5 Medical Shows Like Nurse Jackie You Need To Watch On Netflix

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Created by Liz Brixius, Evan Dunsky, and Linda Wallem — and notable as one of the best Showtime original series – “Nurse Jackie” is a defining show of the “antihero wave” that took over prestige television at the turn of the 2010s. Starring Edie Falco as Jackie Peyton, a capable nurse at New York City’s fictional All Saints Hospital who manages to get by functionally despite a drug habit, “Nurse Jackie” became a critical and audience success with its darkly comical tale of dysfunction and skirted accountability.

Although the subversive medical storytelling on “Nurse Jackie” is deeply emblematic of a particular period in TV history, it has proven to be a show with enormous staying power, as evidenced by the sequel series reported to be in development at Amazon in 2024. In the meantime, all seven seasons and 80 episodes of “Nurse Jackie” recently returned to the Netflix U.S. catalog, and have since been steadily climbing up the streamer’s charts. That’s a testament to the strength and richness of the writing, as well as Falco’s layered, tragicomic performance, which remains a feat of stunning magnetism. And the same goes for the work of the incredible supporting cast, which includes Eve Best, Anna Deavere Smith, and an Emmy-winning Merritt Wever.

If you’ve been getting into “Nurse Jackie” on Netflix and have since been overcome with a craving for more quality medical television, there are several more shows on Netflix that may be right up your alley. Read on for a list of five great medical series that you should definitely give a shot next.

Created by Shonda Rhimes in 2005, ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” is one of the longest-running TV series of all time, the kickoff to the unparalleled run of hits of an imperial TV producer, and a landmark in the history of medical drama series.

Following the lives of residents and attending physicians at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital, with a primary focus on Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and a massive roster of rotating regular characters, the show is currently in its 22nd season as one of ABC’s flagship series, and has stacked up four Primetime Emmys and innumerable nominations in that time. Although it started out as a series about the challenges of stepping into the medical profession, “Grey’s Anatomy” has since grown into a wide-spanning epic about a complex network of human dramas, with the life-and-death stakes at the central hospital as an intersection point.

The show’s emphasis on relationship conflicts and character-driven calamities allowed it to win over the hearts of millions of loyal fans. That, combined with an early entry into the streaming market (which even Ellen Pompeo has cited as a reason for the show’s staying power), has allowed “Grey’s” to remain as much of a phenomenon in the streaming era as it was at the peak of its network popularity. Given that the show has become known for its combination of a perky sense of humor and seemingly inexhaustible reserves of emotional intensity, anyone who enjoys the mixture of wit and emotional darkness on “Nurse Jackie” should be similarly smitten with “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Another long-running series that qualifies as a must-see for fans of “Nurse Jackie” is “Call the Midwife.” Created by Heidi Thomas and soon to enter its 15th year on the air since premiering in 2012, this period drama hidden gem that you can binge on Netflix as much of an institution for British television as “Grey’s Anatomy” is for the United States. It strikes a somewhat different tone and takes place in a very different milieu — a nursing convent in the East End of London in the mid-20th century — but it’s nonetheless a comparable example of dramatic excellence within the medical genre.

“Call the Midwife” stars a large ensemble that’s gone through significant changes over the years, but is spearheaded by Helen George as Nurse Beatrix “Trixie” Franklin. Each season takes place in a different year, beginning in 1957, and charts the efforts of the midwives at Nonnatus House to deliver children and provide various other nursing and medical services to the impoverished community of London’s Poplar district.

In the hands of the show’s skilled writers and marvelous cast, this simple setup becomes the basis for incredibly compelling television. “Call the Midwife” has tackled innumerable sociopolitical topics over the course of its run and offered a candid portrait of London life at a tough historical juncture, with a particular emphasis on the realities of being a woman in that era. All the while, the show’s focus has always remained on the character stakes within each storyline. It’s a sobering, gripping perspective that aligns it with the exacting approach of “Nurse Jackie” to the medical world.

If the unique, no-nonsense personality of Jackie Peyton and the way her perspective flips the script on the standard procedures of medical shows captivated you on “Nurse Jackie,” you owe it to yourself to get acquainted with Dr. Conrad Hawkins of “The Resident.” Played by Matt Czuchry, Dr. Hawkins anchored six seasons of captivating television on Fox between 2018 and 2023, and it’s a great call for any “Nurse Jackie” fan to hop on Netflix and find out why.

Created by Amy Holden Jones, Hayley Schore, and Roshan Sethi, “The Resident” opens with Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal) beginning his first year of residency at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. Soon enough, he is appalled by the brash and unorthodox ways of his supervisor Conrad, a former Navy Corpsman with very little patience for the problems of contemporary medicine. Over time, however, Conrad and Devon come to understand each other and develop a strong friendship — an arc that mirrors the high degree of character depth and development of “The Resident” as a whole.

The show is brutal and uncompromising in its portrait of the greed, corruption, and dysfunctionality plaguing the American healthcare system, while the excellent cast (including Emily VanCamp, Bruce Greenwood, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and others) gives a touching personal dimension to the socially charged storytelling. And Conrad is a compelling protagonist because his hardened exterior and egomaniacal attitude belie a profound care and compassion for the lives at stake in his work — a level of complexity that fits right alongside “Nurse Jackie.”

The 2023 Danish miniseries “The Nurse,” created and directed by Kasper Barfoed, offers a more chilling variation on nurse-centric storytelling than “Nurse Jackie,” but it’s highly recommended viewing all the same for fans of the Showtime dramedy. Based on the nonfiction book “The Nurse — Inside Denmark’s Most Sensational Criminal Trial” by Kristian Corfixen, “The Nurse” dramatizes the real story of a nurse who may or may not have been responsible for a series of killings in the early 2010s.

The story is told primarily from the perspective of Pernille Larsen (Fanny Louise Bernth), a rookie caregiver at a hospital on the Danish island of Falster. While learning the ropes under the tutelage of friendly veteran nurse Christina Hansen (Josephine Park), Pernille is overwhelmed by a string of patient deaths, and begins to suspect that Christina, for all her charm and seeming normality, may have some degree of involvement in them.

Told in four parts, “The Nurse” is sharp and to the point, pulling viewers right into the spiral of mystery and fear prompted by Pernille’s rude awakening. Even so, it manages to locate a lot of texture, intrigue, and character depth in its fact-based narrative. And, both before and after the mystery gets going, “The Nurse” maintains a quietly observant perspective on the challenges of the nursing profession and the social intricacies of the hospital environment, which at times calls to mind the wit and dynamism of “Nurse Jackie.” Fans of both medical TV and dark Scandinavian crime thrillers will find plenty to entice them here.

Fittingly for Netflix’s current status as a go-to hub of entertainment produced in South Korea, there are several great medical shows from that country available on the streamer’s U.S. platform. Of particular interest to “Nurse Jackie” aficionados, given its similarly irreverent and comedic slant balanced with a hefty dose of seriousness and high-stakes medical drama, is “The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call.”

Debuting in 2025, “The Trauma Code” currently consists of a single season of eight episodes, all written by Choi Tae-kang and directed by Lee Do-yoon, with seasons 2 and 3 possibly on the way. The show is an adaptation of the web novel “Trauma Center: Golden Hour” by Hansanleega, which had already been adapted into a webcomic by Hansanleega and Hongbichira. Like its source material, “The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call” chronicles the transformations brought to the chaotic Hankuk National University Hospital by Dr. Baek Kang-hyuk (Ju Ji-hoon), a brilliant trauma surgeon who joins Hankuk as the new head of its trauma unit.

Determined to reverse a wave of preventable patient deaths that has been plaguing not only Hankuk but the Seoul healthcare system as a whole, Kang-hyuk goes against the hospital status quo, channeling his extensive experience as a globetrotting combat medic into an innovative and defiant approach to trauma response care. As a result, he revitalizes Hankuk and the lives of his fellow physicians. It’s a more hopeful and triumphant show than “Nurse Jackie,” with an impassioned focus on the heroism of its protagonists — but it’s also well-written and enthralling enough that this tonal difference matters little.