They have run into the most resistance to their projects from some of the smaller Harvard-affiliated hospitals, where they had to film for the second episode, says Michael Barnes, the series producer. In order to film there, he says, they had to make arrangements with the hospital's public relations staff, which was not always cooperative.

Of course, it is understandable, Barnes says, that a hospital would be concerned about such issues as patient confidentiality when a crew of television cameras rolls through the hospital's front doors.

But by spending a lot of time getting to know the hospital staff, Barnes says he hopes to build up trust between the film crew and the hospitals, which is crucial for such a long-term project.

Barnes also says that he ran into an obstacle in the first year of filming when people felt uncomfortable talking about the curriculum on camera because it was so new.

"It was very difficult to get anyone to speak about whether they liked or didn't like the New Pathway," he says.

A common criticism of the NOVA project is that it is impossible to portray such a complex program fully in an hour of television.

"Any show just really can't capture what it's like to go to medical school," Dorsey says.

In an article in the spring 1990 issue of the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin, Dorsey lamented the fact that "the cameras are unable to capture every moment of a medical student's career, which makes the choice and the timeliness of their periodic appearances even more crucial."

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However, grazette says she was pleased with the final product of the first show, considering all the difficulties involved in production.

"We felt like it was a really good representation of what our first year was like," she says.

Frumkin says the feedback he has gotten from Harvard administrators, as well as the general public, has been positive.

"[The viewers] like to see the fact that the students are people, and have a hard time with some of this stuff," he says.

And when people do criticize the show, frumkin says, it is hard to distinguish whether they are criticizing the film or the New Pathway.

The series has received its dose of scrutiny from the Harvard administration. When Barnes proposed the idea to the Medical School in May of 1987, it took four months of negotiation and discussion with the school's Faculty Council before he was granted provisional permission to begin filming, which was not made permanent for another three months, he says.