Doctors on Screen
Dr Claire Brookings is a registrar at St Mary's Hospital, London. She tells thecallsheet.co.uk about the portrayal of Doctors and medicine on screen. Is it authentic and what is the Doctors favourite Medical Drama?
I was asked to write my views on how doctors are portrayed in the medium of film and TV. I am a registrar working at St. Mary’s hospital, Paddington. My speciality is Sexual Health and HIV. I treat anyone who walks through the door. Surprisingly there are not too many TV series based in a Sexual health clinic… personally cannot understand why!
Since qualifying I have done the normal stint of house officer jobs, finishing the day’s “routine” jobs at 3am on my first day. A medical rotation, working a hellish one in four on call. Weekends started on Saturday mornings and ended on Monday evenings. Then medical registrar on call, I was the most senior medical doctor in the hospital at the age 26. Then somewhere along the line a friend of an acquaintance was working in Genitourinary medicine and I thought I would give it a go, I have never looked back.
I was always set to be a doctor, after discounting becoming a harrier jump jet pilot or a Boomtown Rat. Medical dramas have always interested me. Many a happy evening was spent shouting the diagnosis at the screen while watching casualty with my GP father. Many hours of work avoidance, watching diagnosis murder.
Regarding my TV watching, I am a closet Casualty watcher. I need my daily fix of Aussie drama to combat seasonal affective disorder. I have 3 young children so TV is a source of escapism, X factor, CSI Miami. I am ashamed.
I enjoy a range of medical dramas from the extreme to the ridiculous. I do not need total authenticity to enjoy a medical drama until it comes to the diagnosis and management of the patients. Get the drug names and doses right … it matters. Stop using Americanisms. And in a cardiac arrest can we please stop trying to use the defibrillator for a non shockable rhythm. I know it makes for better TV to get out the big paddles, but just have the patient in ventricular fibrillation if you have to. Anyway it’s not nearly so dramatic nowadays with the use of hands free defib pads… I wait with intrigue to the day the Tom-Tom equivalent of the defib machine is used in “casualty”. The electronic lady says “This is a shockable rhythm ….. Please shock now …..” , it ruins the moment.
The best portrayal of British hospitals on TV has to be those written by real doctors. Jed Mercurio created both Cardiac Arrest and Bodies. These are both excellent examples of a doctor’s view of medicine. The internal politics, the fiddling of figures, the coping strategies of the junior team, the dark humour. But saying this, the truth does not always make for comfortable viewing for the general public. In our med school library you could hire out Cardiac Arrest for “learning purposes”. Frighteningly enough as a junior you learnt a lot from it. On of my first ward rounds as a student we found the House officer curled up crying on the floor of the relative’s room. What shocked me was the acceptance by the rest of the medical team, like this was normal.
I do love my job. I love the people I meet. There is such variety of people attending the sexual health clinic from all walks of life. You cannot judge, you really have no idea how someone will react to a diagnosis before you tell them. You have to be personable and adaptable. This part of medicine is so difficult to capture on film.
In a recent fly on the wall documentary one of the nurse’s implied that she loved a “good stabbing”. In that instance it did not come across as cold or unfeeling, though often doctors that are diagnostic driven when portrayed in drama are cold. Most good doctors do like a bit of pathology. It’s interesting; it’s why we went into medicine. If this search for a diagnosis does not thrill us in some way, you would not strive to find it, it would be better for all it you just stuck to the golf course!
“House” has been a runaway success, mainly I believe is the balance of medicine, characters and extreme story lines. House appeals to the medic as he is the kind of doctor we would all like to be, on some days. Saying that, it being an American show you cannot set foot through the hospital door without having a full body scan. And what’s the fun in that?
What is of concern are the unrealistic expectations of the public through watching medical dramas. Cardiac arrests are often unsuccessful, do not resuscitate does not mean do not treat, though to be fair previously it did. Not all surgeons have a god complex and not all nurses are Florence Nightingale.
What is my favourite medical drama? The two that have helped me answer questions in my medical finals. Thanks to Dick van Dyke and George Clooney I qualified as a doctor.
clip from ER