Am I Only one who is irritated by doctors and medical shows?

Nurses Relations

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I am not even a nurse yet, but my short time in the hospital as aide made me see how much nurses do and how smart they are about patient care and how little doctors are even around and sometimes honestly they seem to just not get what is actually going on. Sometimes they actually seem pretty clueless...

Yet somehow medical shows continue to portray the situation unfairly. I actually got into a small disagreement with someone about the show scrubs. They said all in all it was one of the better ones, but one of the nurses makes a comment about never going to college (then she couldn't have been a nurse) and their is a particularly irritating scene where a doctor fires a nurse. you also see the doctors sending the nurses to new assignments?

Any way i know it is just tv, but it upsets me because so many people are just ignorant

to what nursing is all about.

I know I was. I wanted to be a doctor mostly because I wanted to challenge gender sterio types, but one stay in the hospital changed my perspective took a 180. the nurses are the ones taking care of the patients!

Any way I don't want to bash doctors but I think maybe we need a new outlook on the way we view the healthcare team.

Specializes in Urology, ENT.

Eh, they're just TV shows. I use to like some of them, but I'm one of those people who will say, "Um...yeah...er, but that's not, but why...oh god I can't watch this anymore."

I think ER was the only one I was able to steadily watch from beginning to end, mostly. Yeah it focussed more on the doctors, but in the beginning, they also looked quite a bit on nurses, nurses unions, and what happens when they aren't enough nurses (...yeah that was was still when George Clooney was still there, I think). It was pretty much hinted that there were other staff, but it's a TV show, and who didn't want to see insert-appropriate-person's-name with his/her issues?

That said, I think it's sad when people who aren't in whatever field (military/medical/police/etc) actually believe everything on television. No, it doesn't take a week for police to solve a murder (I don't care what date you saw on Law and Order), the military doesn't quite work that way, not all nurses are out to live Grey's in real life (I'm sad I'm even aware of that), I'm happy you learned about that thing on House, but please stop diagnosing yourself.

Oh, and OP, you must be from an area similar to mine -- my area doesn't have hospitals with diploma RN programs (I think my state has one, and it's really far). Diploma RNs aren't considered college graduates (my sister-in-law's mother-in-law is one of them and has stated such). To include a bit of trivia, Kate (can't remember her last name) with the 8 kids is a diploma RN, which is how I found out about the diploma thing.

I was just watching Greys tonight...they're in an OR with no nurses, just doctors. Lol

I watched an episode of Grey's last week (I've never watched before).

The show is in it's 8th season.

She put her stethoscope in backwards.

I turned off the television.

The only show I've really ever liked was Mercy. The nurses actually talked about patient advocacy (woah!) and they fought for their patients to get full attention from a doctor. Not that there weren't a few idiotic things on there too, but overall, it was a lot better than most others.

I love the humor in Scrubs, but it's like House in that the MD's somehow do nearly everything in patient care, and the nurses are just usually at the station, behind a computer. I was laughing my ass off when they showed a resident trying to put in a foley. Puh-lease.

I like Grey's because, sometimes, it's entertaining. But there was an episode years ago where the interns were having to obtain a stool sample...really? It's not real life people :)

Still think M.A.S.H. is the best :)

Specializes in Pediatric Cardiology.

I watch(ed) Scrubs, House, Grey's, Nurse Jackie, and countless other medical shows. Yes, they are usually inaccurate but they are entertaining and I still enjoy the medical aspect of it. Some blatantly obvious mistakes occasionally get me riled up though, like the episode a nurse intubated a patient on Nurse Jackie!

Like another poster brought up, medical shows aren't the only career shown inaccurately. All those crime dramas, I imagine cops, lawyers, crime scene investigators are yelling at the TV too!

Specializes in Pedi.

Like another poster brought up, medical shows aren't the only career shown inaccurately. All those crime dramas, I imagine cops, lawyers, crime scene investigators are yelling at the TV too!

You know, I think that sometimes when I watch those shows... and I LOVE those shows, especially the ones set in Boston. The Practice was a favorite many years ago and I currently love Rizzoli and Isles (bought my house from a retired Homicide detective who moved to Hollywood to consult for them)... sometimes even I pick up inaccuracies on those shows (like why is a Boston Homicide Detective investigating a murder in Salem?) so I imagine a cop or lawyer would want to throw the TV out the window, much like I did in the episode where Grey came back to life after being brain dead.

I LOVED LOVED LOVED ER. It's a huge part in why I'm a RN today. It was realistic enough for me. It's TV Drama! Not an educational documentary on how to preform medical procedures. Yeah, it's annoying sometimes watching a doc shock an asystole several times, or watching someone not "clear" the pt and they go flying across the room. HA! (There's actually a video on YT of a doctor purposely touching a pt during a shock and he felt nothing at all) But hey, it makes for good TV...and that is the point, right?

I think Nurse Jackie drug addictions included, is the most accurate medical show I have ever seen. That is not to say it's accurate, just compaired to the crap like House & Grey's it is.[/quote']

I agree. Nurse Jackie is hands down the most accurate medical show Ive seen. Mercy was pretty accurate too but unfortunately didn't last long

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I watch(ed) Scrubs, House, Grey's, Nurse Jackie, and countless other medical shows. Yes, they are usually inaccurate but they are entertaining and I still enjoy the medical aspect of it. Some blatantly obvious mistakes occasionally get me riled up though, like the episode a nurse intubated a patient on Nurse Jackie!

*** What is inaccurate about that? I intubate people regularly and I am just a regular RN, so do my co-worker RNs on the RRT & transport team. We are not APRNs.

I think it's MORE inaccurate when they show the physicians alwasy intubating people. Other than MDAs I have seen physicians intubate people pretty rarely.

Specializes in Pediatric Cardiology.
*** What is inaccurate about that? I intubate people regularly and I am just a regular RN, so do my co-worker RNs on the RRT & transport team. We are not APRNs.

I think it's MORE inaccurate when they show the physicians alwasy intubating people. Other than MDAs I have seen physicians intubate people pretty rarely.

I did not realize nurses could intubate, my mistake.

I did not realize nurses could intubate, my mistake.

I'm about 99% sure a RN should not be doing that....I've never scene anyone but a MD intubate a patient.

Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

It's the SIDE RAILS!!!! That always gets me.

I can handle the O2 tubing wrong. The MD giving meds. Pronouncing med names wrong. Make-up and perfect hair on a dying pt.

I just can't stand the side rails down. It's nursing 101.

Nurses cannot intubate where I work. Must be a facility thing.

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