Nicholas A. Cunningham
Professor Evelyne Weeks
CRTW 201H-002
3 December 2014
The Unrealistic Expectations of Medicine in Television
Healthcare today is a hot topic of conversation on campus and among the general public and it can be a controversial issue for many. When a person thinks of healthcare and the people and places where the care takes place, however, their perception may be skewed by the version of hospitals and healthcare workers they see on television. Shows like Grey 's Anatomy, ER, Scrubs and House romanticize the hospital as a place of continual social and emotional drama among the staff and patients. While hospital personnel are socializing, patients experience incredible trauma all around them. However, they seem to be able …show more content…
Not so easy in real life. The emergency department in any inner-city hospital is two-fold. There is the part where patients are triaged from accidents, heart attacks or various other serious emergencies and then there is the part that is used like a clinic by a lot of patients who are not able to afford a doctor’s office visit. Unlike the glamour seen on TV, the true emergency portion is a place where, more often than not, tragedy occurs. The clinic is even less glamorous as medical staff treat broken arms, abdominal pain, the flu and other varieties of non-urgent maladies. It is understandable that many uninformed people may believe the televised version of reality. However, the statistical analysis of data from medical dramas and real life, the experiences of medical professionals, and journalism of news media prove that medical dramas influence people 's opinions of the medical field in a way that causes them to have unrealistic expectations as a …show more content…
The attitudes of medical professionals concerning the social interactions of staff members in medical dramas vary, but for the most part real life doctors and nurses see these television dramas as just that--drama on TV. In reality, relationships between doctors and nurses are primarily working relationships and the addition of a personal side to those relationships is not more or less than any other industry. Sharon Imperl, RN, BSN, CEN, CPN, of Scottsdale is not sleeping with each in the hospital she works in. When I worked in a teaching hospital, some relationships developed with the medical staff and the nursing staff. These relationships were always kept private” (Allgeyer). While television portrays more excitement and romance than actually exists in the real world, doctors and nurses can laugh and probably think if only it were really like that in our hospital (Allgeyer). Another medical professional, Dr. Jordan Safirstein, a cardiology fellow based in New York claims that "People have families to go home to" and explained how he “wish(es) it was more exciting and romantic"
Professor Evelyne Weeks
CRTW 201H-002
3 December 2014
The Unrealistic Expectations of Medicine in Television
Healthcare today is a hot topic of conversation on campus and among the general public and it can be a controversial issue for many. When a person thinks of healthcare and the people and places where the care takes place, however, their perception may be skewed by the version of hospitals and healthcare workers they see on television. Shows like Grey 's Anatomy, ER, Scrubs and House romanticize the hospital as a place of continual social and emotional drama among the staff and patients. While hospital personnel are socializing, patients experience incredible trauma all around them. However, they seem to be able …show more content…
Not so easy in real life. The emergency department in any inner-city hospital is two-fold. There is the part where patients are triaged from accidents, heart attacks or various other serious emergencies and then there is the part that is used like a clinic by a lot of patients who are not able to afford a doctor’s office visit. Unlike the glamour seen on TV, the true emergency portion is a place where, more often than not, tragedy occurs. The clinic is even less glamorous as medical staff treat broken arms, abdominal pain, the flu and other varieties of non-urgent maladies. It is understandable that many uninformed people may believe the televised version of reality. However, the statistical analysis of data from medical dramas and real life, the experiences of medical professionals, and journalism of news media prove that medical dramas influence people 's opinions of the medical field in a way that causes them to have unrealistic expectations as a …show more content…
The attitudes of medical professionals concerning the social interactions of staff members in medical dramas vary, but for the most part real life doctors and nurses see these television dramas as just that--drama on TV. In reality, relationships between doctors and nurses are primarily working relationships and the addition of a personal side to those relationships is not more or less than any other industry. Sharon Imperl, RN, BSN, CEN, CPN, of Scottsdale is not sleeping with each in the hospital she works in. When I worked in a teaching hospital, some relationships developed with the medical staff and the nursing staff. These relationships were always kept private” (Allgeyer). While television portrays more excitement and romance than actually exists in the real world, doctors and nurses can laugh and probably think if only it were really like that in our hospital (Allgeyer). Another medical professional, Dr. Jordan Safirstein, a cardiology fellow based in New York claims that "People have families to go home to" and explained how he “wish(es) it was more exciting and romantic"