The Heartbeat Of a Hospital

As if neurosurgery weren't dramatic enough.

Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa is in the middle of removing a tumor from his patient's brain. Someone bumps into a piece of equipment. For a moment, it's unclear whether the sudden movement has harmed the man on the operating table.

And it's all caught on tape, as part of a new six-part series produced by ABC News.

"Hopkins," a follow-up to the acclaimed "Hopkins 24/7" from 2000, takes viewers inside the renowned hospital in Baltimore.

Quiñones-Hinojosa said the presence of cameras didn't alter how he behaved, not even during surgery.

"I am fully connected to this patient," he said. "I can assure you, the world may be ending and I wouldn't know."

The television crew tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, said Terence Wrong, executive producer of the series.

"It's reduced to one person with one camera, running sound, shooting film, making production decisions all by themselves, and mostly what they do is hang back and let it roll," he said.

To further blend in, the camera crew wore scrubs. They also received training on infectious diseases and patient privacy issues.

Johns Hopkins Hospital officials said after the mostly positive feedback they received following the first documentary, also produced by Wrong, they had few reservations about opening their corridors for a second time.

"I think there's a little bit of mystery of what happens in hospitals, and this was a way to get the story out -- this is what people do at hospitals when they care for people," said Edward D. Miller, dean of the Hopkins medical school and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Wrong said he wanted to revisit Hopkins because of changes that had taken place since the first series, such as more women and international staff members, in addition to improved technology.