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 CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I don't get it. What would be the purpose of a tube in the nose like that? (Obviously that's how it landed in this thread, but still!)
I've seen a foley placed in the nose for nosebleed -- you blow up the balloon and it puts pressure on the site that's bleeding. That was a LONG time ago.
In Criminal Minds a woman was dunked in an bleach filled bathtub. She gets pulled out and the ever perceptive Spence gives her milk and tells her it will "coat her lungs" and help protect them.
Oh my gosh...I remember that one! You are so right.
I think there was another episode where Morgan ran up to someone, injected them with something, and brought them back from the dead/almost dead world...I can't remember which episode but I remember thinking "it's a good thing you're hot because that would NEVER happen in real life!" Mmm....Morgan is such eye candy... I digress.
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
.....
And they suddenly wake up after 6 months in a coma (still intubated, not trached), and everyone rushes to the bed to extubate them.
They walk out of the hospital just a few days later suffering no lasting effects of prolonged bedrest, intubation, and the devastating mystery illness that put them in the near-death coma.
Because of the small size, a Dobhoff tube can be left in longer (I want to say like 6 weeks, but don't quote me), and it causes less irritation than a honkin' big NG hose. It's passed farther than a regular NG tube (into the duodenum, I think) to help prevent reflux and aspiration, it has a weighted end to help it "drop", and it has a guidewire because it's so flexible.
The ones I remember were pink like this one, and also this small.
You may be right about it being a dobhoff tube in the episode. I just re watched that clip that was posted. I didn't think of that because ours were a different color (purple) and didn't look like that at the end. Also, where I used I work, our straight foley cath kits had catheters that were that exact color and the end that you held to drain the urine looked exactly like the end that's hanging down around his chest. Same size and everything. Exactly like it! But yeah, for a chest pain patient, a dobhoff tube makes no sense. But if that is what it's supposed to be then that makes more sense than a straight cath hanging out of his nose! Either way, still so funny to me how bad that mistake is.
I've seen a foley placed in the nose for nosebleed -- you blow up the balloon and it puts pressure on the site that's bleeding. That was a LONG time ago.
Kind of like a rhino-rocket? Yeah, I've seen those! I can see where a blown up foley would work! I don't think he had a nose bleed, but who knows! It just seems silly that even a lay person would believe he needed a tube when literally nothing was done to him. He hadn't had surgery or was diagnosed with some crazy illness.
It's a red rubber Robinson catheter taped to George's upper lip. A totally extraneous piece of medically unnecessary equipment for dramatic effect.
In pictures below, Robinson on the left, Dobhoff on the right. (Sorry Jensmom7) but your description and use of the Dobhoff or generically called enteral feeding tube is dead on.
I've seen a foley placed in the nose for nosebleed -- you blow up the balloon and it puts pressure on the site that's bleeding. That was a LONG time ago.
While we're on strange uses of medical equipment. In the movie "Alien" (my personal favorite) when the Synthetic gets its head torn off, the internal connections look like Foleys with the balloon inflated.
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
Aaaaaaah! Bed baths!
Again, back to Seinfeld. George loses the Master of My Domain contest watching the behind the bed curtains silhouettes of the super hot nurse giving a super hot patient a bed bath.
How about the SVU episode where the detective's pregnant wife was in an accident- they had the other detective start an IV before she was extricated and then (who needs spinal precautions after a traumatic accident?) had her pushing in the ambulance!
Yes!! I say that one, and thought the same thing!!!
Watching Parks and Rec right now. Anne is another one of those characters that seems to be super nurse and work in all parts of the hospital. Plus, I feel like all her nursing work is offering pillows and socializing.
Mmmhmm, I wish.
And telling people to vomit. I love Anne Perkins with a firey nursey passion, but seriously? That's what NG gavage is for!!
Mmm....Morgan is such eye candy... I digress.
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
I've seen a foley placed in the nose for nosebleed -- you blow up the balloon and it puts pressure on the site that's bleeding. That was a LONG time ago.