It’s no secret the accuracy of medicine in movies and TV shows is all over the place and while you might spot the odd error yourself, nothing beats watching an actual medical professional tear them apart. This is exactly what Wired did a few days ago, analysing close to 50 such scenes from various sources.
Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, even Seinfeld gets a roasting from surgery resident Annie Onishi. It’s an interesting mix with some being more fair than others. For example, scolding Grey’s Anatomy is fair enough, but Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase in Spies Like Us? I doubt anyone was seriously consulted about medical realism for this one.
House gets some praise when portraying an emergency tracheotomy — Onishi calling it “perfect”. On the other hand, when we get to the subject of House randomly busting into operating theatres:
And check out Dr House’s clothes. First of all, he doesn’t have a [surgical] hat on, second of all he’s in his street clothes… in real life, that guy would have been tackled by about six tiny preoperative nurses far before he got to the operating room.
Informative, funny and entertaining, you couldn’t really ask for more from a clip like this!
[YouTube]