Hospital Playlist: A memorable medical K-drama!
– Anjali Mediboina, Final Year Student, ASRAM
K-dramas are blowing up thanks to Squid Game and I’ve been getting a lot of requests for more K-recommendations. In every list of mine, Hospital Playlist is always included. This drama is a MUST watch, especially for medical students. Trust me, you’ll be able to learn a lot, medical and otherwise!
The drama revolves around five doctors, or the 99s Squad, Lee Ik-jun (Gastroenterologist), Chase Song-hwa (Neurologist), Ahn Jung-won (Pediatrician), Kim Jun-wan (Cardiologist) and Yang Seok-hyung (Obstetrician), who met as freshmen in medical school, and stayed best friends. They also have a band (hence the name, Hospital Playlist).
Throughout the drama, we get a peek at the professional and personal lives of the 99s.
In my opinion, the drama did a great job talking about a lot of medical issues, such as the nuances of patient-doctor relationships and the ethical issues that may arise, with a wide range of medical procedures and surgeries being shown. Heavy topics, such as miscarriage and infertility were also handled with care.
What I loved the most is that the drama didn’t just stick to the doctors; the lives of patients were shown as well. Their struggles and feelings were captured beautifully, and this definitely gives a great perspective.
Aside from the medical track, we see some super sweet relationships, as well. The squad is friend goals, and their scenes are absolutely amazing and really funny, too. For the romance lovers out there, the romantic subplots will make you swoon, but beware of a frustrating season 1 finale!
The acting was on point, which isn’t surprising considering the super-talented cast. Another thing I really liked was the addition of supporting characters in the form of medical students and siblings, Hong-do and Yun-bok. Not only were they super relatable (a.k.a random viva and long hours in the corner of the OT), their characters were used to explain a lot of the medical jargon, which I felt was really smart of the writers.
The drama also gave us some iconic music covers, with Jo Jong-suk’s (the actor who plays Lee Ik-jun) rendition of Aloha staying on Korea’s music charts for almost the entire second half of 2020.
Anjali’s Favorites:
Favorite character: Lee Ik-jun’s son, Woo joo!
Favorite pair: I loved all the pairings in the show, but I have to say the friendship between Song-hwa and Jun-wan is so cool.
Favorite medical moment: Honestly, the impromptu viva Hong-do always seems to face from his senior doctors was so relatable.
Favorite Band cover: Aloha was iconic, sure but I loved the band’s cover of ‘I Like You’ by Cho Yong-pil. I think I watched the guitar riff part, like, a thousand times!
You can watch both seasons of the drama on Netflix!
