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Medical shows are a dime a dozen on TV, but Netflix's latest K-drama is already drawing in an audience. The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, directed by Lee Do-yoon and written by Choi Tae-kang, was originally adapted from the animated web series Trauma Center: Golden Hour, and focuses on a hospital that, at least initially, functionally has no trauma department. When devilishly handsome trauma surgeon Baek Kang-hyuk (Ju Ji-hoon) arrives at the hospital, he is horrified to find out that doctors from all departments take turns being on-call for emergency surgeries. The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call's depiction of the petty office politics that come up in hospital settings is very reminiscent of Grey’s Anatomy, as is the way it switches between moments of levity and harrowing emergencies with ease, perfectly balancing gut-wrenching depictions of medical procedures with funny, quirky characters.

Netflix is currently surfing the wave of K-Drama content, having achieved global success with “Squid Game.” Interestingly, “The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call” (Original title: Jung-jeung-eui-sang-sen-teo) is a medical drama about a trauma center, released concurrently with “The Pitt” (2025), another show created in the US about a trauma center in Pittsburgh. It signals the resurgence of the medical drama genre, which never really died out but was given a much larger canvas and far greater sheen.

The difference is that the K-Drama, created by Choi-Kae Tang and directed by Lee Do-Yoon, is homaging the web novel and its webtoon adaptation and thus carries a very heightened nature. But since it doesn’t skimp on the stakes of the cases in the trauma surgery, as well as the gory nature of the operations, the show works.

The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call Episode 1 ‘Enter Doctor Maniac’ Recap:

The opening sequence of the show,...