Wayfaring MD

I mean seriously, is anything on tv like real life anymore?

Sure, there were some fairly promiscuous people in my med school class, and there was some medcest going on, but for the most part, we were all studying too much to be gettin busy in the call rooms. While it is true that a few people find their mate in med school, it’s certainly not the majority of people. 

There were always rumors in med school about this resident and that attending, or that student and this resident, or this attending and that nurse, or whatever, and I’m sure some of the rumors were true. When people are around each other ALL the freaking time, there’s probably bound to be some cheating and sexytimes going on. But most of us didn’t have time for that drama. 

It’s about a 3. 

The similarities: 

- real life and House happen in a hospital

- there are patients 

- patients often lie

Um, yup. That’s pretty much it. In real life, doctors stick to one specialty. We’re not all beautiful, especially after 24 hours on call. The puzzles are often less complicated, but sometimes just as hard. Our treatments are rarely effective immediately. And there’s a lot more boring paperwork and procedural stuff that is never shown on tv. 

For more similarities and differences between tv and real life, check my Tv Medicine tag. 

Whoa, I forgot this question was in my inbox. My bad. 

Well, every patient you see is a puzzle. The puzzles range from 10 piece kiddie puzzles to 1000 piece 3D jigsaws. Some don’t require much thought, while others can be very challenging. 

Many patients will have something about their case that makes you go “hmm”. It may be something like “what drug did they overdose with,” “why is their sodium 124,” “what’s causing that weird feeling I get when I talk to the family,” “they’re allergic to every antibiotic I want to give them” or “is this appendicitis or something ovarian”. 

In the hospital, I’d say that maybe 1 in 40 patients is a real head scratcher. In an outpatient setting, it’s less. But almost all patients have some element of mystery. Also, every patient is different, so patient X with electrolyte imbalances may be handled very differently than patient Y with the same thing. That’s where your intellectual challenge comes in to play. 

Regardless of your specialty, you’ll get challenging cases. You don’t have to be double boarded in nephrology and infectious disease (which is totally random, btw) like House to get good cases. 

Hmmm….  I’d probably have to go with Scrubs, mainly because I think I’d totally melt under the pressure of Dr. House’s differential diagnosis sessions and his scathing insults to his team members’ intelligence. Dr. Cox from Scrubs insults people just as much, but it’s just a front, and unlike House, he seems to actually care about his patients. 

I never watched Grey’s, so I got nothing to go on there.

I did watch one episode of Hart of Dixie, and I’m 100% sure I could have handled that small town better than Dr. Hart. 

Unfortunately, I can’t speak for Gray’s Anatomy, because I’ve never watched it (I know, I know). But if it’s anything like every other medical show out there, it’s only loosely based on reality. 

Yes, medical cases like the ones on House do happen in real life, but they are not nearly as dramatic. People don’t get diagnosed and treated for major illness in the span of an hour (usually), and no doctor does everything like House and his team do. I mean, on House, the team is in the lab examining slides and doing their own blood work and such, whereas in real life you would be sitting at a computer hitting “refresh” until the lab results popped up, much like you do when Tumblr is down.

And of course, the illegal shenanigans that take place on House and Scrubs —breaking & entering, switching patient charts, HIPAA violations, doctors working while impaired, etc—get you much more than a slap on the wrist in real life. 

I wish a lot of that stuff was real. Real life goes at a much slower, often more frustrating pace. But I assure you, real life medicine is just as interesting and fun and rewarding as tv medicine (and probably more so).  

For more reasons why tv medicine is different than real medicine, check out these posts.

As for your last question, please know that real life doctors (and people in general) don’t look like they do on TV. But hey, after a 30 hour call when my hair and face have enough oil to run a diesel truck and I smell like C. diff and gangrene, I always feel like 

Hmmm, I think I’d have to go with Dr. Cox, because he seems to actually care about his patients (ever so slightly), whereas Dr. House is in medicine just to solve puzzles.