TV Depictions of Medical Profession a Blunder

You often see him limping through corridors and speaking softly albeit cruelly to his patients. He has that unshaved beard and moustache and always don his all time favorite crane to aide him in walking. He often not the type that wears hospital uniforms and lab coats in his office rather he likes simple jeans, a shirt and a dark coat. He often gives patients candies instead of real medicines. He soundly offers berating comments and arguments on his patients and even on fellow practitioners. Yes. He is none other than your favorite physician, Dr. Gregory House.

Media attention has diverted already from the suspense of the crime shows to the thrill of medical themed programs and House is just a mere product of this diversion. There are other shows that are themed with medicine or the healthcare practice and most of them have a story line that revolves around the characters that are nurses, doctors, and other medical practitioners. This does not include some shows that portray cosmetic surgery like Nip Tuck. House is just one of the many medical themed shows on TV that are mostly loved by fans but often criticized by real practitioners and the print media. Among the famous medical themed shows that portrays the doctors and nurses are Grey’s Anatomy, Nurse Jackie, ER, and Mercy, among others shares the same consequences.

Issues about ethical consideration and professionalism portrayed in these shows stems up like mushrooms and the academe and the media has observed a rather negative view. There are studies and researches about the perception of students and professionals about the said TV shows how it affects the medical profession in reality and how it poses effects to patients.

In 2008, a research was conducted on medical students and nursing students alike to know how the TV series affects their perception of the field of studies they have chosen to continue. The research was conducted by Berman Institute of Bioethics at John Hopkins University showed that 76% of medical students and 65% of nursing students actually watch Dr. House. However, the same survey suggests that many among those interviewed is not happy how Grey’s Anatomy portrays doctors in a rather unprofessional conducts. The study showed the 80% of nursing students and 73% of medical students are tag along the fictional portrayals in the said TV medical drama.

With the said studies that was published in the American Journal of Bioethics made a great impact to students, they again conducted a follow up research just recently to know the glitches in the medical practices shown in the TV programs from the real thing. It was after taking in consideration the fact that the viewers of these programs aren’t just nurses or doctors who can understand the medical terms and ethical procedures but that these are also viewed by patients who does not have any knowledge of the profession at all. They believed that the inconsistencies and wrong portrayals will affect doctor and patient relation.

In the follow up research, they have viewed the episodes of the programs and reviewed the medical depictions and checked whether it really conformed to the real score. They found out that 43% of the shows the characters acted in such a way patterned to the codes of conducts of medical professionals while the 57% was purely out of the mark.

While the defense would be that the TV medical dramas were purely a work of fiction it does not proved that their episodes does not affect patients’ overall perception to medical practitioners.

Interrupted Doctors during Shift and Its Effect

Nowadays there are shortage of both nurses and doctors and this has been noted by various organizations including American Medical Association and the National Nurses Association to have even expanded to irreversible level. But it had been constantly projected that the numbers will never stay on that kind of slope and will somehow, with great positivity, increase in the coming years as many nursing schools and the immigration system of the country will be producing nurses in hospital uniforms. And it is also noted that many Americans are shifting from clerical office to work as nurses in hospitals. Not to mention the job that the new health care bill passed by Congress can make as the law can draw millions of Americans back to their most desired health care services.

From the news about the declining numbers of nurses, there is another study that has been published through CNN Online about doctors. This time these professionals in medical scrubs are again on the hot seat but not because of its population but because of some issues concerning their effectiveness during duty. The study does not aim at criticizing the doctors’ skill in terms of the medical procedures that they perform or their aptitude in terms of the vast knowledge they learned and are putting into practice but on the grounds that there are certain things that supposedly interrupts in their line of works.

Based from the same research, it showed that doctors it showed that doctors on duty are being interrupted in so many ways and most of the time. Such disruptions the study summarizes can affect how the doctors perform their duties and somehow had affected the way and the time they have given to their patients.

From the conducted research by University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales about the behavior of the doctors in a particular emergency department and they found out staggering results. They have observed on 40 doctors in a 400-bed capacity emergency ward for over 210 hours and studied the relevant time and their motions. The study showed that every doctor is interrupted in so many ways about 7 times per hour. And that if there are 10 tasks 1.1 of them is interrupted 3.3% of the doctors studied are interrupted more than once. The study that was published in a journal named Quality and Safety in Health Care expound that 18.5% of those interrupted tasks where not returned on by doctors.

"It appears that in busy interrupt-driven clinical environments, clinicians reduce the time they spend on clinical tasks if they experience interruptions, and may delay or fail to return to a significant portion of interrupted tasks," assessed by the authors headed by Johanna Westbrook as told to CNN.

The bewildering effects of the result of the study are somehow directed not on the doctors but on the patient as time spent on each patient is very important to arrive at a decision that can either help the patient survive or not. Though the study did not mention the specific interruptions doctors encounter it is enough to know that somehow the medical field must be reformed somehow.

Celebrity Nurses

There are nurses and doctors that were made famous by their characters in movies and tlevisions dramas. Dr. House has become a household item and Nurse Jackie has become your mum’s best friend during primetime. But had it come to your mind if there are really actresses or celebrities that really worked as a nurse before they become famous? Scrubs magazine made a quiz about some Hollywood actors and political celebrities who were formerly nurses or have work in a hospital and the quiz made a staggering twist. I was even tricked. So, Google knocked a head out of me to investigate and research if there are really celebrities that once clothed themselves with nursing scrubs and worked in a hospital and alas results were amazing.

Here are some of the famous celebrities who had an actual duty, used nursing uniforms, lab coats, dental scrubs and had care for patients. Let’s try to know them:


Derek Longmuir – He might not be famously known by his name around the world but he is greatly praised as the Bay City Roller drummer. In early 2000, he was even made famous for some child pornography issues and charges who he eventually pleaded guilty with. After his music career ended he was employed as a nurse at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.



Virginia Dell Cassidy – She left William Jefferson Clinton in the custody of his grandparents so she can pursue her study and later earned her a degree in nursing. The mother of Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America was actually a nurse. Too bad her son didn’t make it to pass the universal health care.


Eleanor Rosalynn Smith Carter – There is no clear proof that Mrs. Carter, President Carter’s wife was actually a nurse. But there are many accounts that speak about her championing issues concerning health like the one she is famously credited for – the mental health advocacy.


Walt Whitman – He is known widely in the academe as a powerful poet and history claims him to be an effective soldier during his time. But the most that captured me was his other career; he served as a nurse for his fellow soldiers during the Civil War.


Kate Gosselin – She just starred in the 2009 movie Eight Little Faces and then in 2010’s I just want you to know, Gosselin made it big in Hollywood in her reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 – in where she shares life living with twins and sixtuplets. Kate is a registered nurse and worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Reading Hospital.

Dr. Betty Shabazz – Yes, Malcolm X has been assassinated but Dr. Betty was there to perform CPR on him – thanks to her nursing background.


Bonnie Hunt – According to Wikipedia, Hunt was an oncology nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She surely had a pair of medical scrubs to brag about not to mention her funny punch lines.
Tina Turner – Tina might have rolled out of the river and focused on her singing career that’s why she is now as famous as she is. But she studied nursing and was actually a nurse in a maternity ward while juggling singing at local St. Louis clubs.


Paul Brandt – He’s now a doctor but not of medicine but of divinity. This country singer first donned his nursing uniforms at Alberta Children’s Hospital before making it big in the music field.