TV shows, whether they're based on crime investigations, friendship groups or on the lives on those living in Manhattan's Upper East Side, are usually based on some element of truth. But when it comes to medical dramas, many people question how true to life they really are. This question has, over the years, been put to real-life medical professions, producing some rather surprising results.
One of the longest running medical dramas in the world is ER, set in a Chicago-based hospital in America. Although for years it was considered the most realistic due to its popularity, use of medical jargon and highly emotive storylines, many real-life doctors found the programme on of the most inaccurate. Their qualms mainly lie with the unrealistic diagnoses, treatments and recovery times which they claim always come second to a dramatic story.
Similarly, House has been panned by some real-life doctors who say that no-way would a crack team ever focus on just one case at a time. But they did say, however, that it was good to see a show that reflected to complicated and almost impossible task of identifying rare diseases and illnesses, and that the medical world is, like all vast incorporations, dog-eat-dog.
A surprising victory in the world of medical dramas is Scrubs. Doctors say that, despite all the wacky and surreal sketches, the mundane cases and complicated lives as doctors represented in the show are much more realistic than the more dramatised hospital shows. How they handle ordinary cases, the disorder of hospitals and the thoughts and insecurities of interns and newly qualified doctors are much more in-tune with reality than in ER, House and Grey's Anatomy.
But all this begs the question; does any of it really matter? We all know that TV shows are dramatisations of real-life, so despite all the extreme cases, relationships and medical oversights, we still love to watch what life in hospitals might be like.
One of the longest running medical dramas in the world is ER, set in a Chicago-based hospital in America. Although for years it was considered the most realistic due to its popularity, use of medical jargon and highly emotive storylines, many real-life doctors found the programme on of the most inaccurate. Their qualms mainly lie with the unrealistic diagnoses, treatments and recovery times which they claim always come second to a dramatic story.
Similarly, House has been panned by some real-life doctors who say that no-way would a crack team ever focus on just one case at a time. But they did say, however, that it was good to see a show that reflected to complicated and almost impossible task of identifying rare diseases and illnesses, and that the medical world is, like all vast incorporations, dog-eat-dog.
A surprising victory in the world of medical dramas is Scrubs. Doctors say that, despite all the wacky and surreal sketches, the mundane cases and complicated lives as doctors represented in the show are much more realistic than the more dramatised hospital shows. How they handle ordinary cases, the disorder of hospitals and the thoughts and insecurities of interns and newly qualified doctors are much more in-tune with reality than in ER, House and Grey's Anatomy.
But all this begs the question; does any of it really matter? We all know that TV shows are dramatisations of real-life, so despite all the extreme cases, relationships and medical oversights, we still love to watch what life in hospitals might be like.
