NEWS & NOTES : `CHICAGO HOPE' BASES EPISODE AROUND NEW CARDIAC SURGERY.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Though it may seem as though the writers for hospital shows ``Chicago Hope'' and ``ER'' are spending their time thumbing through the New England Journal of Medicine looking for new doctor stuff to turn into scripts, it doesn't happen quite that way.

They let the doctors on their staff keep them up to date.

A forthcoming example: the CBS drama ``Chicago Hope'' will base the main story line of its Wednesday episode around a new technique for cardiac surgery that was suggested to the writers by the show's technical adviser, Dr. Gregory Fontana.

Fontana knew about the technique, a minimally invasive approach to heart surgery, because he has used it in his work as a cardiac surgeon at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

``I would say it's the most significant advance in cardiac surgery in the past 20 or 30 years,'' Fontana said.

The technique had been the subject of intense debate for a time in the medical community, though the company that pioneered it, Heartport Inc., now has sold it to more than 100 medical facilities around the world, according to the company's senior director of corporate communications, Jim Weiss. ``We've done more than 3,000 of these procedures to date,'' Weiss said.

Instead of making a major incision and sawing through the breastbone and rib cage, a process that inevitably adds to a patient's recovery time, surgeons using Heartport's technique make a small incision in the chest and use special instruments - guided by three-dimensional imaging - to repair damaged hearts.

Weiss said the technique was commonly used in bypass operations and valve repair, even on patients with holes in their hearts.

``We suggested all those plot lines to the show, but they went with something they thought would be more dramatic,'' Fontana said.

In the ``Chicago Hope'' episode, Dr. Kathryn Austin, played by Christine Lahti, decides to use this new technique on a woman whose heart has been damaged by her repeated use of a diet drug. The woman is also pregnant, and Austin decides that to save the baby she needs to employ a minimally invasive form of surgery.

Fontana said: ``The technique might be used in a handful of cases like that. It's mostly used in more routine cases.'' He added, ``Television likes things like this, ones that have 3D imaging and tiny instruments.''

As a technical adviser, he said, he occasionally suggests story ideas based on his experiences. ``The show likes to try to keep ahead of what happening in medicine,'' Fontana said.

For Heartport, of course, the exposure offers an opportunity to expand awareness of its product. ``Patients are bound to become more aware of a new technique when they see it on television,'' Weiss said.

CNBC showing movie: Cable network CNBC, best known for its business news coverage, will air a movie for the first time next month with the HBO film ``Barbarians at the Gate.''

The TV movie, which tells the true story of former RJR Nabisco CEO Ross Johnson and his bid for a leveraged buyout of the consumer product company, will be shown in on Jan. 16.

The only entertainment series to air on CNBC were repeats of NBC's ``Late Night With Conan O'Brien,'' which lasted for several months this year.

CNBC won't completely break format with the airing of the movie, which received critical accolades when it premiered on HBO in 1993. CNBC's Geraldo Rivera will host the presentation, which will include interview segments and analysis of the RJR Nabisco deal. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, authors of the book on which the movie is based, will join Rivera in a discussion.