realism of scrubs, nip/tuck, and house

BU Medical Sciences
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
R

ronaldo23

The Truth
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
994
Reaction score
0
can someone in detail explain how realistic/unrealistic these shows are to real docs
Members don't see this ad.
 
They're not. I can't go more into detail than that, because I lack personal experience, but the people I've talked to have shouted a resounding "NO!" to that question.

Which is why I'm glad I had never watched any of them before I made my decision to try for Med School.
 
Nip/Tuck not even remotely. The carver? Having sex with pretty much all of your attractive patients? Then again medicine is hardly important to the show at all except to justify the characters lifestyle/income. Some of the bizarre cases are based (note: based) on actual cases, but not many.

Scrubs hits it close in some respects underneath the comedy veneer. Patients die, have permanent complications, doctors struggle and make mistakes. But even then, its very much still a tv show.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
None of them are realistic, but Scrubs and Nip/Tuck are two of my favorite shows on TV. House is just ughhhh I hate that show ! In all honesty, scrubs is probably the most realistic as far as the hospital setting goes ( I worked in an ICU for three months), but of course its over the top and is a little unrealistic in how quickly patients would go from an ER to the ICU in their show. Nip/Tuck is just fake ... but Christian Troy is god (see my below quote). They all make for some good TV though.
 
i enjoy scrubs and niptuck because theyre not trying to tell you this is what the medical world is like, theyre just trying to entertain you. in fact, scrubs every now and then will have a lesson that is valid, but never does the show tell you this is reality or even hint at it.

house and some other shows irk me b/c they give u the impression that its the real world and this is how its done.
 
I'm only a premed because I like Scrubs!!!









just kidding (not that it makes Scrubs any less amazing a show)
 
if you pay close attention to scrubs (especially to what JD says), there is a bit of reality in it. a lot of the lessons he's learned are pretty valid (i.e. not being able to control a patient's outcome, learning to stand up for yourself, loving family/friends). it's not quite realistic in day-to-day situations but there is a bit of truth to it.

house: house is built around all of the super weird cases in medicine. i doubt most physicians would really encounter those kinds of cases on a day-to-day basis (maybe a few times in a career)

nip/tuck: never seen it

grey's: uhhhh....
 
I think scrubs nails the issues of residency for the most part...I definitely think its the closest to reality of any medical show on TV.
 
trying to equate medical shows to actual medicine is like trying to compare 24 to actual homeland security protocol.

these shows aren't unrealistic because of some fault, they're unrealistic to prevent them from boring you to death
 
House: The diseases you see are too rare for most to actually even know they exist. That's the reason why doctors have a bunch of books (or in this modern age, Google & Wikipedia!). Simple things (compared to a typical House, M.D. disease) like TB would never appear appear on the show because everyone's heard of it and there are plenty of routine tests for it. However, as you can see in May, there was a giant uproar when a guy traveled into and out of the country with it.

Nip/Tuck: Never seen it, but definitely doesn't sound like real medicine. Heck, the network it's on screams "fake".

Grey's: Grey's is a primetime soap opera. The number of people who have slept around with each other is amazing. 👎

Nothing you see is "real". Volunteering at a hospital will quickly put that idea out of your mind. Don't expect any ominous music to pop up when a patient comes in either!
 
I love it in House when the doctors go and investigate the houses of their patients like it's CSI or something.
 
trichomoniasis said:
trying to equate medical shows to actual medicine is like trying to compare 24 to actual homeland security protocol.

these shows aren't unrealistic because of some fault, they're unrealistic to prevent them from boring you to death
Click to expand...

Are you inferring that Jack Bauer isn't real? You keep on thinking that right up until the moment that he suffocates you with a plastic bag... or chops off your fingers... or, well, you get the idea :laugh:

Don't try to tell me he isn't real.
 
Those shows are incredibly realistic. Every aspiring doctor should be required to watch them. SIKE.

But I'll second the other post saying that the issues in Scrubs are more realistic than others.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
PermanentWaves said:
I love it in House when the doctors go and investigate the houses of their patients like it's CSI or something.
Click to expand...

That was actually the original pitch for the show. It'd be about a group of doctors who solved cases by not examining the patient and doing tests, but by using advanced CSI like techniques in their environment and detective work. It was kind of the nucleus of the House = Sherlock Holmes idea.
 
PermanentWaves said:
I love it in House when the doctors go and investigate the houses of their patients like it's CSI or something.
Click to expand...

That is because the stories are inspired by investigations conducted by epidemiologists (who often are MDs) who work for what is now called the EIS (Epidemiologic Investigation Service), a division of the CDC. They are called for things like the anthrax outbreak in 2001, or any puzzling cases, particularly when more than one person comes down with the same unusual illness. Often these are infectious diseases but they may be from other environmental causes including chemical exposures.
 
TheRealMD said:
House: The diseases you see are too rare for most to actually even know they exist. That's the reason why doctors have a bunch of books (or in this modern age, Google & Wikipedia!). Simple things (compared to a typical House, M.D. disease) like TB would never appear appear on the show because everyone's heard of it and there are plenty of routine tests for it. However, as you can see in May, there was a giant uproar when a guy traveled into and out of the country with it.
Click to expand...

The thing about House that I truly hate is how unrealistic the hospital's staff structure is. The fellows and attendings do everything - even things that would normally be reserved for specialists. It's like the hospital is too poor to afford a radiologist, pathologist, or any lab techs.

At least in Scrubs, that part is pretty accurate.
 
MWK said:
I think scrubs nails the issues of residency for the most part...I definitely think its the closest to reality of any medical show on TV.
Click to expand...

You probably won't still think so when you get closer to residency. Actually none of these shows has much realism.

Scrubs captures a bit of the verbal abuse residents feel at the hands of attendings, but unfortunately the show undermines it to make Dr Cox too much of a human being at times (bastard attendings are usually bastards for the duration). And the janitors rarely will F$# with the residents, if they even acknowledge each other.

Grey's is painfully fake -- there is a lot less hooking up, and no after shift mid-week drinking in real life for a surgical resident, and you don't stay looking particularly well groomed and made up after an 80 hour work week.

The first season of ER, back when Michael Crichton still had a hand in it, where they followed John Carter's plight as med student, was lauded as more realistic than most shows. The show has long since jumped the shark and become too dramatic and unrealistic.

House is similarly unrealistic and a doctor behaving as he does would not last a week in a hospital and would be sued into oblivion for experimenting on his patients with such regularity. It's also troubling that each doctor on that show seems to be part IM specialist, part surgeon and part radiologist -- there would be vicious turf wars if someone tried to practice in all those fields in real life. However that show is good in that it emphasizes the differential diagnosis, something you will be taught to do.

Nip Tuck is very much a soap opera and flawed for the reasons others have said in this thread. Dr. 90210 is probably a better insight into the world of plastic surgery, but that is a bit too scripted for a reality show.

So bottom line, medicine is nothing like TV. If someone on TV is what you want to be, become an actor. I recommend shadowing in a specialty you might be interested in and see what it's really like. It won't be glamorous, sexy or funny like any of those shows.
 
what's sad is that none of these shows have anything to do with medicine at ALL!! They're all love stories. Especially Grey's anatomy.

Out of all of them, Scrubs is the closest when it comes to being realistic. I think the lessons they demonstrate are more accurate than anything.
 
The fact that these so called physicians especially on House look like they shower and change their clothing on a regular basis is already unrealistic, spend time in a clinical setting and you'll see for yourself what little time for basic hygiene upkeep a lot of docs have.
 
doctortobe2012 said:
if you pay close attention to scrubs (especially to what JD says), there is a bit of reality in it. a lot of the lessons he's learned are pretty valid (i.e. not being able to control a patient's outcome, learning to stand up for yourself, loving family/friends). it's not quite realistic in day-to-day situations but there is a bit of truth to it.

house: house is built around all of the super weird cases in medicine. i doubt most physicians would really encounter those kinds of cases on a day-to-day basis (maybe a few times in a career)

nip/tuck: never seen it

grey's: uhhhh....
Click to expand...

A long time ago there was a thread about which medical show was the most realistic when someone posted how they were asked this question in an interview.

The interviewer told them that SCRUBS was the most realistic medical drama out there.

Although, Scrubs is not always realistic in things like the episode where they are dropping watermelons from the top of the hospital which would probably not happen in real life, they are more realistic in many ways then then other typical TV shows.

Well, for one, they mention and chronicle many real life lessons faced by students such as dealing with the awkwardness of having dated and broken up with one of your classmates, the need to find something to do to relieve stress, standing up to others, the awkwardness when you first learn how to do a patient exam of some sort or another, etc.

They also show the idea of how people usually get together in small cliques in med school in the sense that the 4 or 5 main characters have their own small clique formed.

There are other things they do that are realistic but like any fictional show there will always be an element of some over the top elements that are not true to real life.

Yet, if I had to pick a show as being most realistic portrayal it would probably go to that show.

As far as Grays Anatomy which wasn't mentioned here, that show is very unrealistic except insofar as it shows the kind of long hours that people have to work in the real world of medicine.

House MD, I only watched 2 or 3 episodes of that show and its not all that realistic. ER--- well that is about as unrealistic as it gets.

Other then that the only other real life medicine you'll get is from Discovery Health channel but even those shows are a little over dramatic with that over the top dramatic music and the fact that it doesn't show the day to day stuff just single selected cases.
 
IDdoc2018 said:
The fact that these so called physicians especially on House look like they shower and change their clothing on a regular basis is already unrealistic, spend time in a clinical setting and you'll see for yourself what little time for basic hygiene upkeep a lot of docs have.
Click to expand...

How true!!!!!!!! This was even moreso a true statement when 120 hours was the number of hours in a resident's life. At least now its been reduced to 2/3 the former number of hours for residency. But still, after working a 30 hr. shift I doubt most of them will look as glorified as they show on tv. Just read some of the medical blogs for proof of that one.
 
Jenny83 said:
what's sad is that none of these shows have anything to do with medicine at ALL!! They're all love stories. Especially Grey's anatomy.

Out of all of them, Scrubs is the closest when it comes to being realistic. I think the lessons they demonstrate are more accurate than anything.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think you highlighted the essence of most tv shows in general.

I think most shows wouldn't make it if they were just regular portrayals of real life. THey have to be over the top and dramatic to get reviews. Its the same with all these law shows like the CSI series, law and order, Matlock, The Practice, etc.

However, with the law shows, "The Practice" which used to come on ABC was one of the most realistic shows in that it showed that the bad guys didn't always lose and everything didn't work out how it would in a perfect world. Many times the defense was defending guilty people and actually winning the cases like real life.
 
I don't watch any of these shows, but when I was shadowing at a large hospital in Asia, one of the residents told me that she thought Grey's Anatomy was extremely similar to her life.
 
odddodo said:
I don't watch any of these shows, but when I was shadowing at a large hospital in Asia, one of the residents told me that she thought Grey's Anatomy was extremely similar to her life.
Click to expand...

😵

Man, she got a LOT of "good times" from the docs then. 😱
 
****, I'm moving to Asia for Residency. 😛
 
of course none of these shows are realistic...no show on network television has ever been the least bit realistic. Hell even the Real World is ridiculously far from what real world is like.

You need to watch these shows because they show us exactly what we all want medicine to be like. It would be amazing if I could spend all day insulting the patients (House) while sleeping with every single co-worker (Greys). I could than have a spirited battle with a janitor (scrubs) and then spend the rest of the time seeing women naked (nip-tuck). Also I would save 70000 lives a year (ER), work with a team of hot co-workers (every show) and take prescription drugs constantly (House again). Unfortunately this isn't reality and I'll have to settle with watching them on TV - which I do - every single one of them!
 
One of the biggest discrepancies between these shows and real life is that on these shows the docs do everything from running the MRI machine to drawing blood, and even processing the lab specimens. One of my friends who is a doc joked, "I haven't the slightest clue how to operate an MRI machine." Doctors are rarely present in the X-Ray and MRI rooms. The results now a days get brought up to the docs, or at most modern facilities emailed to them. All the techs run this kind of stuff.

And if you've ever been in an ER, you'll realize that its a TON slower than the ER in TV shows. Except for code blues, there's a lot of waiting, and ho-ing and humming try to decide what the best course of treatment is even in the most serious cases.

I also find it funny that Grey's anatomy is all trauma all the time. Yeah, there are surgeons who just specialize in trauma, but most surgeries are scheduled. The cast has hardly any structured rotation through surgery departments. Oh, and isn't it odd that the surgeons are frequently the first person to evaluate the patient on Grey's. Usually, you see your primary care doc, you get a referral, etc., etc. The character's on that show frequently are doing things that normally the ER doc or the anesthesiologist would be doing (i.e. sticking a breathing tube down a patient's throat).
 
Actually, the one thing I think might be partially true, but everyone seems to deny is the people sleeping around with each other part. I think it goes on much more privately though (and probably never occurs in empty patient rooms...that's grounds for being fired)....I have had several friends who said half the class had slept with each other after the first year of medical school...you stick 150 co-eds in a room together, and don't give them a lot of free time for dating, and they have no choice but to date each other. And I also here of a lot of people meeting in residency and getting married later.
 
well i know with nip/tuck that the plots are very unrealistic i.e. the carver etc, but what about the actual plastic surgery practice? are the actual procedures (which they show graphically) realistically done? can anyone comment specifically on the realism or unrealism of there private practice operation and why?
 
ronaldo23 said:
can someone in detail explain how realistic/unrealistic these shows are to real docs
Click to expand...

Scrubs: each show contains pearls of real, honest-to-God realism shrouded in many, many layers of absurdity. Enjoyable to both healthcare professionals and laypersons, although on different levels.

House: brilliant character drama, medically grounded, logically ridiculous. For each episode a writer essentially identifies some crazy sounding disease/condition and then concocts a retrograde narrative to accomodate it. A decent history and physical exam would solve most of Dr. House's mysteries in 5-10 minutes (yes, I know, then where would the fun be?)

Nip/Tuck: I think Dale Dubin already lived it.
 
i think that scrubs is the most annoying and unfunny show out there. i can't even sit through the dang thing for more than 5 minutes.

surely someone else feels this way, but from what i'm seeing on sdn everyone loves it and thinks that it offers all of these pearls of wisdom about medicine. it's ridiculous.

i'm not saying that any of these other shows are great, but who watches tv to learn about ethics and life lessons? i sure don't. i want to be entertained without the lame jokes and silliness of scrubs.
 
LizzyM said:
That is because the stories are inspired by investigations conducted by epidemiologists (who often are MDs) who work for what is now called the EIS (Epidemiologic Investigation Service), a division of the CDC. They are called for things like the anthrax outbreak in 2001, or any puzzling cases, particularly when more than one person comes down with the same unusual illness. Often these are infectious diseases but they may be from other environmental causes including chemical exposures.
Click to expand...

word. props to epidemiologists!
 
Jolie South said:
i think that scrubs is the most annoying and unfunny show out there. i can't even sit through the dang thing for more than 5 minutes.

surely someone else feels this way, but from what i'm seeing on sdn everyone loves it and thinks that it offers all of these pearls of wisdom about medicine. it's ridiculous.

i'm not saying that any of these other shows are great, but who watches tv to learn about ethics and life lessons? i sure don't. i want to be entertained without the lame jokes and silliness of scrubs.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Scrubs is a great show, albeit an excessive amount of homosexual humor.
 
i have to say house is the worst med show because its not only wrong in its portrayal of doctors but dr. house displays some qualities that are to the point of insulting to real doctors. yes dr. house, you may be smart and cunning but that doesnt mean you always know whats best for your patient. to make this assumption is to give the patient's autonomy a slap in the face. and apparently, being rude and insensitive to your patient is cool.
 
2008applicant said:
i have to say house is the worst med show because its not only wrong in its portrayal of doctors but dr. house displays some qualities that are to the point of insulting to real doctors. yes dr. house, you may be smart and cunning but that doesnt mean you always know whats best for your patient. to make this assumption is to give the patient's autonomy a slap in the face. and apparently, being rude and insensitive to your patient is cool.
Click to expand...

wow im surprised that so many pre-meds hate HOUSE! sure, if you've watched one show you can immediately deduce that it does not accurately portray how medicine is practiced, but thats not the point! dr. house is the greatest character ive ever seen on tv. of course he wouldve been sued about a million times, but it's a tv show. do you think anything on tv will demonstrate real life situations? i watched grey's anatomy once, terrible, basically a chick flick/soap opera with really annoying characters.
 
I think there needs to be a show on TV where they just follow around physicians and show us what life for them is actually like. Of course, because it's TV, they'd pick the most interesting cases or patients to air.



Kind of like Cops. Except it'd be called "Docs". Now that is just genius. Maybe I should drop this whole "pre-med" thing and go into television!
 
if you wanna become a doctor because of these tv shows, might as well work at an "office" as a sales person (that's what i told to my newbie pre-med friend). I mean, what kind of a brain surgeon just walks out of an OR during a brain surgery because her boyfriend's in trouble (referring to grey's)? sO unprofessional...🙄
 
eikenhein said:
What are you talking about? Scrubs is a great show, albeit an excessive amount of homosexual humor.
Click to expand...

I used to like Scrubs when it still had a decent plot. Zach Braff's day dreams are rarely funny to me. I just liked to see how the characters evolved from being lowly interns to full doctors. Honestly, the show should have ended a little while after they finished residency. Now the show just consists of dull soap opera drama.

I absolutely freaking hate Elliot. She annoys the crap out of me. Zach Braff is up there too. Dr. Cox is next line. Heck, all the characters suck.
 
barto123 said:
wow im surprised that so many pre-meds hate HOUSE! sure, if you've watched one show you can immediately deduce that it does not accurately portray how medicine is practiced, but thats not the point! dr. house is the greatest character ive ever seen on tv. of course he wouldve been sued about a million times, but it's a tv show. .
Click to expand...

amen!
 
The first two seasons of SCRUBS deal with real issues. After that its just a drama that happens to be set in a hospital.

House, although my favorite show, is a bit unrealistice for the reasons mentioned above (the characters do ALL the procedures, diagnose by break in and entry, etc). But as LizzyM mentioned it was originally supposed to be a CSI-type show.

Grey's just sucks.
 
GoldShadow said:
I think there needs to be a show on TV where they just follow around physicians and show us what life for them is actually like. Of course, because it's TV, they'd pick the most interesting cases or patients to air.



Kind of like Cops. Except it'd be called "Docs". Now that is just genius. Maybe I should drop this whole "pre-med" thing and go into television!
Click to expand...

try the Discovery Channel sometime.

And as for House- http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html
 
Law2Doc said:
At least House or ER never had a musical episode...
Click to expand...

ohhh, that is the only episode that i have never seen. actually, i just couldnt finish it, i hated it, so turned it off.
 
ronaldo23 said:
well i know with nip/tuck that the plots are very unrealistic i.e. the carver etc, but what about the actual plastic surgery practice? are the actual procedures (which they show graphically) realistically done? can anyone comment specifically on the realism or unrealism of there private practice operation and why?
Click to expand...

Nip/Tuck is probably my favorite show on TV ( it hinders between it and Entourage), but to answer your question about the actual surgery; it has it's up and downs. The standard stuff isn't too unrealistic ( from what limited knowledge I have) the nose jobs, boob jobs, face lifts etc etc. However, a TON of the stuff they do (though they claim it is based on real events) that is absurd. The episode that bothers me the much is the facial transplant. I honestly have no idea how (because they can't atm) they 'would' do a facial transplant, but it can not be how they did it on the show. A few others that stick out in my mind as being laughable are; Escobars facial change, THEN taking his third degree burned face to its orginal perfect form in no time ( my grandfater had third degree burns on his face and had one of the top burn plastic surgeons operate and graphs just do NOT look like that at all). I also hated the episodes involving STD's like HIV and Hep because they completely ignore the fact of the 'window' period (like having Matt tested for HIV like a week after his possible exposure - the standard window time to really be sure is 3-6 months). The stuff with Eva was fairly absurd too, AND (as for other things)... I hate the way they always talk about Julia and medical school. One day she took the MCAT and did better than Sean, but never attended med school, then the next she dropped out of med school, then she 'goes back' but takes Bio 1 at University of Miami, then with 'one year of pre med' saves plane crash victims ... yeah I just never got it. Also, I think it's highly unlikely that Sean and Christian would go to the same undergrad, and get into the same med school ( both at University of Miami) and then Christian would score a surg residency and then some sort of plastic fellowship though he himself said he was in the bottom of his class. I also don't think any surgeon could fix Kit's face into how hot it was uhhh .... the carver cuts left absolutely no scars whatsoever ( I guess this could be debated ) ... I could go on forever. Just enjoy the show though, all in all it is great!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
"Guaranteed quality of life" and attrition
Replies
7
Views
943
lioneljohn
L
D
Lack of volunteering, good hours in research, leadership, and clinical
Replies
4
Views
850
Med Ed
Med Ed
taquitolord
Questions Re: Letter of Interest and Update Letter
Replies
2
Views
642
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
D
Is the time between secondary submission and interview invite indicative of anything?
Replies
5
Views
644
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
DoneDone3451
Timing and Strategy for Sending Update/Letter of Intent for Post II Waitlist
Replies
1
Views
650
AJS59
AJS59
Top