Many medical students keep themselves inspired to be aspiring doctors by watching medical dramas. For some, they want to be hardcore surgeon like Dr. Christina Yang or neurosurgeon like McDreamy of Grey’s Anatomy, some people want to be genius diagnostician and physician like Dr. Gregory House and his team, some people want to be emergency medicine specialists like Dr. Luka Kovac and Dr. Abby Lockhart of ER, or cardiothoracic surgeons like those in Japanese Team Medical Dragon. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, in fact, it’s very good to refresh your inspirations.
But beware! Don’t fall for the medical drama too much. They have been portraying doctors wrongly from time to time. Firstly, how come do doctors look like models??! After working 100 hours a week plus the sleep deprivation, they should’ve looked like crap!
Have you noticed that in House MD, the physicians are the ones hang the fluid, wheel the patients for CT or MRI, read the images, do the surgery and performs autopsy? That’s because the director of House MD wanna save some bucks hiring another another 4 different medical personnels to do the job (nurses, radiologists, surgeons and pathologists). Till now I am still wondering how could Dr. Foreman perform brain biopsy when it should be done by neurosurgeons; and Dr. Chase, currently a surgeon, after years of training as primary care physician and diagnostician!
Grey’s Anatomy has too many mistakes! Same issue to save million bucks, the surgeons are the emergency doctors who attend to the emergency department, the primary care physician who make diagnoses, the radiologist who read images, the nurses to wheel patients, hang fluids and chit chat with the patient. Surprisingly, residents can even swap cases! And Dr. Yang can choose cardiothoracic by 2nd year of her training and neglecting other possible surgical rotations!
The truth is that doctors don’t see only ONE patient in one day. They probably see dozens or even hundreds. They do rounds, prescribe meds, do stitches, conference, lunch etc. By the end of the day, the doctor might have forgotten the name of the patients. And probably not much time to chit chat with patients about life or whatever,such as shown in the drama.
The Emergency Room ER drama series; how could paramedic (Dr. Tony Gates) and nurse (Dr. Abby Lockhart) end up being emergency doctors? Hehe, it’s easy. Quit being a paramedic and nurse, go to med school, and be doctors! ER is currently the best picture of how a hospital runs (in my opinion), altho I am really questioning the reality of ER. Is the ER really that chaotic with GSW (Gun Shot Wound) almost every day?
So, watch the series, but verify their mistakes as well. Whichever drama is better, we watch those dramas to keep our inspiration alive on what kinda doctor we want to be, and to escape the monotonous boring lives as doctors/medical students. Yep, that’s the keyword: BORING. Do not expect our lives will be as interesting and as colorful as those in medical drama series. The probably interesting thing is that you’re 40 and you are still unmarried.
