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How many times have you started watching a medical drama on TV, only to find yourself yelling at the screen because the scenes were so unbelievable and riddled with errors?! Check out some of your fellow nurses’ favorite Hollywood goofs. Which ones drive you bonkers?
10 more ways Hollywood goofs up medicine!
1. I watched an episode of ER where a maintenance guy falls out of the ceiling and onto a guy whose heart had stopped. The patient’s heart starts to beat with no other injuries. REALLY?! Not even a broken rib???
—hawkins bsn
2. I love how they never do CPR right.
—tnnurse07
3. I laugh when the doctors take the patient to the test, and then sit and watch “their patient” in the MRI/CT scanner. Right! Like they would even know what to look for if it wasn’t for the radiology techs and radiologists interpreting for them.
—Jeana
4. I watched House only once, and he had a team of doctors making phone calls to locate the patient’s family. Most of our doctors do not know HOW to dial a phone! I told one of our doctors, “If that happened at our hospital, you would tell me to do it.” He said, “And then you would palm it off on the unit secretary and tell me that you aren’t my private secretary!”
—Sharon
5. I only watch medical shows when I need a good laugh…doctors always being right there when you need them, turning off sinks with their hands, not washing their hands or gloving before touching a patient, going in to tell a family bad news; everyone being on heart monitors, being miraculously better following being shocked and rarely needing to be intubated when they code; nurses having love connections with the doctors, and all the nurses being pleasant, fit and perfect…all the misconceptions. Yet people wonder why our healthcare system is such a mess!
—beliefnhope
6. I love how the docs on House always break into the patient’s house to look for a cause of their illness. I mean, really?
—monica
7. Have you ever noticed the kind of machines they have at the bedside for IV pumps? I have seen feeding pumps and morphine pumps used. I also like not having side rails on the bed at all, let alone not up.
—robin2
8. How ’bout the way they take off their gloves? Always touching the other dirty one? Or how Dr. Coop on Nurse Jackie was dressing a wound on today’s episode? Ha! Yeah, right!
—Jeyssa
9. I stopped watching House a long time ago after he was sick with a BAD cold, sneezing and everything, and walked into a room to talk with a neutropenic child with cancer!
—nancy
10. My biggest pet peeve is when they have the pacer pads/ECG on, doing CPR, it shows a flat line!!! I also saw a show where they were doing surgery on a GSW, and the bleeding got out of control, the monitors were alarming and all they showed was them suctioning the bullet wound! They never opened up the patient! ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!
—maxx
What’s your favorite way that Hollywood goofs up medicine?
