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Ever get your tongue stuck in a bottle, and wonder how to get it out? Did you know you can catch strep throat from the family dog? Could that buzzing in your head be a bee who has found its
way into your ear? You’ll find out all this--and more!--on the sickly daily syndicated “Family Medical Center,” premiering locally on KTTV Channel 11 Sept. 12, from Edwards/Billett
Productions, the people who bring you “People’s Court” and “Superior Court.” The producers promise authenticity via real medical cases, culled from the files of medical consultants,
dramatized by actors working for scale. Most shows will have an A (main malady) and B (lighter malady) story line, like . . . Impotence/caffeine Diabetic chef/snoring man Sister kidney/heat
stroke Hemlock Society/bug allergy Neuro-syphilis/baldness Vertigo/tattoo Deaf child/sweats Lyme disease (strange rash with virus)/temporary loss of hearing Cold water drowning/frostbite.
“Every once in a while a story is so good there’s not room (in the half-hour) for a B,” said exec producer Stu Billett. Like Sicilian Leukemia--a leukemia that strikes Sicilian families.
“We’re trying to do diseases that most people can relate to, diseases where people looking in can say, ‘My cousin had that,’ like tonsillitis, the sexual diseases. . . .” The show will deal
with AIDS from time to time, Billett said, but “we’re constantly looking for stories where the patient survives. We don’t want to depress everybody.” MORE TO READ