First there was Dr Kildare. If you don't remember Richard Chamberlain, ask your parents, or go and see Towering Inferno. Life was simple for a doctor in the 1960s. He just had to look good and be reassuring. His white coat gleamed almost as much as his teeth. Moral dilemmas happened elsewhere, life was mainly simple choices. Patients liked to cooperate, the doctor was God, his hair was perfect, and he dutifully maintained an expression of concern.

Emergency Ward 10 was another American import of the time. It covered similar territory to the above but without the attractive backdrop that was Mr Chamberlain. Enough said.

The heroic pathologist

The 1970s gave us Quincy, which I can vaguely remember. Quincy ME no less. That's medical examiner or coroner if you prefer. He was a heroic pathologist come detective. He had a nose for dastardly deeds (literally) and would conveniently clear up any wrongdoing or criminal conspiracy within the allotted 50 minutes, before the fantastically upbeat theme tune would kick in. Given the post-mortem room setting there was limited glamour. Sadly, he rated poorly in the white coat department, preferring some comedy tunic when he wasn't wearing a beautifully checked sports jacket, cream shirt with enormous collar, and psychedelic kipper tie. Good car though.

I always wondered why no one ever asked why he spent so little time at work. He seemed to manage about two hours a day. This time usually involved inducing a line of young police recruits to faint while he wielded his sharp instruments.

The only British offering at this time was Angels. Essentially a nursing drama, this was a very popular show. The title says it all really, the focus was on hard pressed nursing staff in a busy city hospital with the usual mix of tortuous personal lives and dedicated staff wrestling with society's ills. Just too worthy.

St Elsewhere had a cult following

In the 1980s the United States gave us St Elsewhere. Its representation of life in a Boston teaching hospital was in some ways a prelude to ER. Strong characters and occasionally stronger storylines gave this drama an edge and it gained a cult following in its late night slot on Channel 4. They followed the Kildare formula with a handsome central character, played by Mark Harmon (currently an orthopaedic surgeon in Chicago Hope). He rated high in the white coat/stethoscope scale, cutting a dash on the ward and cutting a swathe through the ladies. This rather formulaic approach was turned on its head when the Mark Harmon character was diagnosed HIV positive. On both sides of the Atlantic there was media outrage as a popular TV drama tackled what was then the taboo subject. That it happened to the most popular, heart throb character made this show more political and edgy, and consequently more interesting.

Our response to this US import? The BBC gave us Casualty. When Charlie Fairhead first brought his pained expression and dentist's tunic into the nation's living rooms, medical drama was never going to be the same again. As various doctors have come and gone, nursing staff and receptionists have ebbed and flowed. Charlie and Duffy have been our friendly, familiar faces in Holby accident and emergency department. While it is often formulaic and can be distinctly unexciting and lacking in glamour when compared with its transatlantic cousins, Casualty is still good, solid medical drama. The formula and (sometimes) gritty realism are what we have come to expect and this is reflected in the large audience that it continues to draw on Saturday primetime over a decade after it began. It's just so very British.

ER-the gold standard

Then, on the sixth day, God gave us ER for many, the gold standard of medical drama. Both setting and characters, with some edgy storylines, are designed to thrill; it has fast paced, jerky cameras and snappy editing, high white coat and scrubs rating, serious technical dialogue, and a liberal dash of ATLS (advanced trauma life support). An already strong formula was unlikely to fail, though with the intense network competition and fickle US audiences it needed a card up its sleeve, a killer ace. Oh, and what a card the G factor. When George Clooney brought pristine scrubs, designer stubble, and smouldering looks to his role as Doug the paediatrician, the producers must have known they had a winning formula. ER quickly went stratospheric in the ratings and it has become a firm favourite here. Just look at how often you see George adorning the wall of many a bedroom, changing room, or office canteen. I can see why it is so successful. It has all the ingredients required with the usual mix of high drama and sexual tension. It is well made and often well written. But it's so typically American. It is over the top, overhyped, offering a simplistic view of human nature with an exaggerated sense of reality.

Meanwhile, other UK offerings have come and gone. We had Channel 4's Psychos an over the top but interesting examination of psychiatrists who were more in need of treatment than their patients.

Holby City, Casualty's poor relation, seems to be hanging in there with the excellent Mr Anton Meyer (arrogance as an art) often carrying the show as consultant and enigma. The show's been struggling though since the departure of David Wicks (see Albert Square).

Lunchtime schedules have not been spared with the arrival of Doctors. Set in the Birmingham GP practice whose senior partner is a vet. Oh, and one of Grant's old flames from Eastenders has got a job there. I'm glad my GP is in Sheffield.

Finally, Cardiac Arrest made an appearance in the mid-1990s and for my money was the best medical drama around. Dr Claire Maitland was a devil in a white coat. Hard bitten, extremely cynical, intolerant of colleagues, and most patients; she looked human frailty and weakness in the eye and seemed to thrive on low expectation and everyday disappointment. Now that's more like it. Cardiac Arrest had an edge to it in the way St Elsewhere did when at its best. Moral choices were stark, often difficult, and sometimes mistakes were made. Doctors could be incompetent, unprofessional, brilliant, but viciously competitive and extremely petty human nature in all its manifestations. It was often very darkly funny. Aside from "Scissors," the comedy Antipodean surgeon, you had gruff and arrogant consultants, with the usual quota of dysfunctional junior doctors and consequent sexual tension. What was it someone said about life and art?