How many people watch the TV doctor shows?

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

I do not watch the TV doctor shows on a regular basis, am I missing out?


I sometimes watch House and used to watch some ER but that was it. It all seems way too Hollywood for me.


I do know that it is relevant. I remember reading that someone was asked by Adcom what would they do if they found themselves working under Doctor House. Thoughts?



2

Thomas


I do like House, but that’s pretty much the only thing I like in terms of medical related series. However I stopped at season 3 or so. It has been a long time since I have watched that, and hope to resume sometimes this summer, on vacation or something.


I read a very interesting blog about how these TV shows, namely House MD, impact real medicine with patients that self-diagnose (see here).


Anyway here is another link to a blog on which is the best medical TV show : blog

3

I used to watch House, Grey’s et cetera and once I started school I quit watching or caring. I do like to read non-fiction in regards to medical school, residency and being a physician. I just am not interested in make believe tv shows.

4

I watch them all, but I realize that it’s all just for entertainment. I did think it was interesting that Scrubs was most like real life though!!!

5

I used to watch Trapper John, MD religiously when I was a kid, but I stopped watching medical dramas after the first season of ER - just felt they were too unrealistic (even though I didn’t know many real-life docs). I was definitely in the minority in my grad program, where the other students lived by Grey’s, and it backfired when a major question on an endocrinology exam was directly from the previous week’s House episode! I did start loving Scrubs though, once I recognized so many of my grad colleagues/profs in the characters of Cox, Kelso, and Elliot (both good and bad qualities).

6

I actually like the shows on discovery / discovery health and TLC that were more about real patients and what had happended to them. I think one of the shows was called mystery Diagnosis. There was a also a show that followed around residents at Vanderbilt. That one was pretty good. And my favourite was a Canadian show that followed around medical students and residents at McMaster University that was quite interesting. Weird thing was that I went to McMaster’s mini med school for the public a couple of years ago and one of the surgery residents, now a licensed surgeon, was there to give a talk on lap band surgery. It was interesting.


Lynda

7

My husband thinks it’s funny to watch medical shows with me; I hate it. As a respiratory therapist, I flip out when on House they intubate a patient in 5 seconds while the patient is in a sitting position and then don’t secure the ETT. Or when they extubate someone the minute they awaken from a deep coma (which ALWAYS happens abruptly in real life, right? right??).


Also loved Scrubs, but for the comedy and general Hospital humor.


While in RT school, ER (reputed to make an effort to be accurate with their medical details) seemed to have a reference every week to whatever we happened to be studying in A&P. (“CIRCLE OF WILLIS!!! HE SAID CIRCLE OF WILLIS!!!”)