine: First Response. If this series airs, it will be the first spin-off to an existing Lifetime original series.
Lifetime did not order the new series into production after the ratings for said episode, were not what was expected.
Cancellation
On November 1, 2005, Lifetime TV announced that the current season of Strong Medicine, will be its last. The final episode of the series is set to air in late January or early February of 2006. Fans of the show believe the final episode's plot will be a rehash of the plot used to write Dana Stowe off the show. Lu gives birth to Jonas' baby and leaves her practice to focus on motherhood, the one thing she couldn't do when her son Marc was growing up.
