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!! ?
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
I watched Code Black last night with a much-more-critical-than-usual eye after reading this entire thread yesterday. A few things really stood out to my more-acutely-tuned BS meter, but mostly they were things that bothered me before on many occasions. Like the whole "he's crashing!! Start pressors!!!" hysterical verbal order thing. Okay..... which pressors?? What dose? What's the target BP? Where am I gonna run it?
Then there was the seizing patient. I've seen LOTS of seizures in my day - my son has complex partial seizures and has had two generalized tonic-clonic seizures as well- but I've never seen a patient bouncing around on the bed like a frog in a blender. I've also never given an unspecified dose of Ativan to control a seizure into a sternocleidomastoid.
I laughed out loud when Mike looked at a kid's chest x-ray and declared, "There's a small pneumo on the left. He needs a chest tube!" And while he was prepping the kid for a chest tube, Angus muttered something about stridor then looked at the x-ray again and diagnosed anaphylaxis (!!??) He shouted for "1 of epi and some Benadryl" which he then administered direct IV push. Et voilà ! 10 seconds later the stridor was gone and the anaphylaxis reversed. Magic.
Oh, this just occurred to me. Don't you love it when the team (no matter what show they're on) runs a long code, finally obtain ROSC and everybody backs away from the bed while someone says, "He's stable. Get him up to ICU." The bed instantly starts rolling toward the elevator. Sure. Ummhmm.
HD may give us a closer view than the consultant was expecting, but yes, it drives me crazy to see the guy in NCIS or whatever that is about to undergo any autopsy CLEARLY still robustly breathing. I keep thinking "Ekkk....well, this isn't going to end well for some one...."
Don't you hate it when you have to call a new doc in the middle of the night and he sleepily mumbles an order, the entirety of which is "Hunh? Humm, well, OK, why don't you order him some Haldol."
(MD line clicks off as he immediately hangs up.) Oh, "some" Haldol. In that case, the answer to his question is "Because I don't have a medical license, and I'd prefer to keep my nursing one if its all the same to you, doctor." Thinking: great, now we can do all this all over again. Preferably before we have to call the Code ___ (insert agitated - pt/ show of force - alert color of your facility here)
Perky secretary at their group's call center "Hello, what can I help you with?" And you have to say something like "Yeah, see, you'll probably remember I called here about 10 minutes ago. The doc just now gave me a call back and, well, I need to to ask him a couple follow up questions about the 'order'."
Started my career many years ago as an aide in LTC. Strangest thing I have seen happened there: Very elegant aristocratic elderly woman, pt was let's say in her mid 90s. She'd moved several lovely pieces of furniture into her TLC room and it looked like an (admittedly small) room in a castle.
She seemed in her usual good health when she rang for her morning tea - an hour early that day, and drank it while gazing over the photos in her room, no signs of a condition change.
She then carefully set the cup down, folded her hands, smiled, and said "That, was wonderful." And closed her eyes and immediately, peacefully, just expired. Graceful to the end.
My husband likes Rizzoli and Isles. (I don't.) I think, know, my husband just has a crush on Angie Harmon.
One episode Isle's father is shot and taken to the hospital. An of course very upset Isle is asked about making her father a DNR. They go to his bedside and he is on a nasal cannula and talking! Geesh.....yep, stat call for Dr. Kavorkian!
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
Oh, what was I watching the other day where I saw a real clanger? Oh yeah... there was a kid being treated for respiratory distress on NCIS: New Orleans. He was maybe about 10. He was sitting up talking, still in the ER (IIRC) not in the ICU, but the monitor to his right had a PA catheter waveform and a pressure of 15/10. Sure.
I had to come back here and post. Im sitting here watching a show where a woman had triple bypass surgery. This woman is in her mid to late 60s, the picture of health etc. So they take her back to surgery on a narrow gurney, no side rails, no IVs, No "machines" etc.
She comes back from surgery in less than an hour....same bed, same position, NO IVs, NO pumps, NO side rails, nary a wrinkle in a sheet and only one attendant...the doctor himself.
Now, Ive had 30 + surgeries over the years, none cardiac granted...however NO Doctor ever wheeled me back to my room and I know ALL the docs involved personally. I had IV on tops of IVs....catheters, .bed rails, both sides upper and lower and a freakin room full of people I wished would go away and stop telling me to open my eyes etc.
WHO researches these dang shows anyway and why wouldnt they want them to be more life like?
I remember the old TV show M*A*S*H actually DID have a medical consultant MD on the credits. Some of most outrageous occurrences I ever saw occurred on MASH.
I wondered what the h*ll did he do to collect his fees? I want a job like his.
NotReady4PrimeTime, RN
5 Articles; 7,358 Posts
I watched Code Black last night with a much-more-critical-than-usual eye after reading this entire thread yesterday. A few things really stood out to my more-acutely-tuned BS meter, but mostly they were things that bothered me before on many occasions. Like the whole "he's crashing!! Start pressors!!!" hysterical verbal order thing. Okay..... which pressors?? What dose? What's the target BP? Where am I gonna run it?
Then there was the seizing patient. I've seen LOTS of seizures in my day - my son has complex partial seizures and has had two generalized tonic-clonic seizures as well- but I've never seen a patient bouncing around on the bed like a frog in a blender. I've also never given an unspecified dose of Ativan to control a seizure into a sternocleidomastoid.
I laughed out loud when Mike looked at a kid's chest x-ray and declared, "There's a small pneumo on the left. He needs a chest tube!" And while he was prepping the kid for a chest tube, Angus muttered something about stridor then looked at the x-ray again and diagnosed anaphylaxis (!!??) He shouted for "1 of epi and some Benadryl" which he then administered direct IV push. Et voilà ! 10 seconds later the stridor was gone and the anaphylaxis reversed. Magic.
Oh, this just occurred to me. Don't you love it when the team (no matter what show they're on) runs a long code, finally obtain ROSC and everybody backs away from the bed while someone says, "He's stable. Get him up to ICU." The bed instantly starts rolling toward the elevator. Sure. Ummhmm.