Duke doctor creates 'extreme' plot lines for TV's biggest hit shows

Dr. Oren Gottfried helps roughly 2,000 patients each year but his work outside the hospital walls is allowing him to reach millions of more people.

Gottfried, a professor and neurosurgeon at Duke University Hospital, will soon surpass his 100th on-screen credit for serving as a medical consultant for some of television's most popular medical dramas.

His job is two-fold: pitching plot lines to writers and helping execute the stories accurately on-camera with producers and actors.

​"I think of those extreme scenarios," Dr. Gottfried said. "Maybe it's a common disease with a very uncommon presentation or maybe it's a very uncommon disease treated with a real innovative solution."

Gottfried specializes in complex spinal surgeries and performs hundreds of the procedures every year. He says being deep in the trenches of the operating room makes him a stronger consultant.

As an adviser, he reviews scripts, answers questions from the set and helps to portray all aspects of the hospital on the small screen.

"I think the best kind of consultant is still taking care of patients, still sees their struggles and is able to talk about not just a cool medical case but also what it's like to be a patient," Dr. Gottfried said.

The doctor's rise in Hollywood started in 2010 after he received a cold call from a writer in Los Angeles.

Over the last nine years, Gottfried has worked on 35 shows, including NBC's "Chicago Med," "The Good Doctor," "Royal Pains" and "Elementary."

"It provides me great balance," Gottfried said. "I enjoy that I am a resource to someone other than only my patients. I am a resource to the writers and my goal is to be a resource to the audience."

Gottfried says accurately portraying diseases, injuries and treatments helps educate the public and helps connect with viewers who find themselves dealing with a medical issue of their own.

"You are watching the show and you are watching the action, but why can't I just have it all? Why can't I have it be medically accurate and still tell a great story?"

Gottfried says he thinks just as much about the drama and suspense as he does the medicine when pitching stories to writers.

"I'd like to think in modern medicine we've been able to figure out how to keep complications to a low rate," Gottfried said. "In TV, we need to experience some of those complications or the story would just be open and shut."

He recently taped his first cameo on "Chicago Med," where he will portray an assistant neurosurgeon in his debut episode. It airs May 22 at 9 p.m. on WRAL-TV.