10 ways medical shows screw up life's most predictable
plot twist: dying.
By Marc Siegel, M.D., Men's
Health
1. You're not going to have sex on your deathbed.
Dying is not as sexy as it looks on "Grey's Anatomy" or "ER". A
real nurse is overworked. She's not wearing that tight uniform for
your benefit. Don't push it: You may lose your bedpan or your
spleen.
2. An intern won't save your life.
You'd better hope an intern isn't the one running your
resuscitation attempt or operating on you. Interns even ones who
look like Meredith Grey are not supposed to manage actual
cases.
3. A donor organ won't arrive in the nick of time.
On TV you get the organ of your choice. In real life you grow
weaker and weaker, you try to buy an organ from someone, or you try
to procure one from overseas. You can easily die while
waiting.
4. You may die of something silly.
In "House" and other flashy diagnostic shows, it's always the rare
blood disorder that kills you, but in your own medical drama, it
may be the toothpick you swallowed.
5. You could also die in the E.R.
The waiting time in the small-screen E.R. is short, especially if
you're a guest star. Show up at an actual emergency room and you
could wait in an alcove vomiting blood before anyone notices.
6. Flesh-eating bacteria won't get you.
Sure, just like on Scrubs, there are some bacteria in the world
that can gobble up your skin and threaten your life, but that's why
we have antibiotics. And while drug-resistant bacteria are a
growing problem in real hospitals, they won't consume you.
7. You won't die right away.
Clogged arteries can be bypassed again and again, chemotherapy can
slow the advance of cancer for months or years, and feeding tubes
and respirators are able to do all your eating and breathing for
you. It's only on TV that everything is wrapped up between
commercials.
8. A doctor won't deliver a verdict.
Even if you're dying, statistics show that your doctor may not be
the one to tell you right away. He may not want you to lose all
hope. He may not know how to treat your pain. We doctors are human
and flawed. Most of us are not as bold as Ben Casey or as dewy-eyed
as McDreamy.
9. You won't come back from cardiac arrest.
On TV, Meredith Grey's heart stops beating for over an hour and her
body temperature slips below 90°, yet she fully recovers. Don't bet
on it: Your actual chance of surviving cardiac arrest is less than
18 percent, and brain damage is likely even if you do recover. If
you see ghosts like Meredith does, they're probably real.
10. You may die watching TV.
Being sedentary leads to being overweight, which affects two-thirds
of Americans and endangers their lives in innumerable ways. So if
you want to watch shows depicting illnesses you won't die from, at
least do it while exercising.
http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100177213