Big Medicine (TLC)

BIG MEDICINE is a reality show following the practice of father and son doctors (Drs. Robert Davis and Garth Davis, respectively) who specialize in gastric bypass surgery. The doctors, who practice at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX, treat their obese patients with respect and a deep concern for their illness and quality of life. Their patients also receive psychological evaluations from Dr. Mary Jo, who determines whether or not the patients are a good fit for gastric bypass surgery.

The show gives viewers the sense that the two doctors, the more traditional father and more experimental son, are a friendly, knowledgeable team with a passion for their work. Patients include 26-year-old Alan, whose weight is unknown, but probably nears 1,000 pounds. He is confined to his bed where his monolingual Spanish-speaking mother cares for him daily, from helping him go to the bathroom, to bathing him and changing the bandages on his bedsores. Another patient is a 19-year-old young woman who, after undergoing bypass surgery, has an enormous amount of excess skin that makes her body look like it belongs to a much older woman. She gets plastic surgery to improve her skin tone and appearance.

The shots of these morbidly obese patients as they lay naked in their home or hospital beds (with key parts covered by blankets) are sometimes shocking. Watching feels like invading someone's privacy, but part of the appeal of the show is being able to see bodies one might have wondered about, but never actually seen. With such intense fat phobia in our culture, Big Medicine walks a fine line between engendering empathy, and contributing to a sense of disgust, rather than respect.