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 love the shows where the patient just got outta surgery and they're laying in recovery...NO side rails, NO O2, NO IVs in site, and the entire family is at bedside. Ive been the one in THAT bed enough times to know that's not how it works.
Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
I was watching an episode of Seinfeld where George was in the hospital for chest pain (which they ruled out it was nothing I believe but he still was admitted to a room had to stay over night mind you) and maybe I couldn't see it right (or I could be remembering wrong) but I swear he had a Foley catheter coming out of his nose!!!!! Maybe it was supposed to be like a feeding tube? But again, he was in for possible chest pain. I just couldn't wrap my head around why they would do that!? I kept yelling at the tv about it bc it was one of the more ridiculous things I've seen and my husband couldn't understand why it was so crazy. Tell me someone else has seen this episode! It's "the heart attack" season 2 episode 11.
Also, in an episode of law and order: svu a detective was questioning an elderly serial murderer for where he hid the other bodies and he had oxygen on because he was sick or dying or something. The murderer wasn't giving it up so the detective grabbed the oxygen tubing and squeezed it off until the murderer couldn't breath at all and gave in! So funny! It was like he was squeezing his airway or something. It was very dramatic.
I haven't read all 19 pages of comments (sorry!) but we just watched an old Criminal Minds the other day where the 'unsub' (perpetrator) keeps her victims paralyzed with nimbex for, like, 2 months at a time, sustained apparently on just normal saline and with NO VENTILATOR! (To be fair, it totally would have ruined the creepy doll-fetish if they'd all had ETTs hanging out of their mouths...)
How about the doctor single handedly doing chest compressions, then grabbing the defibrillator paddles to deliver a shock. Nurse looks on. No other team members needed.
I always just love that! In my facilities it's always the doctor staring watching while doing nothing.
I noticed a hilarious one recently on a re-run of Mom. Christy gets admitted to hospital. There's a monitor in the room, showing heart rhythms, heart rate etc. But she's not hooked up to it!
but wait! It gets better.
Christy sneaks out to go write a test. As she sneaks out of the room... The monitor is still showing her vital signs!
I personally don't watch medical shows except for MASH (my personal favorite "medical" show. I also used to watch some episodes of House, which I always enjoyed when he was personally doing xrays and having the doctors draw blood. I keep telling myself (and others) that it is just a tv show. If it were real life you know the doctors don't ambulate patients ect.
It drives me crazy when I see all these people getting IV injections in some random place in the arm (and sometimes neck) with the syringe at a 90 degree angle! Really? Has no one on the set ever had their blood taken? Maybe it's easier to film...I don't know.
RestlessHeart
60 Posts
I love the shows where the patient just got outta surgery and they're laying in recovery...NO side rails, NO O2, NO IVs in site, and the entire family is at bedside. Ive been the one in THAT bed enough times to know that's not how it works.