A medical drama is a television drama in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment. In the United States, most medical dramas are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical dramas go beyond the events pertaining to the characters' jobs and portray some aspects of their personal lives. For example, a typical medical drama might have a storyline in which two doctors fall in love.

Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 work on the nature of media, predicted a big success of this particular genre on TV, because such medium "creates an obsession with bodily welfare".