Rafael: Tonight, Emergency NYC, the new docuseries taking us inside the world of emergency care and showing us the humanity of those making great sacrifices.

"metrofocus" starts right now.

♪ >> This is metrofocus with Rafael Pi Roman and Jenna Flanagan.

"MetroFocus" is made possible by -- the Peter G. Peterson Fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

Rafael: Good evening and welcome.

Every siren in New York City has a story of the nearly 300 emergency calls that are made every hour.

Many for people in desperate need of life-saving care.

Workers managed to keep the city's heart beating while also attempting to balance their own personal lives.

Emergency NYC, a new docuseries now streaming on Netflix, takes us inside their world and that of their patients.

It is a window into the country's growing health care crisis that has been exacerbated by COVID and the exploding gun violence.

>> A 17-year-old male with wounds.

[sirens] ♪ >> Every call is a new story.

You encounter so many different situations.

>> You almost go into autopilot.

>> I am very decisive than those moments.

>> The commitment to the life of another human being is something that we make.

>> We are talking life and death.

>> A lot of times, you don't get a second chance so your intervention may save a life.

>> A five-month-old had a cardiac history.

Caught RSV, so he's extremely sick and critical at this time.

>> It definitely makes you think.

How much you have to be here 100% body and mind to make a difference in somebody's day.

>> I thought I had everything under control.

>> Sirens are the soundtrack of the city and many of those sirens are people in need.

♪ >> Make a lot of assumptions based on them telling you what their background is.

In the end, you get to spend a very short amount of time with them to connect with them.

>> People from all over the world, different cultures, all coming together.

It makes being a health care worker in New York one of the most challenging things.

>> We are going to fight as hard as we can.

♪ Rafael: Joining us now are the filmmakers and executive producers, Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash, and two of the principal doctors featured in the series, Dr. David Langer and John Boockvar, Vice Chairman of neurosurgery at Lenox Hill.

It is an honor to have you with us.

Ruthie: Thank you for having us.

Rafael: Let me start with the filmmakers.

Ruthie -- as successful documentary filmmakers, I am guessing you could pretty much explore any subject that you want.

So, what moved you to invest so much of yourself, time, energy, and resources in exploring the exceedingly hectic and complex medical world of New York City?

First in your docuseries Lenox Hill and now Emergency NYC?

Ruthie: The world of medicine and hospitals is endless content.

The things you see an encounter -- and encounter, the people, the situations are so riveting and life-affirming that it is kind of addictive.

It is really hard to dive into the subjects and go into something else because the meanings of what you are touching upon, the subjects, those people, it is very difficult to compare it to anything else.

Life and death.

Facing situations that are so complex.

People that are sacrificing their lives for someone else.

These are the extremities of humanity.

For us as filmmakers, it is a haven as much as it is difficult and painful.

It's an endless place for content and storytelling.

Rafael: Adi, anything to add?

Adi: When you added together with the doctors that take you through this so you get all these worlds combined into many layers that are super reflective on the times that we are in, and of people who come in super motivated for what they do.

The extremities of these dramatic moments that draw us in and they are very cinematic.

Rafael: Let me move on to the doctors.

Let me start with you, David.

What convinced you, why did you decide to participate in this project first in Lenox Hill and then Emergency NYC?

Did you think it was a good idea from the outset or did it take some convincing?

Dr. Langer: It was John's idea.

[LAUGHTER] No.

Ruthie and Adi found me through another fellow who had been in a similar show in Israel.

They came to us and said we want to do the show New York after being so successful in Israel.

Just started his career and referred them to me.

Why?

I think I did it for my kids.

I tell everybody that, it's true.

I knew John and I had developed something fantastic.

There was nothing like us, but it is hard to get above the sound barrier in this town.

This would be the ideal way to reveal ourselves and be truthful.

A lot of medical shows are dishonest, staged.

The doctors are often not honest or don't show vulnerability.

Maybe they are not vulnerable in the first place.

John and I have developed a program and department here that is exceptional and it is new.

What better way to show the world what we are doing -- we didn't know it was Netflix at the beginning.

They still had not pitched the show.

After meeting the two of them at a restaurant -- I trust everybody.

John, he is more, a little more questioning than I am.

Rafael: Were you more questioning?

Did you have more doubts?

Dr. Boockvar: Absolutely.

[LAUGHTER] I just was inherently more apprehensive about the response to our transparency.

I echo what David said, which is we have a unique relationship between the two of us, the way we talk to patients.

We both lost our fathers at young ages so we have this empathy that we watched our fathers, personally and professionally.

That gives us a similar lens to what the patients are going through.

I knew, like David said, we were special.

But I was very apprehensive -- not on her ability to be portrayed because they are so amazing, but in this era of shade throwing, I was more cautious.

For the second season, I jumped right in.

Rafael: For Emergency NYC particularly -- you are intruding the camera, in cases where doctors are trying to save lives or the quality of lives of their patients.

Very hectic sometimes.

How do you make sure -- two things.

How do you make sure you don't interfere physically?

That you don't slow the process down where every second counts?

Two, how do you make sure even with the approval of the patients that you don't intrude more into the moments that are some of the most difficult of their lives beyond what they think you are going to do?

How do you make sure that doesn't happen?

Adi: We have been doing this since 2009, filming in hospitals and acute situations.

We have some -- in the way we are conducting ourselves onset.

It is never a question anymore because we are so interleaved with their process.

Adi many times goes into the OR by himself.

He knows exactly what he needs to get.

Nobody noticed him.

It is just a matter of a lot of experience and sensitivity.

Adi: Also, it is a process.

You tiptoe into this obviously for us to get consent.

Then, you have David and John in their cases.

They are in touch with the patient.

It takes a bit of time.

Then, it is just, they feel they are in a comfortable place.

Where a very small crew, just one person.

Everyone feels at ease and there is this openness.

There is also a willingness -- you find even at these hard moments that people want to tell their stories.

They want to tell their stories and it is kind of reflective of where they are.

It is reflective of their relationships, relationship with the doctor.

There are a lot of elements to it and we are super respectful.

I think that is where you feel -- I don't like to use the term fly on the wall.

It is more like a human presence where you feel confident that you can share your story.

Rafael: John, you came to accept this but after watching the two series, did you learn anything new about yourself?

Anything that surprised you?

Dr. Boockvar: Besides my bald spot -- [LAUGHTER] Dr. Langer: You are talking about mine?

Dr. Boockvar: I always knew I had a full head of hair.

David and I always joke -- I love to watch David and I cringe when I watch myself and I think he says the same thing.

I absolutely adore watching David.

I literally will cry laughing or cry crying.

But, you do see the idiosyncrasies of how we talk to patients.

I think I am very in tune to the responses of my patients that I see from these magical angles that Adi, I didn't even know where the camera was that Adi can get these angles.

It is really an incredible opportunity for us.

I grew up as an athlete.

As an athlete, we watched tape.

How many times does a doctor get to watch tape of the performance?

That is ultimately what we get to have the opportunity to do.

David and I -- this has become part of curriculum across the globe to teach doctors, nurses, administrators.

It has become part of a curriculum, so it is incredible to watch yourself.

Anxiety provoking, but educational.

Rafael: David, the show, you talked about how other shows, medical shows have not been true to the profession or what your life is really like.

Many reviewers compare this to real life "Grey's Anatomy."

Anything to that?

Dr. Langer: Funny you should bring that up.

On your first question, this has been an incredible experience.

We have changed for the better, I think.

It has made me a better person, I think.

With my injury, it has made me realize a lot of things.

Just to give an example, we were the first show -- it was on preview and we had an interview by "Entertainment Tonight."

The interviewer said everybody loves the show and they think your partner is Dr. McDreamy.

I go, what am I?

That administrator guy.

I was crestfallen.

Despite John's bald spot, pretty good looking guy.

I must be chopped liver in this thing.

I called Adi.

It was my first exposure to being seen publicly.

It is funny now.

It is the opposite.

I revel in John's success, the attention he gets.

You can see why people -- attention can be a bad thing.

People do funny stuff.

It is not always easy.

Having -- John talks about this.

I am so grateful to be able to do it with him and do it together because we are able to enjoy it at its full extent.

Without John, I don't think -- it would have been hard to enjoy it as hard as we had.

We really did enjoy it.

Rafael: COVID is definitely not the focus of the series, but it does seem to be ever present like the masks.

It is in the background and sometimes emerges from the shadows.

How different would Emergency NYC been if the city never gone through the pandemic?

In other words, how has COVID affected the health and health care of the city?

Ruthie: I think it brought a lot of fatigue to health care.

I think ultimately, the show would have been even more intense than it is now.

Because the cases went down as people were hiding in their homes.

It was still super intense and insane in terms of what we did and where we went, but you see the fatigue around all the hospitals.

You see people are worn down, tired, feel unseen.

I think it was, for us, it was super important to be able to document these times because that is a time of change and I don't know if health care will ever be the same after COVID.

It will be very interesting to keep on following what will unfold.

Rafael: Adi, how important a protagonist is New York City in the docuseries?

If you had called it emergency L.A. or Chicago, for example, what would have been different fundamentally?

Adi: New York, obviously, it is iconic.

It is a character in the film, the series.

You see it as you move between hospital to hospital.

You see the characters, the emotions and the feelings of each place.

You get the sense that New York City is bubbling all the time behind the backdrop of the patients.

It was present in Lenox Hill, but definitely, a crucial shadow to all the episodes and all the cases.

Ruthie: New York is one-of-a-kind.

The diversity in New York is really a one-time thing.

You can see it in L.A. to some extent or Miami or other cities but there is nothing like New York.

Rafael: I never knew how beautiful New York City looked from a helicopter.

This is for David and John.

In one episode, a character is introduced, a helicopter nurse.

It happens to be the last day of her employment.

The reason for that is because she refused to get vaccinated.

She's a young woman and concerned about childbearing and there was not enough, obviously, long-term tests about that.

She is frustrated talking about how she's somebody who risks her life every day during the worst of the pandemic and now basically she has to leave her job which she does not want to.

As a fellow health care worker, what do you think about the situation?

I want both of you to chime in.

Dr. Langer: We were not getting the vaccines for ourselves.

I got a problem with that personally.

You can argue both ways.

I think this is a public health crisis.

You have to think macro here.

There's a small chance -- I happen to be very close to the woman, the science behind this vaccine.

I know her pretty well.

It is elegant and incredibly safe.

Had I not known that, maybe I would have felt differently so I will give her a bit of a mulligan.

At the same token, there are multiple reasons -- as a health care worker especially.

I think we have the responsibility to Artcraft, our patients, and ourselves as well as the greater good.

I believe we all should be vaccinated.

That is just the truth.

Rafael: Do you agree?

Dr. Boockvar: I agree mostly.

I definitely agree with the policy.

But I find it unfortunate.

I got the two first vaccines.

I decided not to get a third vaccination.

I felt like I did not want that vaccine.

There was a time that I felt like I could say no to the policy.

I chose not to get that third vaccination.

Again, politics aside, there is no doubt vaccinations saved the planet.

Kate, who David knew, really saved the planet.

So, vaccination works.

It is just unfortunate because we all have our own personal problems, our own personal beliefs and stories.

In hindsight, we should probably have offered some alternative where you did not have to leave the health care system, in hindsight.

If you don't want to get the flu vaccine, you just have to wear a mask.

Rafael: Adi, as I mentioned in the introduction, a big topic explored in this series is gun violence.

I knew him when he was a kid and knew his wonderful father.

Particularly, I think it is safe to say how gun violence is affecting young men in communities of color.

You don't say it explicitly, but it is clear from the documentary.

Was that something you set out to explore or was it inevitable because of what the problem has become, especially in New York and many parts of the country over the past few years?

Adi: That is a tragic ongoing problem that the U.S. is facing, especially in the big cities and especially in New York.

It was there before we started.

And we knew also from Dr.

Prince and from the ER staff that it is a big issue.

Obviously, one of the biggest issue of death in youngsters, in teenagers.

This is the number one cause.

It was there.

It was just a matter of will we happen to be there and be able to film it as it was coming in?

It is a huge problem and I think the staff there are just so overwhelmed with this as well.

It is a portrait, a sad portrait of America.

That's what it is.

The fact you can go out and buy a semiautomatic gun like it is candy, it is unacceptable.

Why should that be?

You want a gun, buy a pistol.

Why should we have that around?

We wanted to show that definitely in this film.

Rafael: Anybody else want to talk about that?

Dr. Langer: It seems ironic that the same people who don't take vaccines have guns in their house.

It's just a matter of don't sell the bullets or separate the bullets and the guns, or keep them in a locker.

We can go on and on about this, but obviously, I am a liberal guy.

The trouble is they don't show the dead dead kids in the movie or TV.

One of the great things about the show, you saw a gunshot wound.

Whoa, that is what it looks like.

That is important for people to see.

Rafael: Near the end of the film, a transplant surgeon who performs miracles says that every day, he wakes up to news about war and crime and other cruel things that depress him deeply.

When he gets to work and sees all the people that sometimes put their lives on the line, at risk to help others in need, then his faith in humanity is revived.

I think that is the experience that we who watched the documentary also get.

I think the reason for that is because what really pervades this series that you just did is humanity, it's decency.

And dare I say, it is love.

Am I overstating it?

Am I being corny or is this what you think as well?

Ruthie: I like to start by saying I don't want to be corny, but yes.

I think the world is a mess.

What's happening out there is very concerning in politics, global warming, everything you can think about.

After COVID, the economics.

For us, I think in everything we do, even if we talk about painful subjects, it is very important for us to leave some kind of hope because we do have a very strong faith in the human race.

We think that one person can make a huge difference.

Again, it is not that I am not cynical or use irony, I think it is important to give people some hope.

There is so much crap out th ere.

On TV, there is so much violence and so many negative things that are being polarized too much in my opinion.

I think it is important to give the other prism of that and give people some hope and something to cling to.

Rafael: This is for David and John.

Lisa, a patient who you both saved, said this to you at the end of the series.

"God has blessed you to save people's lives, and every day you wake up, you should always feel you are doing your part for society."

John, you said that was one of the most beautiful things I patient has ever told you -- a patient has ever told you.

Do you wake up every morning realizing that, I wonder?

Dr. Boockvar: No, I don't.

I turned to David when she said that.

I think I said, people might think that was scripted it was so beautiful and so timely.

I continue to get blown away.

I get up for work and I don't expect to hear that.

Obviously, we both approached our job with a lot of humility.

I think that is just something that I was raised to do.

To hear her say those words really was almost shocking to me because it did give me a lens into, no pun intended, into what she was finally seeing.

Rafael: David, I am not going to be able to get you in this because our time is up, but I want to thank you guys, you doctors for the work you do.

And for you filmmakers as well for allowing us to see the good work that these good doctors do.

It is a documentary that can change your life and I hope it does.

Thank you for joining us today.

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♪ >> MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wakenheim III.

The Peter G Peterson fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnold.

The Ambrose Monell foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

♪ ♪