Strong Medicine (Lifetime Television)

In STRONG MEDICINE, a group of savvy doctors working in a busy Philadelphia clinic confront medical issues that challenge them both personally and professionally. In one episode, for example, a conservative politician who's five months pregnant dies after she refuses to give birth prematurely, which her doctors say is the only way to save her life. In the same episode, a prospective adoptive family who's brought their foster son in with burns on his buttocks is handed over to the cops when a doctor suspects child abuse -- wrongly, as it turns out. The show's key cast has changed several times over the years, but one constant is Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado, (Rosa Blasi), a caring doctor and single mother who grew up in the inner city and sees her job at the Rittenhouse Women's Health Clinic as a way to give back. Other core characters have included Dr. Dana Stowe (Janine Turner), who left the clinic to raise her two adopted daughters, and Lu's nemesis, Dylan West (Rick Schroeder), who took over after Dana left, Lana Hawkins (Jenifer Lewis), the no-nonsense receptionist, and Peter Riggs (Josh Cox), the clinic's uber-sensitive nurse-midwife.

Overall, Strong Medicine is smart programming with good female role models, but parents might want to think twice before letting younger kids tune in given the fairly mature subject matter. Some topics are particularly serious and can spur intelligent conversation. Meanwhile, other bits -- such as one episode in which a patient's diaphragm is stuck inside her -- seem gratuitous and silly.