Heartbeat - The Doctor's Team of the Northern Hospital

The Northern Medical Clinic is located in Husum, a town on the North Sea coast of Germany. This is where Anja Hainbach, fresh from medical school, is doing the practical year necessary before she qualifies as a doctor. The clinic is run by Professor Roland Wagner, who is as committed to the welfare of his patients as his colleagues, Dr. Tilman Behrens, Consultant for Internal Medicine, and Dr. Susanne Vahrenholt, Consultant Surgeon. The inhabitants of Husum and of the entire coastal region, as well as tourists and seafarers on the North Sea, all have dedicated medical care at their disposal in this clinic.

Heartbeat - Northern Medicine deals essentially with the fate of the various patients at the clinic. The team of doctors struggle to provide the best possible treatment, though everyday life in the clinic consists of harmless routine cases as well as life-threatening situations. One example of the latter is when the doctors have to search desperately for a bone-marrow donor for a girl suffering from leukemia. The staff of the clinic also have to be prepared for a call on the "blue phone": when there is an emergency at sea the doctors at Husum must provide initial medical advice by radio as well as make preparations to receive the patient at the operating theatre in the clinic.

Everyday life in the clinic is presented in an entirely plausible fashion - at the same time, the human element here is all that a potential patient could wish for.