TV: Inside the operating room: Live!

Paul Raeburn writes, in the Knight Science Journalism Tracker:

It’s gripping TV, there’s no question about it. The Today Show, with its new medical correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, launched a week-long series Monday showing patients undergoing surgical procedures live on television. In the first episode, Dr. Nancy (as [Today Show host] Meredith Viera calls her; ugh) sits with a physician while he manipulates a remote-controlled catheter inside the heart of a patient with atrial fibrillation….

What makes it gripping is not the visuals, but the possibility that the patient might die on live television. Wouldn’t that be exciting?