First Days : A television documentary filmed at UMHS

The University of Michigan Health System and New York Times Television - the production arm of the New York Times - cooperated in 2004 to film a 10-part documentary about interns and residents experiencing their first days in a new role.

As many as eight videojournalists were at the hospital at any one time between June 14 - September 20, 2004, to capture a day in the life of some of our doctors-in-training and their attending physicians as they learned and taught how to care for our patients and their families.

The series, First Days, began airing Jan. 9, 2005, on Discovery Health. NYT-TV also produced Resident Life which was taped at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. First Days has some similarities to Resident Life but with an increased emphasis on the learning/teaching process.

The U-M Health System is the only location where the first season of First Days was shot. Each of the interns and residents who were shadowed were volunteers. Some were shadowed after responding to a 'casting call' while others were identified more informally. Not everyone who was shadowed was included in the finished programs, because it takes about 100 hours of video shooting to produce a one-hour television program.

Patients, families and everyone shown in the series have given formal consent to be featured in First Days.