It’s a Doc-out

BBC2, 7.30pm STEP away from Google – here are plenty of doctors to offer up diagnoses of aches and pains.

This is a bit like University Challenge but with medical questions, as two teams of junior doctors from different teaching hospitals go head to head.

The top two teams over the week will compete in Friday’s finale.

Part of a flurry of NHS-themed programmes to mark the 70th anniversary of the institution, this quiz, hosted by comic Jo Brand – a psychiatric nurse for 10 years – has been shoehorned into the schedules to liven everything up.

“It’s the show that encourages you to shout ‘I had that!’ at the TV screen,” says Jo, doing her utmost to make this appeal to the masses. But unless you have a morbid fascination with all things medical, this is probably most enjoyed by health professionals.

Most of us will have no hope of joining in, since the questions are not as simple as: “How many eyes does a human usually have?” or “Point to your knee”.

The doctors are quizzed on bizarre symptoms, even interviewing patients with real medical conditions and drawing all over someone with a Sharpie in the operating theatre round.

Producers have found a TV-ready doctor, Dr Helen Lawal, who is to medicine what Countdown’s Rachel Riley is to maths. She dishes out facts and explanations as they go.

The result is an odd mix of quiz and live treatment.

I’m not sure this format will last as long as the NHS but you may just learn something.