Resident Playbook Review: A Celebration of the Beginner in All of Us

Back in 2023, Hospital Playlist fans rejoiced when the production of a spin-off was announced. After all, the original series had offered such a warm and comforting story that we’d say yes to any opportunity that could take us back to that little bubble of joy and music. Entitled Resident Playbook, we had high hopes for this new Yulje Medical Centre adventure. But getting it released was a bigger ordeal than any of us could have ever expected. Between a medical crisis, several postponements, and a potential cancellation, Resident Playbook almost didn’t see the light of day.

But it managed to overcome the hurdles and Resident Playbook hit both Korean screens (through tvN) and international ones (through Netflix) from April to May 2025, two whole years after its conception.

And I’m so very glad it did because Resident Playbook is a tale worth sharing.

This review is spoiler-free, but if you don’t have time to read it all, why don’t you pin our summary? It’s at the bottom!

Setting Up Resident Playbook: Off to a Rocky Start

Resident Playbook is a 12-episode series whose characters live in the same universe as the characters from Hospital Playlist. They work for the same hospital as the original cast, just in a different branch, which allowed the show to include lots of cameos and create connections with the original series. Directed by Lee Min-soo and written by Kim Song-hee, Resident Playbook then follows the lives of four first-year residents who join the OB-GYN ward at the Jongno branch of Yulje Medical Centre.

Despite counting on the familiarity of the universe and the faces we were used to seeing in Hospital Playlist, Resident Playbook is a show with its own identity and proudly exists as a very solid standalone story.

That doesn’t mean that Resident Playbook worked like clockwork from the very start, however. The first episode was an absolute trainwreck. For an hour and a quarter, we were presented with a weird mesh of cringey comedy, unlikable characters, immature decisions, and sluggish plot. But, just like its protagonists, Resident Playbook grows — both on us and as a proper medical slice-of-life.

Resident Playbook — as a series — perfectly feels like a first-year resident in itself: it’s clumsy, fresh, and timid. And just like any one of us, after its first week, the show starts to blossom. The plot finds its rhythm, the characters become more relatable and charismatic, and the setting becomes more comfortable. Soon enough, Resident Playbook lulls us to a sense of calm and belonging, celebrating the joys and embarrassments of being a beginner.

Celebrating the Young Residents Who Will Be Wise Someday

That’s the goal and heart of Resident Playbook: we have all been beginners once. We know the feeling of trying to do something for the first time, of joining a new team, of coming to terms with the logistics of a completely new place. This is not a series about thrilling, risky, and rare medical cases that are solved by genius doctors. The opposite, actually: we’re dealing with everyday occurrences and ordinary doctors. No one is asking these residents to be extraordinary. Resident Playbook is a story about the mundane and how difficult it is, at first, to even nail the basics.

Our protagonists are, then, honestly human. And there’s so much beauty in the common, in the humane. Our days are full of defeats, yes. But they are also full of small victories. Through their everyday challenges, Resident Playbook finds the warmth, the delight, and the colour in the routine.

As novices, our residents struggle, make mistakes, and fail. They are far from perfect, personally and professionally, but despite their shortcomings, they still care and want to help. They feel afraid, helpless, and uninspired at times but that’s okay. Because they keep taking steps forward — no matter how small and slow they may be — and they reach episode 12 as better, more mature, and more content professionals.

However, they still have a long way to go. Resident Playbook delivers a sharp finale in which its characters have started a process of change but haven’t turned into flawless versions of their personas. They are still the same people they were in episode 1, and yet you can clearly see that there’s something different about them.

So, Resident Playbook is a celebration of this journey of growth, one that always starts on the first day and continues throughout our entire lives. It reminds us that it’s okay not to know, to make mistakes, and to ask for help — because we’re constantly learning, no matter how experienced we may be.

Resident Playbook & Intergenerational Encounters

That idea helped Resident Playbook focus on generational differences, highlighting the presence of Gen Z (or MZ generation, as they call it in Korea) in the workplace. Our young residents are more outspoken, more eager to find (and stick up for) work-life balance, and less keen to put up with the demands of hierarchy. As the episodes go by, the narrative allows these differences to work both for humour and for character development, encouraging younger and older generations to learn from one another.

The narrative then relies on this overarching sense of kindness and patience, which is ultimately delivered through the bonds that our characters create. As a slice-of-life, Resident Playbook establishes its narrative structure through a series of small events that cause change in our characters’ internal world. Regardless of how fleeting they are, it’s the relationships that professors, nurses, interns, residents, and patients establish that weave the plot together. That’s why Resident Playbook offers a slow-paced story: exactly because it’s so heavily reliant on ordinary dynamics whose effects reverberate bit by bit every day.

Focusing on the Characters’ Professional Selves

It’s important to mention that, even though Resident Playbook doesn’t really join the current political discourse in Korea, it does offer a story that honours the work of doctors and nurses around the country. The Yulje Medical Centre is full of capable professionals who are overworked and exhausted but still do their best. As hospitals house both life and death, these people navigate these two extremes, bravely greeting the ones who arrive and sending off the ones who pass away. They are given mere minutes to both grieve and rejoice before they need to help someone else and tackle a different challenge. Before they can dry their own tears, they have to let go of their feelings to put the next patient first.

While this isn’t a show about unusual medical cases, this is definitely a show about practising medicine. The core of Resident Playbook lies in who our characters are as medical professionals and not as individuals. That’s why we’re only offered glimpses of their backgrounds and personal stories. What happens outside the hospital isn’t as important as what happens in it, so we’re only given enough to understand what makes them tick. Oh Yi-young (Go Youn-jung), Pyo Nam-kyeong (Shin Shi-ah), Um Jae-il (Kang You-seok), and Kim Sa-bi (Han Ye-ji) don’t have fully fleshed-out backstories. We are offered a skeleton through passing conversations and random encounters, which the narrative uses as motivation for their actions and reactions at work.

That’s the backbone of their character development: Resident Playbook introduces us to a group of protagonists whose individual personality needs to give space to their identity as a doctor. Throughout its 12 episodes, we witness as the narrative teaches them to blend their character as individuals with their new self as a doctor, allowing both sides of their personality to influence and shape the other. That’s also why romances make for quiet subplots in Resident Playbook — they were never supposed to be the star of the show.

What Makes Resident Playbook & Hospital Playlist Different

As our four residents evolve, they also get to know each other better. Mirroring real life, the characters in Resident Playbook reach the end of the series as closer friends but not best friends. After all, they still have much to face together to ignite the sort of long-term friendship that we see in Hospital Playlist.

And I believe this is the greatest difference between Hospital Playlist and Resident Playbook. Hospital Playlist explores both the personal and professional lives of its protagonists, introducing us to a cast who are pretty much family after years and years of friendship. They are already confident in their identities and, as older characters, they face different kinds of challenges.

Meanwhile, Resident Playbook focuses on young people who are still figuring out who they are. They have just met and started a brand new job. Everything is new and unknown and so, they find themselves in completely different circumstances. In any case, Resident Playbook still offers a warm and welcoming universe thanks to characters we can empathise with, providing a similar experience to Hospital Playlist.

Technical Notes: Visuals, Effects & Performances

The photography is bright and colourful, reflecting the optimism of the script, and both set and costume design are excellent. However, I have to be a tad picky and say that the props and effects for surgeries could’ve been a bit more convincing. Most of the show seems to rely on practical effects, but especially during surgery scenes, they look extremely theatrical. But that shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the series — unless you’re looking for an incredibly accurate portrayal of medical work.

The OST features some amazing songs, including Mido and Falasol’s (adorable) Amateur and Someday It’s Time to Shine, D.O.’s Forever, TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s (super catchy) When the Day Comes, and A Race, performed by our four protagonists.

Go Youn-jung, Shin Shi-ah, and Kang You-seok prove once again to be exceptional actors, and a special mention needs to go to Han Ye-ji. Sa-bi marks Ye-ji’s very first role and she navigated it with grace and just as much charisma as her more experienced peers. Ye-ji is definitely an actress we should keep an eye out for in the future.

It goes without saying that the performances are simply flawless across the board — from our beloved cameos and guest stars to our fifth protagonist, Koo Do-won, played by Jung Jun-won. Jun-won is another pleasant surprise, and through Do-won, he proved that he’s more than capable of delivering a marvellous male lead. I also have to give two other special mentions here to veterans that I personally love: Lee Bong-ryun (who played Professor Seo Jeong-min) and Lee Chang-hoon (who played Professor Ryu Jae-hwi). Not only were their characters inspiring and fascinating leaders for our young protagonists, but they are also performers who imbue their delivery with such naturality and magnetism that it is difficult not to adore them.

Should You Watch Resident Playbook?

Resident Playbook started off on the wrong foot. It may have stumbled, but just like our protagonists, it got back on its feet and kept walking forward. The result is a tender, heartwarming and profoundly humane journey of professional discovery and intergenerational encounter. It commemorates and encourages the beginner that lives in all of us, motivating us to appreciate and be a bit kinder towards our own mistakes and inexperience.

If you’d like to watch an intense medical drama, Resident Playbook won’t live up to your expectations. If you’re looking for a gentle slice-of-life that just happens to be set in a hospital, however, Resident Playbook might just fit the bill.

You can watch Resident Playbook on: