I've been introduced to this series by watching Game Grumps' hilarious playthrough of Second Opinion. I see similarities between this series and Ace Attorney: the trust relationship between characters, the visual novel presentation. I even entertain the idea of a Trauma Center/Ace Attorney crossover.

I ask people who are familiar with this series: where should I start? Should I get the games ported to the Wii or the DS originals?

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I've only played the DS original, and Trauma Team for the Wii (last in the series), but I think Trauma Team is a great entry. It's a bit different from the previous games, in the sense that it focuses on more fields than just surgery, but that's what makes it fun. Besides surgery, there are also fields like Diagnosis and Forensics which are completely different types of games. And while I don't know what they did with the series after the DS original, I thought that game was pretty hard and even frustrating at times, and I had a lot more fun overall with Trauma Team. Trauma Team is just veeeeery slightly connected to the previous (Wii) games, so you can easily start with that game.

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AAAAA okay I'm completely obsessed with this series (RP'd three of the characters, commissioned a cosplay of one), so don't mind me dying of fangirling just at the mention of it.

Okay, so for DS there's the original (Trauma Center: Under the Knife; UtK for short) and then the sequel (Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2; UtK2 for short). Then for Wii they have Trauma Center: Second Opinion (SO) Trauma Center: New Blood (NB), and Trauma Team (TT). This is probably an excessively detailed response for which I apologize. The short version is I think you should play SO and TT first if possible, but I also want to explain so you can make your own decision.
So, SO is a remake of UtK. It's not just a straight port, though. In addition to huge improvements in the graphics, it adds two entire chapters (an additional and a parallel) and a new character, who I ADORE (one of the characters I RP'd actually). The only problem is that it diminished the entire last chapter (which had very intense storyline and revealed a ton of things) into like 4 paragraphs so they could jump into the additional chapter, which isn't as good. But I would actually never advocate starting with UtK because almost anybody who does that would hate it. The thing is that the difficulty level is RIDICULOUS. Future installments gave the option of easy/medium/hard mode but UtK only had one option, and it was definitely what we'd consider hard mode. I managed to beat it a couple of years ago (after obsessively playing the other games), but there are lots people who have been fans of the series for years and they haven't finished UtK because it's too freaking difficult.
You can play UtK2 after SO with no problem; everything will still make sense. I didn't consider it as good as UtK/SO but if you like SO and TT I'd definitely say it's worth playing. Since it is a sequel, you won't get quite as much out of it if you start with UtK2, though then again that's what I did when I very first played. I wouldn't recommend it though since their explanations of certain plot/storyline things are more like they're just reminding you than actually telling you, so new players won't get as much out of it.
NB introduces an entirely new cast. It's also freaking absurdly difficult, even on easy mode. I beat UtK and yet STILL found NB so difficult I couldn't beat certain levels without cheats. I don't regret playing it but if I were to replay the games I would definitely skip it or just watch a let's play or something.
TT is both my favorite and the most popular game in the series. Minus one character, who was the added character in SO, it's another all-new cast, so you can play it before or after any of the other games. I found the cast so much fun; both of the other characters I RP'd are from this game, and there's 3 others I'd RP in a heartbeat if not for the TC RP community being dead (and me not having time to RP anymore). The cast is much more colorful than in the other TC games I think, more like a AA game. There are 6 main doctors, and they each have their own specialty. There's general surgery, orthopedic surgery, endoscopic surgery, first response (EMT/paramedic), diagnostics, and forensics. I think forensics and particular would appeal to a lot of AA fans since it's all about solving murder mysteries. Diagnostics is similar, as you have to find all the symptoms and stuff and match them to the potential diseases. The other four are more typical gameplay, moving around wherever the case may be (lungs, stomach, arms, etc.) and treating the affected areas.

If you're looking for a focus on the character development and growth, I would absolutely recommend TT most of all. If you want realism (though none of them are realistic at all in the gory sense; trust me I can't handle that kind of thing) NB would be best, followed by TT -- though that's just things that I've heard since I really know nothing about practicing medicine myself. Other differences... All of them have very nice art except UtK. SO and UtK2 (can't remember about UtK) have voice clips, like "Let's begin the operation" and "Use the forceps" (lol); NB and TT are fully voiced. TT has animated cutscenes, although their animation is more like the animation of AA games than like animation in the traditional sense; the rest are just a portrait and dialogue.

As you can tell, I'd be happy to answer literally any question about the series, or to talk about literally anything relating to it.

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All I know of SO is up to chapter 6, I believe, which is when they go to Europe. I'm aware of the Adam omission from SO; one of the Game Grumps hosts said, "This totally happened, you just have to take our word for it."

It sounds important, considering it's linked to the next chapter, though not as important as the Blackwell encounter. Is SO worth getting over UtK even though that part was skipped?

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Yeah. (Spoilers but nothing you wouldn't know, then:)


but that said, Naomi isn't in UtK. She was added just for SO's Z chapters, which gives some interesting new info on Delphi. (I also adore her, so there's that. :p)
The main reason I recommend SO over UtK though is because of the difficulty level. If you're in for a serious challenge then UtK isn't bad to get but I just really hesitate to recommend it as the first game. Since you know some of the basics about it then, I'll give you a couple of examples:

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Trauma Team is the only game on the Wii U shop, so I'm going to start with that one. I'll probably order a physical copy of SO afterwards.
Going from what I've seen on SO, the bomb and Triti are ridiculous even in this version.

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