
Of the sixty episodes of Quincy that I watched this year, there were twelve comments on Asian ethnicity. Because of the presence of Sam, there are a number of wisecracks that may bother today’s viewer. He was played by Robert Ito, a Japanese-Canadian.

Sam Fujiyama, a Japanese-American, had a major role in the show. 5 After Klugman’s death, the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) stated, “We will always remember him as one of the best friends the rare disease patient community ever had.” 6 Since 1983 the FDA has approved more than 300 orphan drugs. His persistent lobbying led to the passage of the Waxman-Hatch Drug Act of 1983, which offered incentives to drug companies (tax reductions and seven-year monopolies) to research and develop orphan drugs. Klugman, after a Quincy episode about orphan drugs, appeared before the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Health and Environment. He stressed the need to develop treatments for these conditions, on which pharmaceutical companies did not spend money as the market was too small and therefore not profitable. These include muscular dystrophy, Tourette syndrome, cystic fibrosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and mesothelioma and other rare cancers. Klugman used his celebrity status to call attention to orphan diseases, defined as individual diseases that each affect less than 200,000 Americans. Quincy, in effect, “was a show about humanity disguised as a crime and forensics show.” 3 These practices included: medical negligence or incompetence, biased expert witness testimony, disregarding chain-of-evidence procedures in collecting medical evidence after a suspected rape, “ghost surgery,” in which the surgeon of record is not present during a procedure and is performed by a more junior surgeon or resident, and the need for regional trauma centers. In the series, the medical profession was also criticized for practices inimical to the health of patients or to the public at large. Most of these problems have persisted in the forty years since Quincy was filmed. 2Īmong the problems dramatized on the program were: autism, trisomy-21, agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism (both in adolescents and in adults), substance abuse, adolescent suicide, child abuse, elder abuse, houses built on toxin-containing landfills, sexually transmitted infections, Tourette syndrome, hand gun availability, life-threatening fraternity hazing, orphan drugs, adult illiteracy, sudden infant death syndrome, and the question of brain death and the timing of organ transplantation. “There’s got to be some value on TV, you can’t just have screeching tires,” Klugman said.
Quincy tv show cholera series#
Klugman’s forceful suggestions made the producers change the orientation of the program from a detective story to a series often with an educational goal. Thomas Noguchi (born 1927), the one-time Los Angeles County chief medical examiner and “coroner to the stars,” 1 was very similar to the actor, Jack Klugman (1922–2012), who played him, even though the role had not been specifically written for Klugman.

Interestingly, the character of Quincy, probably based on Dr. Danny, a restaurateur and friend of all the other characters, had a place where the others gathered and described the conclusion of the case upon which each episode was based. Quincy had very frequent contact with Lieutenant Monahan and Sergeant Brill, two Los Angeles homicide detectives.

His other colleagues were Sam Fujiyama, his chief technician, who was highly capable, efficient, and used to Quincy’s personal preferences. In addition, he was loyal to his friends and colleagues. He was tenacious in defending his conclusions and acted like a crusader to get people, laws, or situations changed for the protection of society.

This pathologist was hard-working, brilliant, and intolerant of corruption, incompetence, and negligence. Quincy (no first name), a forensic pathologist working for Los Angeles County. Quincy was originally conceived as a crime drama, with the police helped by the ideas and findings of Dr. One hundred forty-six episodes of this program were televised. The television series Quincy, or Quincy, M.E. Photo of Robert Ito as Sam and Jack Klugman as Quincy from the television drama Quincy. Quincy-A crusading doctor played by a crusading actor June 23, 2021
