the house effect

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Actually saw an article about this study at my school a week or so back. People need to realize that these shows are just for ratings. Half the stuff in them is made up. My cousin who is a plastic surgery resident despises greys anatomy for its inaccuracies. Much for the same reasons I hated that show trauma.
 
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Rather, she says the high drama in TV hospitals probably does little more than spur dinner-table conversation about the ethics of medicine, possibly including complex topics like end-of-life care and access to health care - "big questions that we face in our society," Faden says. Indeed, to encourage such useful conversation among the public, she and a group of colleagues recently formed an initiative to get TV and movie producers to collaborate with medical ethicists when creating content. "From our standpoint as scholars in bioethics, we see great opportunity," she says. "The thing about scripted television shows is how frequently they appear, coming out 20 and 25 times per year. They engage millions of people around the world, so the opportunity for bringing public attention to these issues is enormous."
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This happens?
 
You'd be surprised how many patients don't have advanced directives if something happens and puts them into a coma. To some extent it's a good thing that these issues are brought out to the public.

On the other hand, the general public are pretty stupid when it comes to these things and I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did think all the docs and nurses slept with each other in the hospital or they myriad of other stupid stuff that goes on in those shows. I actually had a fellow medical student who after a class at the hospital say it was completely different than she was expecting from Grey's Anatomy. All I could think was "are you serious? You actually thought that stuff happens? And you're IN medical school? WTF???" So yeah... these shows are just "shows" it's molds our patients perception of docs and medicine before they even step into the hospital to see us. Kind of unfortunate.
 
Day 1 of my hospital job's orientation the leader person goes "this is not grey's anatomy. there's no McDreamy here, ladies, although there are a few doctors who think they are. sorry guys, you aren't that good looking"
 
This is not exclusive to shows based around medicine. So many people see the world through TV-colored glasses and expect their lives to be action-filled and full of drama.
 
Ischemic said:
it molds our patients perception of docs and medicine before they even step into the hospital to see us. Kind of unfortunate.
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I agree with this. If someone in med school is ethically swayed by television, whether it be House, MD or even CNN, they may need to rethink their faith in media.

I think the biggest impact of shows like this are merely the patient misconceptions of the lives of health care providers/workers.

That being said, I think the stressful environment and long hours has an effect on the subset of workers in hospital environments. I have seen some major drama come out of it. I wonder if statistically this has been shown?
 
Uh...doesn't the end of the article pretty clearly state that this effect doesn't exist in the medical profession?
 
The primary purpose of a TV drama is to entertain, not to educate. I think at best a medical show can call attention to ethical debates and basic health issues, but it is unfair to expect the programme to be a mirror for reality. If you want that, watch a documentary. if we are going to blame fiction for being unrealistic, why do we have fiction at all?

On a tangential note: Last summer I read an short article in Time Magazine (I think) that was sort of about the opposite, how medical dramas through the years reveal aspects of the public's attitudes to and anxieties about health care. I don't remember the article in much detail--and to be honest it didn't go into much--but essentially the shows can be useful for a sort of cultural history-type study of medicine and its public perception. It is true that in cultural history and anthropology there is always a risk of reading too much into art and entertainment, but what medical dramas say of our society's perception of medicine strikes me as an interesting line of study.
 
Those damn Hollywood writers. They should focus on creating more bogus legal and prison dramas.
 
The writers of House have the actors say "adrenaline" instead of "epi". :oops:
 
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I think most people who are going in to the medical field are intelligent enough to understand that the show House has little basis on reality. While it is a decent show, people have to realize that most of the things that are portrayed in the show are fictional and don't actually happen.
 
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house has only taught me that the diagnosis to everything is ALWAYS sarcoidos at some point during the evaluation.
 
I like watching House for two reasons: his behavior and the investigative process he takes to make a diagnosis since after all the character was modeled a bit after Sherlock Holmes.

I've never seen Grey's Anatomy, and I've always assumed it was a chick flick about the people in it and not medical stuff. Trauma was boring to me, the show with the blonde nurse who was in Iraq is boring to me, yet I liked ER because it was entertaining. I also liked Becker because of his behavior which made it funny. I liked Emergency, which is why I went to paramedic school, and Marcus Welby, M.D. :D
 
There are excellent "big picture" questions raised and dramatized by Hollywood shows and I think that they can be jumping off points for conversationns among loved ones and in med school classrooms. (rather than reading a case, why not watch one dramatized by professional actors?)

What do you say/do when your patients asks for help in ending his life?

What do you think about end of life care for yourself, for your own parents or partner?

What would you do as the doctor if two parents can't agree on the care of their premature infant who is unlikely to survive and who may survive but be disabled?

What would you do if you were one of those parents?

How do you handle delivering bad news? Did the doc on TV do a good job or a bad job? Why do you think so?

I've used TV shows as a teaching tool and it is very enjoyable. It is also useful to know what patients are seeing on TV and how it affects their attitudes and beliefs about the success of CPR, the risks of surgery, end of life care, etc. There are also some excellent public health messages that are transmitted through TV dramas (teen pregnancy, drinking/driving, injury prevention).
 
I find their statistics hard to believe - 75% (ish) of med students watch House and Grey's. And 80% of nursing students watch Grey's. Thinking about my classmates, I can't imagine the numbers are that high.

The real problem is that a select portion of the population will think this is an accurate representation of the medical community and may not have respect for it, as Grey's seems more concerned with who is sleeping with who than actual medicine. And House will do anything to prove he is right, even if it's not beneficial to the patient. Plus, every patient House has was previously undiagnosable, implying physicians are unable to do their jobs.

Also concerning is that it gives unrealistic expectations of the medical field. There was an episode of Grey's where like someone was in a river or something for an hour, and because of the hypothermia they were able to revive her and she was home that night, because there are no neurological consequences of no O2 to the brain for an hour.
 
I like both Grey's Anatomy and House. Do I think they're realistic portrayals of hospital life? No. I also don't think Reno 911 is a realistic portrayal of the Reno Sheriff's Department.

It's just a TV show people. I don't understand why it's such a matter for debate.
 
Ischemic said:
You'd be surprised how many patients don't have advanced directives if something happens and puts them into a coma. To some extent it's a good thing that these issues are brought out to the public.

On the other hand, the general public are pretty stupid when it comes to these things and I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did think all the docs and nurses slept with each other in the hospital or they myriad of other stupid stuff that goes on in those shows. I actually had a fellow medical student who after a class at the hospital say it was completely different than she was expecting from Grey's Anatomy. All I could think was "are you serious? You actually thought that stuff happens? And you're IN medical school? WTF???" So yeah... these shows are just "shows" it's molds our patients perception of docs and medicine before they even step into the hospital to see us. Kind of unfortunate.
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My friend thinks all Dr's sleep with each other and mentioned a hospital name when she heard they does. I lol'd. :D
I don't watch any hospital shows... might have watched some E.R. or whatever it was called when i was younger and there was nothing else on haha
 
Badancil said:
house has only taught me that the diagnosis to everything is ALWAYS sarcoidos at some point during the evaluation.
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so true, my friend who is nothing medically related mentioned this and i began to notice it too.
 
casillas said:
so true, my friend who is nothing medically related mentioned this and i began to notice it too.
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Besides just sarcoidosis, he ALWAYS has as his differential: lupus!! Also, anyone notice that almost all his patients always present with the same complications? They always have liver failure, vomit blood, renal failure and pee blood and unexplained cardiac arrhythmias. I know these are all non-pathognomonic symptoms that many patients present with but it's to the point you can probably guess what they're going to have next.
 
Ischemic said:
Besides just sarcoidosis, he ALWAYS has as his differential: lupus!! Also, anyone notice that almost all his patients always present with the same complications? They always have liver failure, vomit blood, renal failure and pee blood and unexplained cardiac arrhythmias. I know these are all non-pathognomonic symptoms that many patients present with but it's to the point you can probably guess what they're going to have next.
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Must be a rheumatologist consulting on the scripts these days. :laugh:

I enjoy reading a blog by the writers of Grey's Anatomy... it is interesting to see the themes that they are trying to develop in each episode.
http://www.greyswriters.com/
 
Ischemic said:
Besides just sarcoidosis, he ALWAYS has as his differential: lupus!! Also, anyone notice that almost all his patients always present with the same complications? They always have liver failure, vomit blood, renal failure and pee blood and unexplained cardiac arrhythmias. I know these are all non-pathognomonic symptoms that many patients present with but it's to the point you can probably guess what they're going to have next.
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If I had a nickle for every time one of House's lackeys found dark-colored urine in the patient's catheter bag...
 
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