What's the deal with the TV show ER nowadays??? :-/

[dksamp]

Hey folks,
Been wantin to get this off my chest...Is it just me or has the TV show ER been going down the tubes lately. Some of those plots are SO FAR from reality, it makes me wonder if they are even using medical consultants that are ACTUALY practicing medicine. This is just a SAMPLING of my beef with ER...

1-Carters "residency" - During carter's residency training, how is it that you never saw him on rotations??? He was always in the ER. Last time I checked, ER residents, in addition to spending time in the ER rotate on a different service every month including (surgery, peds, ICU, etc.) They did not accurately portray his residency experience. Same for the character played by Mekhi Pfeiffer (I forgot his name). I never see him on rotations, yet he is a resident....hmmm :?

2-"Cutting open the chest" - They cut WAY TOO MANY chests open in that ER. If you were to ask any ER doc how many times have they had to crack open someones chest, even the ones that trained in level 1 trauma centers can barely count on 1 hand the amount of times they had to do it. You see, the criteria for cracking open someone's chest is SOOOOO NARROW, that hardly anyone would ever meet that criteria.

3 - Does anybody get admitted?? - You go into any ER, and what you will see is either patients getting either admitted to one of the services (med, surg), or discharged. I never see them call the doctor on call for admission or deal with the associated drama (ex. the doc that does not want to admit when the ER doc feels that he has to be admitted, the doc that takes 2 hours to return a page, etc.)

4 - WAYYY too much "hookin up" going on - There's an old saying in the military..."Don't [poop] where you eat" (edited). I don't know about y'all, but the hosptial would be the LAST place I would want to hook up with anyone. FIrst of all, most folks you will find are married, and thus unavailable. Also, if you DO start a relationship in that setting, you can rest assured, that ALL OF YOUR BUSINESS will be known, and if that relationship fizzles, you still gotta face/work with that individual on a daily basis. The hospital is just not a place that is conducive to that kind of relationship. There are however exceptions.

5 - Too many babies delivered - ANYONE over 20 weeks pregnant goes STRAIGHT to Labor & Delivery without blinking an eye. While all ER's have a "precip kit" that is a kit which has the tools to deliver a baby whose birth is IMMINENT (i.e. crowning upon entry to the ER), I have YET to hear of a precip birth happening in any of the ER's in my area. On the show over the years, they have delivered WAYY to many babies in the ER. That just does not happen in the real world.

6 - Lack of Diversity - if you are trying to portray a REAL LIFE medical center in a major city like CHICAGO, how is it that all you see is mostly White folks and a few token Blacks. All the places I have been to have a strong DESI (that is India or Pakistan) representation. How can this important demographic group be straight-up IGNORED on a TV show dealing with a big city hosptial, and all you see of that population is a petrified med student?

I KNOW I'm being nit-picky and technical (GUILTY-AS-CHARGED) 🙂
but for the hell of it, I just felt the need to vent a little about the INACCURATE portrayal of REAL-LIFE medicine on TV.

Anyone feelin' me on this??

As a side note, WHAT'S THE DEAL with the Desi chick (Nila?) that is a med student on the show? She is straight-up WACK. She has this consistently PETRIFIED "somebodys-gonna-beat-my-azz" look on her face. What's up with that?? I have NEVER seen a 3rd year medstudent as pathetic as her. I'm surprised mode Desi students havent spoken out. Just wanted to bring that up...LOL :?

How do y'all feel about the TV show ER. Don't get me wrong, I still watch it, but just wanted to vent an opinion and get other folks to chime in as well.



PEACE!

-Derek

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[Energon]

totally with you man. I too am surprised at the lack of Desi representation on the show (supposedly a medical drama). Truth of the matter is, I think they have already done everything there is to be done. Story lines are mad weak and medical parallellism is pathetic. The only powerful character that show really had was Benton, the African American dude, I dont think I have ever seen anyone play a surgeon that well.
Truth of the matter is:
Most of TV watching and voting america for that matter is dumb as rocks🙁. People either have some sort of a romanticized idea of medicine or they just watch "Paradise Island" insead. Nobody wants to see the reality of medical life (even the shows that do portray it are relegated to chanells numbering in the 1000's).
The way I see it, ER is either going to end up like General Hospital a soap opera where everyone is either getting laid or dying or get cancelled.

 

[lf777]

Hi

They should rename the show. Maybe "Days of Our Lives Near a Hospital"

lf

 

[Jasminegab]

I've always wondered about that show such as, is it real when you have medical students diagnosing and treating patients with little supervision. Perhaps, I have not gotten that far in my medical education. However, whenever I have been in the ER, I have yet to have a medical student come into the room to diagnose me or come up with a treatment plan for my situation. Most of the medical students that I have run into were with Attendings who were making rounds and asked me if I mind if a medical student observed while he educated them on my condition. Even when I watched the Discovery Health "Truama" I rarely seen a medical student able to have such freedom as they do on ER.

As a first year medical student, I've often wondered if this was real and if so, I better crack open my books more so that when I reach that point in my 4th year, I'll have a heads up. I even decided to put off my ER rotation until the last so that I won't appear lost when time come for me to make my appearance in the ER.

If I'm wrong about any of this, will you senior medical students please correct me.

 

[Doc Ivy]

And Nila is a very inaccurate potrayal of a desi. We don't speak with a British accent.

Uhhh, I thought Neela grew up in England....why wouldn't she have a British accent 😕

 

[Premedtomed]

I know pretty stupid.
Keep moving on my fellow Indians

 

[Calypso]

lol What amused me about the show is the perceptions it created in the viewing public. When I worked for triage registration on midnights in an ER, patients were literally always surprised when I told them there was only one doc on duty to see every patient that came through. Many, many people really do believe there are 5 or so docs running around at all hours of the day and night.....