Is New Amsterdam Based on a True Story? Let’s find out. “New Amsterdam” on NBC is obviously dramatic, but it has the added benefit of being based on a real hospital and a real doctor. Since 2018, the staff at New Amsterdam Hospital in New York City has coped with a variety of problems, including Ebola outbreaks, hospital congestion, and opioid addiction. Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold), a maverick medical supervisor who always puts the patient first, even if it means the hospital loses money, is at the centre of the show.
Janet Montgomery plays ER chief Dr. Lauren Bloom, Freema Agyeman plays oncology and haematology head Dr. Helen Sharpe, Jocko Sims plays cardiac surgery boss Dr. Floyd Reynolds, Tyler Labine plays psychiatry head Dr. Iggy Frome, and Anupam Kher plays neurology head Dr. Vijay Kapoor in the rest of the cast.
Helen is so proud of Mina. ❤️
New Amsterdam's season finale is streaming now ➡️ https://t.co/nJiNChFaWD pic.twitter.com/ir1uFvhDjc
— New Amsterdam (@NBCNewAmsterdam) June 9, 2021
NBC’s ‘New Amsterdam,’ created by David Schulner, is a medical drama that follows Dr. Max Goodwin, who is appointed as the Medical Director of New Amsterdam Medical Center, one of the country’s oldest public hospitals. Recognizing the condition of affairs, he begins to demolish and reconstruct the administrative system by breaking all of the established protocols.
Max’s excellent team and doctors are first sceptical of his unique tactics and claims. But he soon finds supporters in his quest to push the hospital to new heights of efficiency and prove its worth to the rest of the world.
‘New Amsterdam‘ hooks the audience with its genuine picture of the healthcare system and its difficulties, thanks to a gripping narrative and vibrant characters brought to life by the cast members’ nuanced performances. It also leads them to ponder if the show is based on a true story. Let’s see what we can find out for ourselves.
Is Medical Drama ‘New Amsterdam’ Based on a True Story?
Yes, the story of ‘New Amsterdam’ is based on true events. It’s based on the memoir ‘Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital,’ by Dr. Eric Manheimer. He is a medical professor who worked at Bellevue Hospital in New York City as a medical supervisor from 1997 until 2012. It was founded in 1736 and is the country’s oldest public hospital, and the show is based on his time there.
Manheimer was a resident doctor at the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn before joining Bellevue. ‘New Amsterdam,’ by chance, was partly shot at Kings County Hospital. According to Dr. Manheimer, the Bellevue hospital was unlike any of his colleagues’ workplaces, so he was mentally prepared for a major shift when he started.
“I understood the system extremely well since I’d been at Kings, and all the individuals I’d trained with were operating other sites across the city,” he said in an interview. The culture at NYU Bellevue was distinct. I knew I was in for a fight.” “We had loads of unusual TB, all kinds of weirdo HIV,” Manheimer continued, emphasising on the hospital’s diversity of patients.
We were also the disaster capital for a variety of other reasons. Obviously, September 11th. However, if there were any shootings or other incidents that generated issues in the city, Bellevue was the place to go.” Several narratives in the episode highlight the wide range of patients that Manheimer and the medical personnel dealt with at the time.
In one episode, for example, a woman with a fatal disease asks Dr. Goodwin to allow her to return to her native land to be with her children. Dr. Manheimer told the producers about a similar scenario, which was subsequently expanded on for the above-mentioned episode. Later, he revealed more specifics, adding, “For example, one guy was dying, really serious cancer in his groyne… He was sent from Staten Island Hospital to Bellevue Hospital. “We told him he wasn’t going to make it,” says the narrator.
“We talked to him and his wife and asked, ‘What do you want?'” Manheimer continued. ‘We’d like to be at home before [he dies] to see our kids,’ they stated. ‘It’s been six years since we’ve seen them.’ “I had a conversation with the Mexican consulate.” He checked into his local hospital after arranging the man’s transportation to Mexico and “dead a month later.”
Many of the other patients shown in ‘New Amsterdam‘ are based on detailed reference material found in 150 of Dr. Manheimer’s Bellevue Hospital notebooks. Furthermore, a key subplot in season 1 follows Dr. Goodwin’s diagnosis of throat cancer and subsequent treatment. After 11 years of employment, Dr. Manheimer was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and had to take a 6-8 month leave of absence to undergo treatment.
For the show, his entire path from diagnosis to recovery has been somewhat fabricated. Manheimer is a writer and co-producer of ‘New Amsterdam,’ and he frequently contributes to the show’s authenticity by providing advice.
Dr. Eric Manheimer noted that when he agreed to the show, his main goal was to present a non-glamorous portrayal of hospital staff lives that focused on the real problems they encounter. With their combined efforts, he and the rest of the team were able to make the show as realistic as possible.
This is also what makes admirers adore it even more. To recap, ‘New Amsterdam’ is a fictionalised version of his experiences at Bellevue Hospital that offers viewers an accurate picture of how a public hospital operates.
“New Amsterdam” has filmed three more seasons since 2018, with Season 5 still to come.