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A medical student and some faculty directors at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country, spent an entire year putting together a report on how medical shows on TV are not realistic. For your health! From the Balitmore Sun (via WarmingGlow):
While there might be a lot to love in terms of storytelling when it comes to the medical dramas “Grey’s Anatomy” and “House,” don’t be fooled into thinking you are really learning anything about exemplery medical behavior or real-life ethical decision making by watching the successful prime-time series.
That’s one of the conclusions of a year-long analysis of the two series done by a medical student and faculty directors of the Johns Hopkins Berman Insitiutute of Bioethics, who found that the shows were “rife with ethical dilemmas and actions that often ran afoul of professional codes of conduct.”
Right. Interestingly enough, an informal poll of Grey’s Anatomy and House fans conducted in my imagination found that the number one reason people watched those shows was for their realistic depictions of professional codes of conduct. So this is a real wake up call for sure. Of course, subscribers to Duh Aficionado magazine might wonder whether or not the authors of the review were aware that their findings would end up stating the obvious:
The authors of the review, available online in the April issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics, say they were well aware that their findings would end up stating the obvious. But they nonetheless wanted to provide data that would shed light on the relationship of these depictions on the perceptions of viewers, both health professionals and the general public…
In analyzing the second seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “House,” [Matthew] Czarny counted 179 depictions of bioethical issues, under 11 different topics, ranging from informed consent to organ-transplant eligibility to human experimentation.
Perfect. When you are going to state the obvious, it is important to TAKE YOUR TIME, UP TO A YEAR. And there is nothing more scientific and important than watching the second seasons and ONLY the second seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and House. If anything that is TOO scientific.
Relax, science.
But it also serves as a pleasant reminder that our nation’s leading medical scholars are still basing their avenues of inquiry off of what their student’s girlfriend had in her DVD collection. Thanks, Carol!
I’ve also got Firefly if you guys want to spend a year studying being a nerd.
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Sure, next you’re going to tell me ‘Fringe’ isn’t based on real science.
Shut up, science. Don’t tell me this ain’t real.
Don’t worry barcelona, we all know your love for McDreamy is as real as it gets.
Yay! Just as real as a doctor going by the name McDreamy, I guess. So, very real!
Waitaminit…I saw that guy delivering my pizza. Now he’s a doctor? Talk about not real!
extra anchovies please
Wait does that mean… it IS Lupus?
No, I think it’s MS.
It’s never lupus.
Does that nurse have braces?
It appears so. Maybe the clear ones. Which I guess aren’t that clear.
I meant leg braces. Her posture’s off.
Comedy is all about the timing.
hot, sexy braces.
Why is she a nurse?
She could be a doctor, asshole.
Just kidding, that doesn’t even make sense, are they allowed to go to real doctor school?
My father was an ER doc for 20 years, and he can’t watch Hospital Shows because a) why would anyone watch a TV show about their work and b) they are comedies to him.
You know how we freak out about the “Hacking” in Transformers or Die Hardest 5, or in crime shows when they say ENHANCE? It’s like that for him, except, you know, with blood and stuff.
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To answer part A, Del Preston, people who work in advertising love Mad Men.
But people who work in advertising in the 60′s are baffled by it.
Are people who worked in advertising in the 60′s even still alive? There was a helluva lot of smoking and drinking. Jus’ sayin’.
Well, I think Mad Men might be slightly more accurate depiction of the Ad World than House or ER is of the Medical World. Everything in Mad Men that is Ad-Related is also Plausible, while House (he says) is (apparently) full of pseudo-medicine silliness.
My dad is also basically the nicest, most comforting, most doctory doctor in the whole world. He doesn’t actively act all smug about the shows, he just doesn’t care to watch them. So be nice to my dad, is all.
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I think the difference is that, with Mad Men, it’s a character driven drama set in a golden age of the profession(probably), while with medical shows it’s more of a complete misrepresentation of the field.
I also think it has to do with how (overly) familiar your are with something. My mom doesn’t particularly like Mad Men (Sacrilege!) becuase she grew up in the 60′s & “been there, done that,” though not to the extreme of Sally Draper. The awesome retro feel is not retro to her, but an actual memory.
She’s also a nurse, so doesn’t really like hospital shows b/c when you’re confronted with the reality of something-administration problems, legal regulations like Hipaa- she can’t enjoy the story because WHY ARE ALL THE DOCTORS SCREWING and not operating?! *cough Greys Anatonmy cough*
Which isn’t to say the shows aren’t good, but just so opposing to the reality of it.
Fun fact, the unrealistic Screwing To Operating Ratio is my dad’s second-favorite complaint behind “Why has Dr. House not been sued and/or fired yet”
House as a show is interesting, but whenever I catch an episode, all I can think is why House the doctor hasn’t been fired yet.
Clearly ur dad & I should totally be BFF
Totes
Geez, this has become Mydadgum around here. Sorry monsters.
hey, say hi to your dad. . amiright?
1. I think it’s probably different when your job involves people dying.
2. It also depends on how accurate the thing you’re watching is, and how accurate it’s trying to be. Grey’s Anatomy, which takes itself seriously but is actually ridiculous, might therefore be more cringe-worthy for a doc than Scrubs, which is more ridiculous but is also a comedy so who cares.
3. Again, people dying.
4. Shows and movies that get things wrong are distracting for people. Some of us don’t notice, because we don’t know enough to know it’s wrong. When we do notice, sometimes we find the wrongness itself entertaining, or can look past it because of how good the rest is. Other times, the wrongness is just too distracting, or the rest too bad, to be worth watching.
Thus, I find The Da Vinci Code insufferable but Angels And Demons immensely entertaining. Both are wrong about basically all of history, but the latter is so insane and ridiculous that it’s fun to watch. Ad people tend to like Mad Men because it’s actually not too wrong most of the time, and when it is wrong the rest is good enough to be worth it. Etc, etc, etc.
In conclusion: not liking a show because you smugly find it unrealistic is indeed annoying. But noticing things that are wrong and not finding enough good other stuff in the show to balance out the wrong things isn’t annoying, it’s just how people watch things. Also, watching a show about people dying is less “entertaining drama” when your job actually involves watching people die.
WHAT? Dr. Pepper can still give me prescriptions for Xanax though, right?
so, sometimes I cycle through old posts, just to see if anyone replied to me OR, y’know to check my votes because I’m a narcissist…but …why are there two of these? You got me again Lawnmower man! you got me good.
CSI is still scientifically accurate right? Ok, good.
Put on your sunglasses and find out, “shellbomber”
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Ok, fine. You win this round, science. But I will be damned if anyone convinces me that the X-Files is not seeped in fact and truthiness.
Do you mean the OED’s “truthiness,” or Colbert’s “truthiness”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
Inquiring nerds want to know!
I don’t want to live in a world where the flukeman doesn’t really exist!
Someone downvoted you (flukeman hate?) but I got you back up, as I concur with your statement.
Who could hate the flukeman? Look at him. I want my own pet flukeman.
That was one of the few X-Files episodes I could barely watch. So scary! (Another was the guy who could fit through small spaces. I don’t want him getting into my apartment through my dryer vent!)
What about the one with the inbred family who killed that poor sheriff and his entire family while Adam Ant played in the car radio? That wasn’t traumatizing in the LEAST.
I saw that one at a sleepover hosted by a girl who lived in a giant, creaky, spooky, completely isolated from the rest of the world, farmhouse. So many nightmares.
That creature is the reason I still have trouble using port-a-potties. *shudder*
obviously medical dramas aren’t accurate, but law and order svu is totally based in reality… right?
Next thing you’ll be telling me Dr. Pepper can’t give me anymore prescriptions for Xanax.
Dr. Spaceman still can. He’s working with Dr. Pepper now.
At least we have Dr. Phil to be our fearless leader in the world of television ethics and accurate peer reviewed medical programming.
The Hochiminh School of Medicine is way more prestigious than Hopkins anyways…Hopkins is just jealous.
How many patients died while they were conducting this important study?
But you would not believe all the life skills I learned from watching the ABC’s TGIF block in the 90′s! In an unrelated fact, I got punched in the face a lot in the 90′s!
As an attorney in REAL LIFE, let me spend the next 2 minutes tell you that courtroom dramas are nothing like real life either. In fact, being a lawyer is a boring, tedious profession and that trials are long, pro-forma snooze-fests. The in fact the words ‘courtroom’ and ‘drama’ really should not be used in a sentence together.
Sorry Perry Mason!
That said, I am shopping a TV show called “Oral Argument on a Motion to Compel Discovery.”
HELLO FELLOW MEMBER OF THE BAR!
I literally just had oral argument on a motion to compel discovery this morning and it was TENSE. I, of course, stood up and shouted “J’ACCUSE” and then produced a bloody glove which I threw down like a gauntlet at the other lawyer’s feet.
And thus ends this week’s episode of Legalgum.
I hope you win.
I told a colleague once that I wanted to do a show about appellate practice. Each episode would be an static shot for an hour of an associate typing, only stopping occassionally to sigh, take a sip of water and try to remember what life was like before. Season two would focus on waiting for the opinion. Season Three too (at this point, critics and fans would begin to wonder if the show had lost its magic), but then in season four, the case gets remanded for further proceedings.
I did, in fact, win. I AM THAT AWESOME. Your appellate practice show sounds spot on. Please also make sure the associate intermittently gets yelled at by their boss for various silly transgressions and silently plans murder of said boss… er, I’ve said too much. This conversation is privileged under the message board exception, correct?
You could have one whole season focus on the associate’s draft of a motion that bounces between two partners for “corrections” and it is only during the season finale that you realize that the partners have been CHANGING EACH OTHER’S “CORRECTIONS” BACK AND FORTH FOR MONTHS!
I must go cry now.
Pizza, was the bloody glove in question previously used by a doctor actor on a medical drama to examine a lady on her period?
No, but it was used in a late 60s educational video geared at down’s syndrome children.
Would you mind changing your name to Pizza the Hutt?
That glove has been places! It’s practically a celebrity!
No More questions!
Oral argument on a motion YOUR MOM something something etc.
Can we make Legalgum a regular thing? Just like Submitting Amelia for the WMOAT?
“Oral Argument on a Motion to Compel Discovery” is also the name of my XXX version of your series.
Then we can go to your chambers to review my briefs.
Just kidding. I work for tax attorneys. Videogum is often the only relief I have from the banality of my job. Time to go prepare the Form 433-F for our upcoming Collection Due Process Hearing! Ooh! *tingles!* That would really bring in the ratings!
Don’t you mean ‘Oral Argument on a Motion to CUMpel DICKscovery’? No? Ok.
Another member of the bar here. I have to say that I know partners at large law firms that are basically Denny Crane, but mostly shows like the Deep End are terrible. I spent most of the day drafting a brief on insurance subrogation. woof. #disillusionedlawyermonsters
“Insurance Subrogation”–now that is the XXX version to watch.
As a Millionaire playboy genius I also find the idea that millionaire playboy geniuses only sex on hot women, drink martinis and buy and sell hotels ON A WHIM to be completely absurd.
swimming in the swimming pool on my yacht gets dullsville guys. Videogum is my only escape.
Your other escape is your plan for sexual identity reassignment camps. RIGHT?
sorry but I am (clearly) stuck on this idea. Also on you, Mr. Hausfrau. Also on you.
If only I was a billionaire playboy genius…
I just snorted Dublin Dr. Pepper on my Macbook.
Upvote for Dublin Dr Pepper.
I have a friend that’s involved in a freaking drug trafficking trial right now, and it’s the most boring shit ever. I mean, I always knew that stuff like Boston Legal(which I loved) was not based in reality, but I always thought there would be something interesting happening once in a while.
i had to go to NIGHT COURT recently, and it was nothing like the tv show! I was incredibly disappointed.
I just went to a bar, and it was nothing like Cheers! Nobody said anything funny, and not one of the patrons was a mailman or a psychologist! I did meet a few sex offenders, though.
That 70s Show was not accurate either, as it severely downplayed Topher Grace’s predilection for suxxing buttz.
Upvote for making me sound out “suxxing” in my head.
I think I love you.
I am slowly coming around to your hilarity. First I thought you were a troll, but I’m starting to smile at the butt suxxing. : )
You make me so happy.
Add me to this list of people who love this guy.
I am not won over yet.
YET.
Suxxing aside, That 70′s Show is a pretty accurate portrayal of Wisconsin. Weed, weed, fried cheese, weed, drive to Chicago, weed, etc.
I’m never setting foot in a hospital again! It’s a a house of lies!!!!!!!!!!
My research has shown that, due to the bad academic job market, watching one season of “Jersey Shore” cannot, in fact, substitute for a PhD in anthropology.
Wait. Does this mean Zach Braff isn’t a doctor?
Maybe this is what Scrubs fans needed to finally understand their favorite show sucks.
Pshhh, I didn’t need a study to tell me that! Not since Garden State convinced me to go off all my meds, and then I pushed that kid in front of a subway train.
I still think it was a bit harsh for the authors to conclude that Katherine Heigl was “nevertheless still a cunt.”
I agree with everybody on that topic of Katherine Heigl, but I still think she is pretty. Does this make me a bad person?
Here’s how pop-culture obsessed I am. When I saw the author’s name, Matt Czarney, I was all, what is Logan from the Gilmore Girls doing studying tv???
And for that to make sense, you have to know Matt Czuchry played Logan on the Gilmore Girls. And then you are as sad as me.
oh man. i had almost the exact same though. “what is the xtian kid from a few episodes of friday night lights, who was also on gilmore girls, doing in med school?” suicide pact?
Ha ha guys, HE’S A LAWYER NOW, totally fucking with super-hot Julianna Margulies’ game. Julianna Margulies, you’ll remember, used to be on E.R., a totally unrealistic medical drama. The Circle of Life.
Don’t worry, Pizza, I had the EXACT same thought! I was all “Maybe he decided to leave the showbiz and become a doctor instead! At Hopkins, no less! Kinda like that Can’t Hardly Wait guy that went to MIT! Go Huntzberger!”
Then I realized it was probably not the same Czlettersy guy, and that I was also pathetic!
Yes, but I can still have real sex with real Hugh Laurie and that’s all I really care about.
As a side note, I’m relieved to know that we won’t get eye cancer or uterus monsters from all the aforementioned sex.
In a related article, the same team of doctors watched “Flatliners” for a year and concluded that Julia Roberts is, indeed, the worst.
i like to get stoned and alternate between episodes of CSI and the first 48, where’s my research grant?
At least our love is real…
This study never happened. It was all imagined by an autistic child looking at a snowglobe.
no one is old enought to know what you are referencing.
I do! I do! I was only 2 when that episode aired, but my pop culture references go back far enough that I can pretend I watched tv when I was only a twinkle in my father’s eye.
ugh. i was …older…. but yeah, i’ve watched it on “best last episodes of all vh1 time cowboys pop up-vide!o or something”
I did see the final episode of Newhart which was HILARIOUS because I was watching and loving “The Bob Newhart Show” on Nick at Nite and I turned to my mom and was like, DID YOU GET IT? and she’s like…how did you get it?
Ha. I think you’re right. I should have gone with the Doogie Howser joke instead. The kids love that show, right?
[keels over and dies]
Dreamier than the Bieber!
Sigh…I obviously haven’t posted a picture since the new videogum came out. I currently have no computer at home while I await my new one to arrive and I’ve had to actually work lately at work.
Did it work this time??? Help me internet-machine!!!!
My mistake. Should have just referenced wettrew’s blog….he knows everything! Thanks, wettrew!
Science has really been out of control lately.
This reminds me of this great Mitchell and Webb sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_AmdvxbPT8
On a related note, are there Mitchell and Webb fans up in here?
Isn’t it?
Yes, I love that sketch! And I love Mitchell and Webb. So much. I think there are a few fans ’round these parts, I know that there’s someone called Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, and also someone called BMX Bandit.
I have seen the BMX Bandit but never Sir Digby Chicken Caesar! The fact that he exists on Vgum makes me a little too nerdily excited to be socially acceptable.
Got to renew my subscription to Journal of Medical Doy-thics.
Also there’s a lot less (literal) shit and a lot more (metaphorical) fecal matter in these shows.
next you’ll tell me (insert show) isn’t true to real (insert profession).
WIT!!
Diagramming the grammar of a joke makes me feel more important and smarter than everyone else!
META WIT
Sadly, there’s a notable increase in applications in both medical schools and law schools due to fanship of the dramatized TV shows based on their crafts. Many aspiring lawyers think a working a courtroom is like a day in the shoes of Sam Waterson. Of course, for them, law school quickly snuffs this fantastical flame.
no lawyer’s life is as exciting as jack mccoy
Also, the real-life Captain Kirk mostly does paperwork, and the real-life Starship Enterprise mostly builds tedious Google Maps of gas giants which are not likely to be of interest to anyone. And the real life Spock went blind at 50 from staring into that blue viewmaster, and so he sued Starfleet (see “Lawyers,” above).
That is enough Star Trek for one day. hotspur out.
There is NEVER enough Star Trek for one day.
Once again, science ruins everything.
Also, TV is unrealistic? A form of entertainment that is by and large escapist by its very nature and purpose gets the “reality” of an ultimately tedious and thankless job wrong? Real shocker, that. Thanks, Johns Hopkins. This is a good use of your research money.
I dont like it when people end a sentence with “comma that”. Too british, that. Govnah. Naughty bit o’ crumpet that is, wot.
It is a bit posh, innit?
what can I say, I’m a European.
“I’ve also got Firefly if you guys want to spend a year studying being a nerd.”
Oh my god I would lov…oh. not cool Gabe, not cool.
Inara Serra and Juliet are really distracting me while reading these comments.
man, i’m kind of hating being re-employed. i’m working in a costume shop all day sewing ’til my fingers bleed just so some damn kids will have costumes for their opera and/or senior dance concert. just kidding. i didn’t make myself bleed today. but there’s always tomorrow!
i miss you, videogum!
Man, all I know is that I can’t watch Lost because it completely misrepresents giant sentient pillars of black smoke that shape-shift and judge people’s sins and may or may not be evil incarnate.
Sincerely,
Daniel Faraday In a Tiara
Something tells me this “report” might just have been an extensive plan to watch medical shows for a year…
Ha, probably not. This is big news you guys. Big news indeed.