'Cardiac Arrest' was the first British drama to use a lot of medical jargon. 'ER' began the following year and was the first American drama to do that.

If you look at American medical fiction written by doctors, like 'The House of God' by Samuel Shem and 'The Blood of Strangers' by Frank Huyler, both have themes of cynicism and dysfunction running through them that you won't find in 'ER.' You find it in 'Scrubs,' but because that's a comedy, it gets away with it.

With 'Cardiac Arrest,' I wanted to show that there were times when doctors really didn't care.

Jed Mercurio Quotes