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Recently I had a patient tell me that if CPR was necessary, we would not have to break his wife's ribs because just the night before he watched House, and they just shocked a patient and then she was fine. (would have been funny if it weren't so sad)

What are your favorite medical TV inaccuracies?

I love the CPR with bending elbows, and how patients come out of surgery, still under because of anesthesia, but they're on room air, or maybe a nasal cannula.

I love Freddy Highmore and wanted so much to like this show. I had issues with it on the first episode to the point where I've never watched another one.

YES!! Surgeons in the NICU just having time to sit and rock a baby!?!?

I started watching when I was in nursing school (It was when it started) We were all "ooooh - this is what it will be like!"

At least ER had NURSES that did more than sleep around with doctors (okay, so some of the them did sleep around, but still, they did NURSE work in between all that!)

Specializes in CPN.
I love Freddy Highmore and wanted so much to like this show. I had issues with it on the first episode to the point where I've never watched another one.

Me too! My husband liked it, but I couldn't stand it and had to get up halfway through the second episode. And I'm a big Grey's fan (for the soapy drama), so I can usually put up with stupid tv medical stuff.

Specializes in CPN.

I loved the movie John Q when I first watched it as a kid. Now it's one of the most CRINGE medical movies I've seen. The ticking down of the BP by single digits and if it goes below a certain number he will die. That's not how this works!

I loved the movie John Q when I first watched it as a kid. Now it's one of the most CRINGE medical movies I've seen. The ticking down of the BP by single digits and if it goes below a certain number he will die. That's not how this works!

oooh I loved this movie, now I need to go back and watch it now that I'm a nurse.

Specializes in NICU.
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All babies are born clean & pink right after being delivered. Cooing, eyes wide open & alert, smiling.

I think the youngest "newborn baby" they show appears to actually be 3-4 months old.

Specializes in Addictions, psych, corrections, transfers.

My favorite is when they perform an injection and the effect is immediate. Sometimes they haven't even finished pushing the med before the person passes out. Yeah, because Ativan works that fast and well. I wish! Or they give an IV injection and they have a massive needle injected at 90 degrees that, if it was real, would probably go though through the other side of their arm or hit bone. Cracks me up!

Specializes in Intensive Care and Perianesthesia Care.

I'm personally a big fan of the BVM either hovering over the patient's mouth or just barely touching when the nurse/doc/medic quickly gives breaths

Specializes in NICU.
All My Children, 1970's. Cop is rushed into surgery after being shot. GLASS bottle of blood. Drip...drip...drip...follow the tubing down and it is being infused into his NG.

OMG! I thought these shows had medical advisers?

How stupid can one be? What's worse, civilians watching this think it was perfectly normal for a transfusion to be given through an NGT. .

I can just see them arguing with the medical team who dares to give the transfusion into a vein!

Specializes in Public Health, TB.
My favorite is when they perform an injection and the effect is immediate. Sometimes they haven't even finished pushing the med before the person passes out. Yeah, because Ativan works that fast and well. I wish! Or they give an IV injection and they have a massive needle injected at 90 degrees that, if it was real, would probably go though through the other side of their arm or hit bone. Cracks me up!

I used to say to my family "I don't know what they are injecting that works that fast, but where can I get some?"

Davey, I don't mean she puts it in his AC vein. I mean she jams it straight into the bend of his elbow as deep as it will go, like it's a shot of epi to the thigh.

Also, that scene in Mad Max: Fury Road where he gives Furiosa a direct transfusion of his own blood. A bent, dull needle in a woman who has hemorrhaged heavily, and he hits the vein first try.

Oh, come on!!! Mad Max, Fury Road has some of my faves!!! What about decompressing the tension pnuemothorax with the gear shifter?! Love that movie:)

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