Medicine on TV

wayhey

As health professionals, do you watch medical TV shows, reality or drama-based? Any moments you've seen on TV particularly hilarious given your knowledge? What shows in particular just make you cringe?

DrIndy

To be honest - the only show I can watch is scrubs - it is pretty accurate to life as a junior doctor - just with less cheese.

I do cringe at the other shows though, they tend to use out of date protocols (and wrongly) and the CPR is pathetic and completely inaccurate to the point of me wanting to roll in a ball rather than keep watching. Greys anatomy is particularily bad - no one gets angiogram and stents there when they have a heart attack, its straight to cracking the chest open (no keyhole surgery even!!!). Also I saw an episode of greys where a surgeon - A SURGEON!!! - was treating someone with the bubonic plague!!!!!!

I have to say though that I do enjoy medical documentaries as much as anyone and in fact have greater insight. House is funny - I do know one or two doctors out there who can do that - stop, think and immediately deduce what has stumped many. They have better manners though.

Mostly though - that sort of thing is my work and a significant portion now of my life - when I go home, I want to relax and put my feet up and put my mind off the subject. Watching the shows on TV just brings work home. I think this is the real reason many doctors don't watch Medical shows.

Delancey

In real life do Doctors and Nurses ' bag off ' with each other in the linen room as much as they do on TV dramas ?

sam34

scrubs is definitely the most realistic

i watched er avidly, but its not like real life at all (for starters, no-one in the HSE looks like george clooney, or that gorgeous croatian guy...)

sam34

delancey42 wrote: »

In real life do Doctors and Nurses ' bag off ' with each other in the linen room as much as they do on TV dramas ?

yes
and also with:
physios
OTs
drug reps
social workers
pharmacists

no, never ever happens

seriously, they often hook up but not so often in the linen room!

Delancey

sam34 wrote: »

scrubs is definitely the most realistic

i watched er avidly, but its not like real life at all (for starters, no-one in the HSE looks like george clooney, or that gorgeous croatian guy...)

Am I right to infer from the above post that there aren't any Katherine Heigl lookalikes in A/E departments ?

sam34

delancey42 wrote: »

Am I right to infer from the above post that there aren't any Katherine Heigl lookalikes in A/E departments ?

dead right!

Vorsprung

sam34 wrote: »

dead right!

Having moved to Brisbane, this is happily not the case.

locum-motion

Vorsprung wrote: »

Having moved to Brisbane, this is happily not the case.

PA?

opinion guy

Can someone explain to me how come House and his ENTIRE TEAM of experts only ever have one patient at a time, maybe 2 if there's something serious going down? Oh and how they all seem to be able to be surgeons, medics, run the MRI machine, do cell cultures in the lab and break into people's houses to find that strange Mongolian mushroom that House knew must be there cause someones wife went travelling in Asia, once, ever, and its the only possible explanation for the fulminant case of Mongolian gential mushroom infection after cheating with the Mongolian pool cleaner has been ruled out by some heartwrenching story about how the pool cleaner lost his genitalia in a bitter family fued after House was especially mean to him about his obsessive pool cleaning technique and got him to break down and tell his horrible secret before crawling off into the corner to jump out a window and the infected guy was the only one who knew this horrible secret which was why they had such a close bond and were in fact NOT gay lovers ??

Delancey

In ER we hear some staff referred to as '' Physicians Assistant '' - does such a title exist in U.S. hospitals ? If real ,which are they closer to - doctors or nurses ?

Delancey

opinion guy wrote: »

Can someone explain to me how come House and his ENTIRE TEAM of experts only ever have one patient at a time, maybe 2 if there's something serious going down? Oh and how they all seem to be able to be surgeons, medics, run the MRI machine, do cell cultures in the lab and break into people's houses to find that strange Mongolian mushroom that House knew must be there cause someones wife went travelling in Asia, once, ever, and its the only possible explanation for the fulminant case of Mongolian gential mushroom infection after cheating with the Mongolian pool cleaner has been ruled out by some heartwrenching story about how the pool cleaner lost his genitalia in a bitter family fued after House was especially mean to him about his obsessive pool cleaning technique and got him to break down and tell his horrible secret before crawling off into the corner to jump out a window and the infected guy was the only one who knew this horrible secret which was why they had such a close bond and were in fact NOT gay lovers ??

Because House is the worlds greatest doctor - simples

Piste

sam34 wrote: »

yes
and also with:
physios
OTs
drug reps
social workers
pharmacists

no, never ever happens

seriously, they often hook up but not so often in the linen room!

So...the on-call room then yeah?


I hope medicine doesn't ruin medical TV shows for me

Vorsprung

locum-motion wrote: »

PA?

Yep

Dr Galen

DrIndy wrote: »

Mostly though - that sort of thing is my work and a significant portion now of my life - when I go home, I want to relax and put my feet up and put my mind off the subject. Watching the shows on TV just brings work home. I think this is the real reason many doctors don't watch Medical shows.

exactly how I feel. If I was a cop, i doubt I'd want to go home and watch cop shows, kinda the same. Though I'll agree that Scrubs was funny, and is pretty accurate as far as being a junior doc is concerned.

Anyone remember a show called "No Angels" on Channel 4 a few years back?
Well thats not too far off what being a nurse is like.....

delancey42 wrote: »

In real life do Doctors and Nurses ' bag off ' with each other in the linen room as much as they do on TV dramas ?

not in the linen room.....

sam34 wrote: »

yes
and also with:
physios
OTs
drug reps
social workers
pharmacists

no, never ever happens

seriously, they often hook up but not so often in the linen room!

it happens, mostly stemming from friday night drinks in the pub across the road from a large Dublin city teaching hospital, that I know a few of us have worked in. Res parties are also another one. A few stories to be told from those. Being a straight male nurse, who was under 30, I was somewhat of a "novelty" shall we say

Piste wrote: »

So...the on-call room then yeah?

(

For a med student you catch on quick

anotherlostie

My other half says that the only ever realistic interpretation of what hospital life was like was Cardiac Arrest on BBC in the nineties.

opinion guy

I dispute Scrubs being funny.

It was for like the first three seasons. But after that JD's constant neuroses and general girlyness put him on a par with Sarah Jessica's Horseface's character in the show about roidin in the city in terms of the "being f*ckin annoyin" stakes

Delancey

opinion guy wrote: »

I dispute Scrubs being funny.

It was for like the first three seasons. But after that JD's constant neuroses and general girlyness put him on a par with Sarah Jessica's Horseface's character in the show about roidin in the city in terms of the "being f*ckin annoyin" stakes

Finally - someone who agrees with me that SJP ( as 'cool' people call her ) is NOT beautiful , folks say that beauty is only skin deep , if so then SJP was born inside out !
Now Katherine Heigl in Grays............doubtless a brilliant actress as well.

opinion guy

Finally ?!?!? Shes quite regularly referred to as Horseface. South Park did a whole episode on her

Capt'n Midnight

delancey42 wrote: »

Finally - someone who agrees with me that SJP ( as 'cool' people call her ) is NOT beautiful , folks say that beauty is only skin deep , if so then SJP was born inside out !
Now Katherine Heigl in Grays............doubtless a brilliant actress as well.

I think SJP is about the body , BUT I'm conviced that for the movie, in the finest tradition of Hollywood, they either photoshopped or used body doubles.

sam34

i think SJP is actually quite repulsive looking

i've never gotten the whole hysteria about her

and as for her clothes, some of them are ridiculous and horrible.. i dont undersstand how she is considered a fashion icon

Dr Galen

Ladies Lounge tbh

sam34

Dr Galen wrote: »

Ladies Lounge tbh

ban me for being off-topic so!

i double treble dare ya

Delancey

sam34 wrote: »

i think SJP is actually quite repulsive looking

i've never gotten the whole hysteria about her

and as for her clothes, some of them are ridiculous and horrible.. i dont undersstand how she is considered a fashion icon

+ 1 , I wouldn't use her for practice...........

Dr Galen

sam34 wrote: »

ban me for being off-topic so!

i double treble dare ya

ooooooooo you know what, I'm so tempted. I really am. Your on your last warning missy.

opinion guy

Oh dear God what have I started

sam34 wrote: »

i think SJP is actually quite repulsive looking

i've never gotten the whole hysteria about her

and as for her clothes, some of them are ridiculous and horrible.. i dont undersstand how she is considered a fashion icon

Hysteria ? I've never heard any bloke saying she's attractive. The only hysteria about her is because she was in a show that chicks liked because they talked about shoes and sex....not necessarily in that order. This is old hat now since Eastenders now covers this on a bi-weekly basis and the average Eastender chick is ever so mildy better looking than SJP

Delancey

opinion guy wrote: »

Oh dear God what have I started



Hysteria ? I've never heard any bloke saying she's attractive. The only hysteria about her is because she was in a show that chicks liked because they talked about shoes and sex....not necessarily in that order. This is old hat now since Eastenders now covers this on a bi-weekly basis and the average Eastender chick is ever so mildy better looking than SJP

Have you seen that Glynis Barber that folks of a certain age will remember as the T and A in ' Dempsey and Makepeace ' is now in Eastenders and still looking mighty fine.....slurp !

locum-motion

sam34 wrote: »

ban me for being off-topic so!

i double treble dare ya

It's only mildly offtopic, since the topic is 'Medicine on TV'. SATC and EE aren't medical shows, so let's bring it back to ER, Grey's, House, Scrubs and Diagnosis Murder please!

Why is it that Doctors, Lawyers and Cops get all the TV shows anyway? Where are all the shows about Pharmacists, eh? I mean, it's not as if we're Accountants or something boring like that

Whenever a TV show does feature a phamacist, they're usually comic relief eg. Russell, the Codeine-swigging pharmacist in 2.5 Men who advises Charlie about contraception "who pays alimony to three ex-wives, but not a cent in child support."

sam34

opinion guy wrote: »

Oh dear God what have I started



Hysteria ? I've never heard any bloke saying she's attractive. The only hysteria about her is because she was in a show that chicks liked because they talked about shoes and sex....not necessarily in that order. This is old hat now since Eastenders now covers this on a bi-weekly basis and the average Eastender chick is ever so mildy better looking than SJP

sorry, i meant the hysteria about her that pervades every womans magazine out there

Capt'n Midnight

delancey42 wrote: »

+ 1 , I wouldn't use her for practice...........

Target practice ?


Back on topic

Anyone remember Quincy M.E. ?
remember something about an episode where they figured out the hair colour of a skeleton :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

Tree

anotherlostie wrote: »

My other half says that the only ever realistic interpretation of what hospital life was like was Cardiac Arrest on BBC in the nineties.

Oh i vaguely remember that, it had dr who in it! except old....

Delancey

Anyone ever noticed on cheap Americam made for TV movies that whenever there is a hospital scene the PA system is calling '' Dr Walker please pick up the nearest phone/ go to the O.R. etc/go to the canteen , etc.''
It is invariably Dr. Walker

Anyone else picked up on this.

Capt'n Midnight

Is Dr Walker hospital speak , like the fictional Dr Allcome in Johnny Mnemonic ?