Plot Synopsis

SURGEON OZ is a half-hour reality series that follows Dr. Oz behind the scenes and into the operating room of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, as he helps save his patients' lives and connects with their families in emotional moments surrounding serious procedures. Continuing a three-decade career, Dr. Oz performs real-life miracles and 100 heart operations annually. In the premiere episode, he meets Doris Corona, a new patient whose symptoms are severe shortness of breath. After viewing a scan, Dr. Oz sees that she has inflammation of a major heart valve, and he fears this is much worse than he originally expected. With this life-threating condition, Doris will need surgery immediately, and Dr. Oz counsels her to prepare mentally -- for the sake of her children and her husband. This is a risky operation: her lungs are flooded with fluid, and Dr. Oz finds a growth on her heart valve that he has never seen before. Plus, while doing his rounds, Dr. Oz checks in on a patient, and gets an impromptu dance lesson in the halls of the hospital from a youthful couple in their 80s, who credit ballroom dancing as their key to staying young. Then, in the second episode of the night of the series premiere, Dr. Oz meets his new heart surgery patient, Peter Koster, who at the age of 88 is no stranger to adversity as a World War II veteran. He's survived gunshot wounds and the harrowing trauma of war, but now has a new hurdle to overcome -- heart bypass surgery to repair a blockage in his aortic valve. Dr. Oz instantly bonds with him and his loving wife, as the vet explains that he wants more time with his wife whom he promised a vacation to Alaska. This procedure is the only way to prolong his life. Outside of the operating room, Dr. Oz coaches his young surgical residents during teaching rounds to help them prepare for their upcoming medical boards, so that they can become better, more confident doctors. In subsequent episodes, Dr. Oz repairs a hole in the heart of a New Jersey motorcycle cop who suffered an unexpected stroke, performs a quadruple bypass operation on a Vietnam veteran and former drug user, operates on a young mother who has a genetic heart defect, replaces the aortic valve of a newlywed so he can make it to his one-year anniversary, replaces two heart valves for one patient, and faces an ethical dilemma when a patient in heart failure asks to remove a heart pump that's keeping him alive.