Ridiculous medical mistakes on TV

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We've all heard it: nurses can't watch medical shows without getting annoyed about how inaccurate they are. Lately, I'm finding that the most ridiculous medical mistakes happen on police procedural dramas (Law and Order, Criminal Minds, etc.); at least the medical shows have people with medical backgrounds advising them.

Anybody have some funny tv medical mistakes to share??

Last week I was watching a rerun of Criminal Minds. The victim had been drugged with haldol by her kidnapper. When the police rushed in to save her, the EMS gave her a bolus of narcan and she magically awoke. It was a flipping miracle!! ?

I was watching reruns on Netflix of CSI:NY and almost stopped watching the show it so aggravated me. They had a guy who died because his wife switched the label on a regular box of chocolates to sugar free and then switched his insulin to sugar water. And of course the guy just keeled over and died from that. I have 2 diabetic kids so this one is a particular pet peeve of mine. Very annoying. Like anyone would die even if they ate an entire box of chocolate with no insulin. It takes much longer to die from noncompliance than a few hours!

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While watching Grey's, I just noticed that Bailey says, "I may be 47 months pregnant..." That's a really long pregnancy!

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.

To show up better on camera?

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Specializes in Telemetry.

You know those people who grab someone and BAM they insert a syringe needle right into a vein to administer their sinister (hee-hee) concoctions all while victim is struggling? Can we hire them to come place IVs cause we have a lot of patients where finding a vein under the best of circumstances is nearly impossible. Cleary we need these criminals to cross over to the good side

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Watching some cop movie from...?...the 70's or 80's. One of the cruisers in on a high speed chase goes over and downhill, and rolls over ...gad....at least 5 times. All the other cops in on the chase run over to the cruiser that is on its roof and they pull their buddy out, saying,"Are you ok?", and when the guy says, "Yeah, I think so," they stand him up!

DUH!

The script-writers must not have known about spinal-cord protocol.

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Specializes in Cath Lab/Critical Care.
It always cracks me up when the physicians yell for a nurse or request something/state an order and the nurse scampers off or quickly states "yes doctor" without further thought. Yeah, okay...it irritates me how they make nurses look like they don't have any brain cells.

The patient's side rails are almost never up in medical shows and I highly doubt the beds are in the lowest position ;)

THIS is the main reason I fought my nurse mother over going to nursing school. I finished pre-med, because I wanted to be the one helping people, not like my (obviously) helpless mom, just looking cute in her white nurse uniform, scampering around for the Dr. But then I gave birth to a preemie, and we spent months in the NICU, and my eyes were opened to what amazing people nurses are, the dedication and hard work and patient education and advocacy. Oh, and autonomous thinking and critical decision making! I went back for my nursing degree, and I've never regretted my choice! And, btw, my family hates watching medical shows with me, I spend the entire time yelling at the TV, lol!

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While watching Grey's, I just noticed that Bailey says, "I may be 47 months pregnant..." That's a really long pregnancy!

She was being sarcastic and threatening her interns. She said "I may be 47 months pregnant and I may be on bed rest, but I'm STILL Dr. Bailey and I will know what's going on here." In all honesty, though, you feel 47 months pregnant by the end of it!

My biggest pet peeve, besides the bent-elbow CPR, was an episode of Desperate Housewives. Not a medical show, but this was a big storyline one season. Susan needed immediate surgery because she had a "wandering spleen which could crash into her heart" so she remarried her ex-husband the day before surgery to get on his health insurance. Don't get me started on her medical diagnosis, but the insurance fraud and pre-existing condition would have been huge problems! LOL.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

There's an episode of SVU where Stabler's pregnant wife is trapped in a car wreck and for whatever reason (been a while) Olivia is the one to crawl in and start the IV, not a medic (already goofy).

She doesn't know how to start an IV, though, so a. they talk her through it (riiiiiight) and b. she inserts the darn thing at a 90 degree angle to Mrs. Stabler's AC. "Way too high an angle" is a common mistake for fictional IV starts, but it was the most ridiculous example I've ever seen. Oh and she gets it first stick, of course.

Somebody needs to tell TV and movie directors that starting an IV is not the same thing as tapping a tree for syrup.

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Specializes in Stepdown, PCCN.

Watching some show with the fam the other night.

They coded a guy "he's in ventricular fibulation" in TV style, stacked the shocks (charge to 50-shock, charge to 200-shock) with no compressions, no meds administered, then tube the guy(no bagging), and began transport because "we have to get him out of here while he's unstable"

Ack!!! Probably the worst TV code I've seen.

How do I make code/nursing accuracy consultant for TV/movies a thing? I would to that job.

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She was being sarcastic and threatening her interns. She said "I may be 47 months pregnant and I may be on bed rest, but I'm STILL Dr. Bailey and I will know what's going on here." In all honesty, though, you feel 47 months pregnant by the end of it!

My biggest pet peeve, besides the bent-elbow CPR, was an episode of Desperate Housewives. Not a medical show, but this was a big storyline one season. Susan needed immediate surgery because she had a "wandering spleen which could crash into her heart" so she remarried her ex-husband the day before surgery to get on his health insurance. Don't get me started on her medical diagnosis, but the insurance fraud and pre-existing condition would have been huge problems! LOL.

Wandering spleen is a real diagnosis albeit rare, has similar symptoms to splenomegaly. I dunno about crashing into her heart but it does show up as an odd mass in the abdomen and requires judicious intervention.

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Wandering spleen is a real diagnosis albeit rare, has similar symptoms to splenomegaly. I dunno about crashing into her heart but it does show up as an odd mass in the abdomen and requires judicious intervention.

This was wandering to the point of crossing from the abdominal cavity into the thoracic cavity to crash into the heart and kill her, as explained by her doc (with whom she'd been flirting) and it was found quite by accident. I WebMd'd wandering spleen, and the ligaments holding it are weak; the TV show said it was completely free-floating all over the place. :)

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Specializes in ER, Med-Surg/Telemetry.

Grey's Anatomy is the worst! Here are my favs:

-the famous precordial thump that works every time

-Meredith magically coming back to life after having been down for EVER

-how the doctors/nurses so seamlessly go from the ER to the OR to the "floor"

-DRs draw labs and start IVs (ha!)

-The 3 pumps displaying "gentamicin" supposedly going into McDreamy after his accident

-how alarms go off whenever a patient gets agitated

-their CPR is terribly slow!

-they give atropine and shock asystole

I could go on!

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