the ER

[avinash]

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Of all things this break, iv been watching ER, and i was wondering if the real world ER is anything like that on the TV series?

 

[cooldreams]

Of all things this break, iv been watching ER, and i was wondering if the real world ER is anything like that on the TV series?

no not at all. a better representation is "Trama: Life in the ER"

however you may want to actually go to one and shadow or something instead... that is as real as it gets... besides having no one but yourself to save someone's life......

 

[Rendar5]

Scrubs is more realistic, honestly. ER takes about an entire week in the ER, squeezes it into 1 hour, adds helicopters falling from the skies and cars driving into rivers, and erases 90% of the non-emergency cases that come in. 1st couple seasons get rid of the excess soap, though.

 

[Siggy]

talking about ER, is there any real ED that does not have a seperate ambulance entrence then the main entrence. It has always bothered me that the patients are met in the lobby...

 

[Rendar5]

I'm not quite sure what bothers you about that. The ambulance entrance is by the ambulance bay. You want regular patients walking through the ambulance bay as ambulances are coming and going? or want highly critical patients rushed around the outside of the building to the main ER entrance?

When an EMT comes running in carrying an asthmatic boy (seen it happen before), I don't want them not being able to take the short route through the ambulance entrance or having to dodge people going through the main entrance.

 

[brats800]

some ER's are VERY much like the show ER...why at the ER i volunteer at, i have this doctor with one arm who is really grumpy...and just the other day a helicopter crashed right outside and exploded, wreaking havoc on our already barely-functional ER...oh wait, nevermind.

 

[Siggy]

I'm not quite sure what bothers you about that. The ambulance entrance is by the ambulance bay. You want regular patients walking through the ambulance bay as ambulances are coming and going? or want highly critical patients rushed around the outside of the building to the main ER entrance?

When an EMT comes running in carrying an asthmatic boy (seen it happen before), I don't want them not being able to take the short route through the ambulance entrance or having to dodge people going through the main entrance.

Every ER I have been in had the ambulance entrence seperated from the lobby. In the show, it seems like the ambulance entrence actually opens up into the lobby and the ambulance patients are taken through the lobby then into the actual ER.

 

[markss22411]

The show has decent entertainment value....definitely not like the ER I shadowed at. Either that, or Chicago is the craziest most violent and screwed up place on the planet.

 

[8744]

I like how sharp all the medical students are on ER. Golly. Some of them know everything, can do every kind of procedure, and are confident enough to argue with their attendings.

For my part, when I get pimped I often just look sheepish or blurt out the first thing that comes to my head whether it is the right answer or not. As for arguing with my attending, maybe if he were blatantly sodomizing a patient in front of me I might politely ask him what he is doing but other then that I pretty much keep my mouth shut and do what I'm told.

I am a fourth year going through the match for Emergency Medicine.

 

[IAMS]

I volunteer in an ER. I've only seen a few episodes of the show (and only in the last few weeks, if you can believe it). I like the show, and they seem to have invested a lot into making a realistic hospital set. The technology (computers, monitors), the needles, supplies, beds, rooms, all very realistic.

The major difference I notice is the staff. In the show, the doctors dominate, or at least the cameras follow them. In the ER I work in, the nurses are the primary people running the show and interacting with patients - the doctors stay in their area at the center of the room - very much out of the way and sight except when something exciting happens - then they call the shots. I bet I might have a different view if I was shadowing the doctors...

 

[8744]

Forget ER, at least that show has medical consultants to "keep it real." My favorite show is Lifetime's "Strong Medicine." Absolutely unrealistic to the point where I am hooked and never miss it. The characters don't talk so much as they exchange liberal platitudes. I love it. I despise all of the characters. Particularly Lana who alway refers to herself in the third person and Dr. Delgado who follows her patients home to make sure they take their blood pressure meds.

 

[Rendar5]

Every ER I have been in had the ambulance entrence seperated from the lobby. In the show, it seems like the ambulance entrence actually opens up into the lobby and the ambulance patients are taken through the lobby then into the actual ER.

oh, sorry. thought you were complaining about real life, not the show.

 

[Handyman2Doc]

I have been volunteering in the local ED recently and after years of watching ER the biggest surprise for me was that there is no dramatic background music popping up whenever a trauma comes in or a patient codes. WTF is up with that? 😕

 

[TomC727]

To be honest, the show ER is a realistic look at Cook County Hospital in the city of Chicago. Now, ER is a lot more dramatic and soap opera like, but for the most part, what you see in ER really happens at Cook County (It is called County General on the show). About the Ambulance bay, I work in a level 1 in the southern surburbs of Chicago and our ambulance bay is the same entrance as the normal public. Cook County hospital is one of the busiest hospitals in all of the U.S. and in the Top 5 in Trauma Centers in the U.S. (if not #1, I am not sure). If you want to learn trauma, Cook County is the place.

 

[Siggy]

I almost can't stand to watch the show now that I have volunteered at a real ED. I keep getting too nitpicky about things that goes on (above ambulance entrence statement. I think I noticed that they had the leads for a 5-lead monitor hooked up wrong on a patient). I've been able to balance that out by looking for the little things they do right, though (useing broselow tape on pediatric patients, or the lighted sytlet for intubations).

 

[Siggy]

To be honest, the show ER is a realistic look at Cook County Hospital in the city of Chicago. Now, ER is a lot more dramatic and soap opera like, but for the most part, what you see in ER really happens at Cook County (It is called County General on the show). About the Ambulance bay, I work in a level 1 in the southern surburbs of Chicago and our ambulance bay is the same entrance as the normal public. Cook County hospital is one of the busiest hospitals in all of the U.S. and in the Top 5 in Trauma Centers in the U.S. (if not #1, I am not sure). If you want to learn trauma, Cook County is the place.

Thx. I was never quite sure about that. I've seen the inside of about 6 ERs in So Cal (volunteering, EMT, etc and none were trauma centers) and all of them had a seperate entrence for the ambulance then for the general public. Now I know that it isn't something screwed up with the show, but something that can be found in real life.

 

[Budder]

Hi, I've worked in an level 1, 2, and 3 ER in the US and outside of the US. The county hospital I worked at in LA is where the show "ER" got it's antics. It was fun to watch the writers come and get ideas from the nurses and physicians. In the end, they turned a simple heart attack into something more glamorized so that the ratings can go up. I've also worked on the set of "ER", and they definitely are more interested in glamour, not reality.

Most of what the physicians do in "ER" is not done by physicians. Nurses do most of the handiwork. And in the show, they LOVE to shock a person without a heart beat. Someone in the health field knows that you NEVER NEVER NEVER do that in real life. But if looks really good on the show.

 

[Doc Ivy]

Forget ER, at least that show has medical consultants to "keep it real." My favorite show is Lifetime's "Strong Medicine." Absolutely unrealistic to the point where I am hooked and never miss it. The characters don't talk so much as they exchange liberal platitudes. I love it. I despise all of the characters. Particularly Lana who alway refers to herself in the third person and Dr. Delgado who follows her patients home to make sure they take their blood pressure meds.

AMEN!!! I hate this show so much I never miss it. Do these women practice medicine or social work. Ridiculous 🙄

 

[avinash]

msnbc has a life or death series that sometimes goes to the ED in hositpals and shows what goes on, and its actual real stuff....

anyone else seen this show?

 

[stoic]

basically the show ER is nothing like a real life ER (even a busy trauma center). one major difference is that the doctors there all seem to go WAY outside of their field of practice in the care they give. and the same doctors always seem to be working/on-call.....

here's a survey of a what i saw not long ago during a 12 hour ED shift:
-between 5 and 8 people with "cough"/bronchitis
-1 cockroach in ear
-3 bone fractures (one wrist, one humorous, one boxers' fracture)
-2 cases pinkeye (from the same family)
-2 migraines
-4 chest BS chest pains
-1 "real" chest pain
-1 new onset afib
-3 n/v
-1 really sick copd'er
-1 "funny discharge from down there"
-and a case of head lice. yes people really come to the ED for head lice.

so as you can see, there are some really sick people in the ED, but there are more not very sick people there.

 

[DrMom]

here's a survey of a what i saw not long ago during a 12 hour ED shift:
-between 5 and 8 people with "cough"/bronchitis
-1 cockroach in ear
-3 bone fractures (one wrist, one humorous, one boxers' fracture)
-2 cases pinkeye (from the same family)
-2 migraines
-4 chest BS chest pains
-1 "real" chest pain
-1 new onset afib
-3 n/v
-1 really sick copd'er
-1 "funny discharge from down there"
-and a case of head lice. yes people really come to the ED for head lice.

Throw in a few low back pain narcotic junkies and that sounds about right.

 

[stoic]

Throw in a few low back pain narcotic junkies and that sounds about right.

lol that's the truth.

i should mention that both of the migraines were most likely seekers. but whatever, it's a community ER so they still give them demerol/vistril and send them home. there were too many other patients to see to worry about giving a junkie one more fix in a lifetime of being wasted.

 

[N1DERL&]

Siggy, isn't UCI a level one trauma center? I also thought Mission was too.

 

[ArcherM2]

The one thing I learned through working in an ED for the past two years is that in real life things go a lot slower. I remember the first code I was in, I was looking around like "wait aren't you guys gonna like crack that guys chest and start massaging his heart?" Fortunately I've learned the routines in the ED and can decipher between people who are really sick and those who are just there because their PMD isn't in at the moment.

 

[UnskinnyBop]

My dad is an ER doctor. When I was in high school, and people found out, they would always be like, "OMG, your dad is an ER doctor? Like on ER?! Does he look like George Clooney? Or Noah Wyle?" Hahahaha. My dad looks like he ate George Clooney. He's super uncool. I think my friends were all disappointed that he doesn't talk about gory traumas all the time, though he does like to yell stuff like, "You better get these dishes done, stat!" which apparently is cool to people who like the show...

 

[leviathan]

Of all things this break, iv been watching ER, and i was wondering if the real world ER is anything like that on the TV series?

Let me just say that the hospital on the show has a dark, dark cloud hanging over its head, as well as the physicians that work there, because of the number of traumas they seem to get every 5 minutes. Even when they're not on shift, they always seem to run into major MVAs, stabbings, cardiac arrests, etc. Also, to be a purist, they call them Emergency Departments, or EDs now, not ERs. In real life, there aren't people dropping like flies all over the city every 5 minutes.

I like the realism on the show, but still notice obvious errors all the time. The one thing that really ticks me off on the show is the annoying family members who are always standing in the resusc. room, watching over the docs, going "OHH no!! WHat's happening? What are you doing? NOOOoo" which I can assume almost NEVER happens in real EDs. 😛

 

[Siggy]

Siggy, isn't UCI a level one trauma center? I also thought Mission was too.

Mission and Western Med Center: Ahaheim are the level 2's. UCIMC is the level 1. I'm a UCI undergrad that hasn't been to either, but has been to St. Jude (EMT Ridealong), another hospital (actually, I don't know what its named, but again, EMT ridealong), Orange Coast (did a mass casualty drill there), Huntington Beach (EMT ER observation), Fountain Valley, and Hoag (CCE volunteer program).

 

[Freakingzooming]

I only started watching "ER" since working in an "ER" or ED if we want to be correct. I'm working at a level 1 trauma center and we don't have a separate ambulance bay but that is us and like every old ED out there.

Things that are very wrong in the show:

- Trauma rooms have their stuff in cabinets... or it seems like stuff is never out in the open. We have 2 trauma rooms and carts full of needles, syringes on hand, it's very cluttered but logically setup. On ER, it seems like they wanted less clutter so everything seems to be in cabinets that are oddly lighted.

-They rarely have downtime. Someone mentioned this already but I couldn't work in an ED where every day was a Code White (ED put on bypass from receiving anymore patients). There wouldn't be any work done. where would be the time for stocking, catching up on the reports. yada yada. I know Cook County is like a virtual war zone but it's never that bad all the time or how they portray it. It more goes in weird trends- like if it rains, it pours. It'll be unbearably busy but for every bad day we'll have an okay day.

- Traumas never come in every 5-10 minutes. Someone else did mention that. Today we had a CA or asystole on arrival but other than that, no real traumas for eight hour shift I worked. For last week, we had like four real 67s and those weren't bad.

-Lessons learned. Sure we seem to run into surprises at the ED I work at but not at the level each resident or attending does in ER. Like the hematoma not detected. if anything, we seem to err on the side of caution. I cant tell you how many CT scans shouldn't have been done but was done for the sake of it.

-Nurses/Techs- Doctors do little to no patient contact outside of traumas. Nurses/Techs are the ones who talk to patients, become advocates for them,

-Family members are never never allowed in with traumas unless Ok-ed. So the sad husband who watches his wife being defribillated? wouldn't happen in real life. he would be talked to by the crisis or social worker.

 

[rachmoninov3]

The most bogus thing about ER is all the interpersonal drama. The #1 way you know that the show is fake is because everyone is so damn serious. Even after some of the worst traumas, there's always a joke or two two be had at the end of shift at all the ERs I've ever worked in.

The medicine in it is generally true, but the types of cases are nothing like real life. As someone mentioned earlier 'ER' generally doesn't show all the drunks, COPD exhaserbations/pneumonias, SBOs, GIBs, and chest pains that at least our ER gets.

 

[velo]

some ER's are VERY much like the show ER...why at the ER i volunteer at, i have this doctor with one arm who is really grumpy...and just the other day a helicopter crashed right outside and exploded, wreaking havoc on our already barely-functional ER...oh wait, nevermind.

my favorite part of that was that he was a surgeon, then he lost his arm, and then they just let him work in the ER...because surgeons can just transfer in like that without doing any training in emergancy medicine 🙄

It was entertaining though! that guy just has bad luck with helicopters...

 

[velo]

The most bogus thing about ER is all the interpersonal drama. The #1 way you know that the show is fake is because everyone is so damn serious. Even after some of the worst traumas, there's always a joke or two two be had at the end of shift at all the ERs I've ever worked in.

The medicine in it is generally true, but the types of cases are nothing like real life. As someone mentioned earlier 'ER' generally doesn't show all the drunks, COPD exhaserbations/pneumonias, SBOs, GIBs, and chest pains that at least our ER gets.

yeah, christ people doctors are people too and a lot of them have a pretty well-devoloped sense of humor...especially in the ED. As other people have mentioned, in a lot of ways Scrubs is actually more realistic than ER

 

[doogyhowser]

at first i thought, "oh god, not another ER thread."

then i realized you guys were ripping the show...that makes me happy.

"ER" is crap. People who like that show probably love "LAX" too...losers.

 

[8744]

-Nurses/Techs- Doctors do little to no patient contact outside of traumas. Nurses/Techs are the ones who talk to patients, become advocates for them,

I suggest you need to hang out in more Emergency Departments. I have done rotations in three EDs, in Shreveport and Baton Rouge, and every single patient is seen by a physician. Usually this is a resident but an attending at least looks in on almost every patient. Occasionally, a patient is seen by a medical student, a resident, and an attending.

There is more to Emergency Medicine than trauma (although this is the coolest aspect of it). First of all, most of the patients at most EDs are not traumas. You also get a lot of serious medical problems like heart attacks, strokes, and the like. On top of this are the serious but not life-threatening health problems which are the "bread and butter" of most Emergency Departments. (Minor lacerations, food poisoning, STDs, kidney stones, angina, etc.) Finally, you get a lot of primary care and family practice type patients as the poor tend to use the ED for all of their health problems.

Nurses and techs are not physicians. They do not diagnose or develop a treatment plan for a patient. The nearest thing to this I have seen is a PA utilized in what is known as "Fast Track" to take care of the sniffles, minor wounds, and other time intensive but non-serious conditions.

As for being an advocate for a patient, folks, the Emrgency Medicine Physician is the best friend a truly sick patient has because he's the guy who's going to fight to get patient admitted. Yes, it is hard to believe but sometimes the on-call surgeons resent being called down at 3AM to admit a patient with an acute abdomen. And I have yet to see an Emergency Physician who is so jaded that he gives substandard care to a patient, even to patients who by their attitude, non-compliance, ignorance would try the patience of a saint.

No cut on nurses or techs intended. The ones I have seen work hard and are absolutely vital to patient care.