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

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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.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Yeah, it's pretty much an ongoing problem over the years. My personal pet peeve is that most, if not all, medical programs portray the nurse as handmaiden to all. Take a patient to the ED? There's Ms. Nurse.

Same patient goes to OB? Same nurse delivers baby heroically.

Post-delivery, baby goes to NICU? Ms. Nurse on the spot. Also appears on post-partum floor, taking care of mom.

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I wish it would be more realistic as well!

The show Mercy was actually kinda cool. Not the greatest show IMO but cool how the nurses were actually nurses and the doctors were actually doctors.

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I just watched a new medical show called "Monday mornings" or something like that. In the show, the neurosurgeon was doing brain surgey on a child when the patient went flat line. The neurosurgeon cracked open the kid's chest and did open cardiac massage for 15 seconds prior to pronouncing him! Seriously? Doh! I didn't know brain surgeons learned how to crack a chest! Also, they only tried to save the child for a whole 15 seconds! Whatever happened to good old fashioned CPR? I guess it doesn't make for "good TV"! They also need better medical advisors for that show!

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Step-Down.

It's pretty amazing that people think tv shows are similar to reality. My friend is in med school and has not started any rotations yet. A few months ago she told me that she heard Scrubs is pretty close to reality :facepalm:. I corrected her, but she still did not believe me. I figure she will find out the truth soon enough, some things are not worth arguing. I don't agree with how nurses are portrayed in these shows, but many of them are good drama. I do enjoy watching Scrubs, House, and Grey's anatomy for what they are...tv shows. I enjoy the drama in them and laugh at the inaccuracies.

Just the other day I was watching greys and they showed an intern deliver a baby who came out with an APGAR score that I estimated somewhere between 0-2. The intern had no assistance because no other doctors were available at the time. She was freaking out and asked what she should do. One of the nurses (who looked to be about middle aged and probably experienced) replied "You're the doctor, you tell us what to do"...meanwhile the baby is gray, floppy, and not breathing. I got a good laugh out of it. I must say that I am relieved this kind of situation does not happen in real life.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Rehab.

House is the worst for inaccuracies. I love the show but it's crazy that the doctors are all expert nurses, radiology techs, lab techs, nurses, as well as working in every dept of the hospital! I just think its ridiculous!

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Specializes in Med/Surg,Cardiac.
House is the worst for inaccuracies. I love the show but it's crazy that the doctors are all expert nurses radiology techs, lab techs, nurses, as well as working in every dept of the hospital! I just think its ridiculous![/quote']

Agreed! I've seen almost every episode because I love it but yeah... A hospital would pay doctors to give shots and meds? Okk.. However I must agree that if Dr. House showed up at my hospital I wouldn't want to care for his patients. Crazy stuff happens to them. Lol

~ No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent -Eleanor Roosevelt ~

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I wish docs were as involved in patient care as House portrays them to be..

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My job would be so much easier if the doctors were doing absolutely all the work and all I had to do was look cute in nice scrubs.

I don't watch any of those shows.

Why watch the drama on TV when you can go out and live the real drama while getting paid for it?

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Specializes in ICU.

ER was probably the medical show closest to reality, and believe it or not, that show was a huge part of why I decided to become a nurse. Grey's ****** me off the most of all medical shows. Horribly inaccurate. Like when Merideth came back from like. 45 min code talking to everyone. They shocked a systole and never intubated her in that cose.Oh, and when they cut the LVAD, and no nurses responded because they shut the door and said " we got it". Bourse of course was completely out of reality, but the show was great for what it was meant to be.

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It's so annoying when they are inaccurate! Private Practice had a seizure pt and the doc said "give 10mg of Lorazepam IVP" I was like WOW! I've never given more than 2mg to an actively seizing pt. lol. They were serious about stopping that seizure!

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Of course it is true for all TV shows. But I like Scrubs, nurse Carla was intelligent, funny, would tell the doctors what to do, almost the only doctor show I know of that had a strong nurse. But still none of the shows are realistic.

My husband is ex-military. We both go on and on.....Me, "you don't give that drug that way" etc. My husband, "his rank, his "chevrons" keep changing, he has a different rank every time he comes on scene, the army doesn't have such and such, he is too old to be a major, USN/USMC do not salute without their "covers" on, they are too bunched up when they go on patrol , etc.

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