IRRESISTIBLE MEN IN WHITE COATS

For 15 years between 1994 and 2009, ER was the unconquerable prime-time US drama. Its 331 episodes chronicled the lives and loves of the staff of the County General Hospital in Chicago – none more ardently than George Clooney’s Dr Doug Ross. During his five-season tenure audience figures regularly reached more than 30 million.

George Clooney first aired in 2005 and has run for 10 hugely successful seasons with at least one more confirmed. Its peak 19 million-strong audience has made a bona-fide star of Patrick Dempsey who plays Dr Derek Shepherd, aptly nick- Allegedly the world’s most watched television programme in 2008,

Hugh Laurie

brainy: House (and its US audience of 10 to 29 million) launched a glittering Stateside career for Hugh Laurie as wildly sarcastic, unconventional medical genius Gregory House MD.

hunk: Patrick Dempsey named ‘Dr McDreamy’ – worshipped on the show for his hair as much as his surgical skills.

suave: