Is 'E.R' the tv show accurate?

Specialties Emergency

Published

Hi,

Do you guys reckon that 'E.R' the tv show is accurate from a nursing perspective? Does it underrepresent nurses? (is underrepresent actually a word? well you know what I mean lol) It does seem to glorify the doctors a bit...

Its not as bad as others

Greys Anatomy definitly does I think.

And predidio med! yeesh!

Whadya reckon?

Jack

I saw that the series on Grey's Antomy of the attendant teaching the intern a lesson and only could imagine a poor nurse spending the whole night giving medicines and doing procedures on a neonate that had no hope of survival only to prove a point???? If a Dr ever did that to me I would return the favor by calling him every 15 minutes during the night for every stupid thing. IE "the patient's blood pressure was low and I can't find the intern. How was I to know he was in the on call room...oops "

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No..not accurate at all. We barely have time to pee yet less contemplate sex in the supply room :chuckle

Ah, but sex in the supply room does happen in real life. At my hospital. Not by me of course. :rolleyes: :chuckle

Sad, but true.

steph

edited to add . . . . read "House of God" for an older look (l970's) at sex between the docs and the nurses, social workers, CNA's, housekeepers, etc.:rotfl:

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No..not accurate at all. We barely have time to pee yet less contemplate sex in the supply room :chuckle

I was thinking about becoming a nurse, but if there is no chance for sex in the supply room... :rolleyes:

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I was thinking about becoming a nurse, but if there is no chance for sex in the supply room... :rolleyes:

Oh don't worry - there is. :D

steph;)

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Specializes in Level III cardiac/telemetry.
I was thinking about becoming a nurse, but if there is no chance for sex in the supply room... :rolleyes:

Or in the call room on a bunk bed! (Gray's anatomy - almost every episode!) I always look for that call room when I'm at the hospital!

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don't get me wrong, i love er, but not one episode goes by without me shouting at the screen. and the docs doing nursing stuff. that has me rolling on the floor. i have never seen a doc give an injection of anything more that local anesthetic, and chest compression, forget about it. in a code in my er the doc may intubate if a paramedic is not there other wise all he does is stand at the head of the bed and give orders. stay over to sit with a dying patient,never.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

And when was the last time you saw an MD start an IV??

Actually, I can remember the last time I saw such a thing: it was when my now 14-year-old son was a baby, admitted for RSV, and every nurse on that peds floor, plus a couple of ER and ICU nurses, had tried to get a line in his chubby little extremities. Finally, his pediatrician came up and deftly inserted the IV on the first try........only to get all bollixed up in the tape. She looked at me, and with a straight face, said dryly as she struggled to secure the line, "Tape is our friend".

Ever since then, that's been one of our family's 'inside' jokes.:D

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Oh don't worry - there is. :D

steph;)

Since I'm a guy, I figured the male/female ratio would at least work in my favor at some point... :devil: but for all the loans I'm gonna' have to take out, it better be some damn good sex!

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I have always loved how they can crack a chicks chest without taking off her bra, much less her shirt.

.... and everybody is always treated and discharged within the 48 minutes of each episode....... really meeses up people's expecations of ER waiting times.:chuckle

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While these medical shows are entertaining, they are not good at representing nurses and what we do. In this time of nursing shortages, it's important that the general public understands that they go to a hospital for "nursing care" not the doctor's care. (They are lucky to see an MD for 10 minutes a day - in many cases).

You might be interested in reading and subscribing to:

http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/media/tv/tv.html

They have some very interesting comments. This is the group that stopped the Sketcher 'Naughty Nurse' campaign and bringing to attention to all some of the poor nurse sterotypes that are replicated to the viewing public.

One of my pet peeves is that you can only find clip art of nurses wearing a nurses hat! (Ah, that's for another topic).

Regards

Ksmith1963

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg.

What really gets to me is when these shows portray the doctor as doing something that is "the nurse's job". Like last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy had one of the doctors "drawing blood" on a patient. HA! That would never happen in my hospital. We are a teaching hospital, and the docs that we have learning would never draw blood on a pt. That's what nurses are for (or lab techs, depending on the policy where you work). I remember one instance (last November) when a doctor wanted a stat PT/INR drawn on a new admit to our med-surg unit, and the nurse was in the room with the doctor. She was preparing to draw the blood, and asked him (the doc) to get her a blue topped tube (she had forgotten to grab one). She even told him where they were ('2nd drawer, right next to him').

What did the doctor do? He walked out of the room, saw three of us nurses charting, and said, "Would one of you nurses out here picking your nose get a blue tube for this nurse in here?" I responded, "sure. Just let me wash my hands first." Grrrr. He's just about the biggest jerk practicing at our hospital.

ANyway, I think that these shows are helping to detract from the role of a nurse in the public's eye. After all, if doctors do all this stuff for patients, why do we need nurses? (tongue in cheek). It also upsets me that they don't have a show about nurses. Nurses go through so much more stuff than docs do, IMO. Plus there is a lot more "soap-opera-type" drama in the nursing world.

Picky

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Specializes in NICU.
ANyway, I think that these shows are helping to detract from the role of a nurse in the public's eye. After all, if doctors do all this stuff for patients, why do we need nurses? (tongue in cheek). It also upsets me that they don't have a show about nurses. Nurses go through so much more stuff than docs do, IMO. Plus there is a lot more "soap-opera-type" drama in the nursing world.

Right, like the storyline they did recently on "Grey's Anatomy" about one of the docs not passing his medical boards. That could have totally been a nursing storyline instead. A bunch of new-grad nurses start at the hospital, maybe spread over a couple of units. One of them finds out she didn't pass her boards, so she has to retake them, and in the meantime, is working as a nursing tech. It's very weird because the started out as graduate nurses together, but now one of them is out of the loop and no one knows quite what to say. They didn't learn IVs in school, so they're trying to get that skill down while the experienced nurses shake their heads, talking about how when THEY went to nursing school, they were practically running the hospital! The new nurses have to deal with their first codes, their first deaths, their first medication errors, their first births, etc. Staffing issues are addressed, as is scheduling things like having to work nights and being exhausted. Things that REALLY happen to new nurses. And as the series goes on, we see them grow into great, experienced nurses.

And fine, if they want to have the nurses trying to hook up with doctors, fine. That actually does happen in the hospital, especially when you've got young nurses and cute residents in their 20's. But as long as the nursing stuff is realistic, and they have nurses on the writing and editing staff...

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