James Croot
Sally Geary is very much a poacher-turnedgamekeeper. The Auckland Hospital Emergency Department (ED) nurse used to be critical of Shortland Street’s depiction of medical procedures, now she’s one of the main women responsible for making sure they get it right.
Part of the ‘‘advisory’’ team on New Zealand’s long-running soap for the past 12 of the show’s 25-year run so far, she’s currently its fulltime on set nurse. ‘‘I used to be a bit critical of it,’’ she says on a break from a busy day on the Shorty set. ‘‘I’d look at things and go ‘I don’t think that’s quite right’, or whatever. However, I think it has gotten better since the early days – they’ve strived to get it more up-to-date and make things more relevant.’’
Geary can surely at least take a small part of the credit for that. A huge fan of the show, she thought she’d landed her dream job when one of her co-workers at Auckland Hospital, who was a medical storyliner for the Kiwi drama, mentioned they needed someone to occasionally fill in for them.
‘‘I was hugely excited, I couldn’t
As New Zealand’s much-loved medical drama clocks up 25 years,
talks to the women making sure Shortland Street delivers the right medicine.
believe my luck.’’
Over time, Geary’s role has shifted more towards being on set (and on at least one occasion, onscreen) to help actors and directors make the medical procedures and dialogue look and sound convincing.
‘‘We have a lot of discussions on set,’’ Geary says of her relationship with the writers and other crew, ‘‘I’ll offer things up like ‘you can’t do that’, or ‘that would never happen’, but in the end it’s a compromise. They want to get things right, but they never want to let it get in the way of a good story. In the end, it’s not really about the medical stuff – it’s a relationship-driven show. They do listen to me most of the time though.’’
When asked who have been the most impressive ‘‘medically minded’’ actors, Geary cites the much-missed Amanda Billing (‘‘she was right on the money’’), Chris Warner himself Michael Galvin and current star Ria Vandervis, who plays ED prodigy Harper Whitley.
‘‘They all want to get it right and look good as well.’’
Geary says the show offers no boot camp or induction – newbie cast members are just thrown straight in the deep end. ‘‘The casting people will just introduce me to them and then the next time I see them is on set or at rehearsal. It’s pretty fast turn-around TV, so there’s not a lot of time.’’
She says the actors struggle most with both medical terminology and a general misunderstanding of ‘‘how hospital’s work’’. ‘‘When we do operating theatre scenes, I have to talk them through what they can and can’t touch, what operations are really like and how doctors and nurses talk to each other.
‘‘Having said that, operating theatre scenes are generally difficult to recreate because we don’t have all the right equipment – they cost so much money. I think we do really well with what we have,’’ she says citing United States show Code Black as a particularly awful offender when it comes to medical inaccuracies given its high-profile and big budget.
Are there episodes or scenarios Geary is particularly proud of though? ‘‘The 2015 Christmas Cliffhanger,’’ she says without hesitation. ‘‘It was based on the 2014 siege at the Lindt store in Sydney. I found that one quite challenging, because a few people died, we had lots of blood and there