Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Diagnosis’ On Netflix, Where Mystery Illnesses Are Crowdsourced To New York Times Readers

We seem to be fascinated with medical mysteries, ones that have stumped doctors for years. It’s why docuseries about people with mystery illnesses are so popular and shows like House were hits for years. Dr. Lisa Sanders, who consulted on the Hugh Laurie hit, has also written a “Diagnosis” column for The New York Times Magazine for years. A new docuseries, Diagnosis, is based on columns where Sanders asked readers to crowdsource diagnoses for people who haven’t received any yet. Is it entertaining or exploitative?

DIAGNOSIS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A disclaimer that this series should not be used as a substitute for medical advice. Then shots of Dr. Lisa Sanders examining patients at her “day job” at Yale New Haven Hospital.

The Gist: For a number of years, Dr. Sanders has written the very popular “Diagnosis” column in the New York Times Magazine, where mystery illnesses that have stumped doctors are discussed. But those cases were already diagnosed and treated. What if, she thought, she could use the reach of the Times to crowdsource suggestions for people who are currently suffering from mysterious conditions and have yet to get a diagnosis?

Executive producers Scott Rudin, Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn have teamed up with Sanders and the Times to follow people whose cases Sanders crowdsourced via her column. They tell their story, show their frustrations at how the medical world shrugs their shoulders at them, then shows the process of the patient consulting with Sanders before and after her article publishes, discussing the most promising thoughts from the thousands of people who chimed in because they have similar symptoms, or work with doctors who treat such specialized problems.

The subject of the first episode is Angel Parker, a 23-year-old nursing student from Las Vegas who has been wracked with pain ever since she was 14, especially any time the former athlete exerted herself. When she gets these flare-ups, they’re debilitating, usually sending her to the hospital because she can’t move much and her urine looks like cola. Sanders is pretty sure this is a condition where muscle proteins are breaking down, but can’t be sure which of the many conditions of this type she actually has. Among the people who respond to Sanders’ call for crowdsourcing is a medical student in Turin, Italy, who works with doctors that study conditions like these in children. She goes to Turin, gets tested, but gets frustrated when the doctors just see normal levels of everything. But they have something up their sleeves: an ability to map her genome to see what exactly is wrong. But the results won’t come back for two months.

Our Take: Diagnosis is coming right at the same time as Ann Curry’s medical crowdsourcing show, Chasing The Cure. However, the two shows couldn’t be more different. Chasing The Cure is live and has a morning news show format, where Curry can utilize her well-practiced “concern voice” and “empathy face,” and the crowdsourcing is done in real time. Diagnosis is a little more careful and clinical; Sanders and her editors pick the best cases to crowdsource, publish the request in Sanders’ column, and they follow the patients around for months as they try to figure out what exactly is going on.

The more deliberate method Diagnosis uses makes things seem more clinical and less exploitative. Sanders, and likely the producers, really try to make sure the patient isn’t overwhelmed with responses and do the vetting for them, and Sanders takes her own extensive knowledge and ability to research into account when making suggestions to the patient. Sanders’ logic about crowdsourcing is spot on; it’s the same logic that sends people onto reddit looking for the reason why their Roku won’t get on their Wifi or their car’s air conditioner won’t go all the way to “cold.” Crowdsourcing can be frustrating, but the sheer numbers of people involved mean that there’s more of a chance someone has gone through or seen the very same thing the patient is going through.

Unlike other shows about mysterious illnesses (coughAfflictedcough), Diagnosis treats the subjects with the reverence and respect they deserve. Sanders shows genuine concern that these people haven’t gotten diagnosed yet, and that the medical community has basically thrown up their hands in frustration. The desire is to get a diagnosis so the subject at least knows what he or she is dealing with, even if it’s a chronic condition with no cure. The idea that the process is what’s being mined for entertainment, not the plight of the patients themselves, is refreshing in this genre.

Sex and Skin: Not that kind of show.

Parting Shot: We see an extensive preview of the next case, where a 7-year-old girl from Queens with unexplained seizures may have to undergo surgery to separate the damaged and healthy hemispheres of her brain.

Sleeper Star: Angel’s father Ray is a pip. He’s frustrated that the crowdsourcing didn’t yield and immediate answer. “It’s turning out to be the same sh… stuff that we’ve gotten.” Why he was careful not to swear there, we have no idea.

Most Pilot-y Line: Even Sanders has to laugh at the number of veterinarians who responded to her article on Angel. Unless these vets treat primates, it’s hard to understand why these people thought their insight could translate to a human body, and why the producers even justified showing videos submitted by them.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Diagnosis is all about, well, getting the diagnosis to the issues the people in this docuseries face. It’s entertaining while not being exploitative, which is one of the best things we can say about shows like this.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Diagnosis on Netflix