Friday, November 07, 2008

You're Kidding Me, Right?

You have to be. You absolutely have to be, because no one in their God given right mind would think that you insert a chest tube into someone's SPLEEN - FOR SHITS SAKE!

Phew...... got that one off my chest. Chest. Huh, funny. That's where that damn tube belonged.

Dr Morris even said it! "5th intercostal space, mid-axillary line." That means 5 rib spaces down from your collar bone and along an invisible line that comes straight down from your armpit.

Um, yeah. Maybe the technical advisers should have listened to the dialog (that doesn't look right - shouldn't it be dialogue? Nope guess not. Spell check says I'm stupid as hell apparently. So anyway........). As Morris is telling Chaz where the tube belongs, he meanders south about 5 inches and puts it in his abdomen. Loser. It's not like they couldn't have faked him putting it in the right spot - they didn't need to pretend the abdomen was the lungs. Sheesh.

Oh! And! (How do you like that rule breaking sentence structure?) When the "blood" was pouring out of the chest tube area - it looked like red tinted water coming straight out of a faucet on high pressure. Whatever. Special effects on a tight budget all of a sudden? Blood does not spray out continuously like a water faucet. I know they can do this right as we've seen it before. Apparently, the special effects peeps have either forgotten the basics of blood spurting or have become so incredibly lazy they figure the general public will believe blood sprays out just like when you're running yourself a nice, cozy, hot bath with bubbles. Maybe they should supply us all with a glass of Chardonnay and a good book to read too.

Now let's talk about the MRI incident. Can I just call a bullshit on that one? Granted, it was funny as hell to see a patient screaming for morphine get their due, but honestly.... the MRI techs would have NEVER let that happen since in the REAL WORLD the techs do the scans and not the doctors/interns/med students.

Moving on to Sam and Gates. Sam gets an A+ for wanting to secure their patient's airway first. A-B-C's. Learn 'em. Know 'em. Follow 'em. Dr. Gates obviously is dyslexic since he follows algorithms backwards. "Naw, we don't need to worry about no stinkin' airway - let's scan his head first! Off to the scanner troops! Move out!" Oopsy-daisy...... airway needed.

And I will give a nickel to anyone who can tell me how exactly a 1% Non-Rebreather is supposed to work. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Mrs Bitchtastic, superheadchief of the ER, apparently has invented a new way of providing oxygen to a patient. For all my non medical peeps out there, a NRB (non-rebreather) is usually run on 10 to 15 Liters of oxygen. Therefore you will receive an order to "place the patient on an NRB at 15L." Ah well - dramatic license and all, eh?

Whatever will I do when this show is over? Thursday nights will be so dull and boring. No one yelling at the TV in my house. No one cussing about portrayals of medical care on TV. Maybe I'll just have to get drunk.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I laughed my ASS off at this post! Because I was screaming at the TV during the whole MR scenario. First, the whole STAT MR Lumbar to r/o cauda equina - I get called in for that ALL THE DAMNED TIME! It is such a BULLSHIT reason, because cauda equina is so frickin rare! And yeah, no way in HELL I'd let ANYONE in my scan room - but even better, when the hell would I ever have a DOC put a PT on a gurney for me and BRING the PT to me?? NEVER! And yes, the metal gurney could have went to the magnet like that, but gravity alone would have had that PT on the floor, not suspended to the scanner. AND I never take a screaming, writhing PT into my scan room - that whole thrashing about thing really screws up my scans! :-)
Whew! I'm with you...what TV show will I be able to scream at when ER is over? Awesome blog - LOVE IT! :-)

LA RN said...

Don't even watch Greys Anatomy. They supposedly pulled a man's femur out of his clavicle (after being smashed in a garbage truck) with a basic face mask on. Before they "pulled" the offending bone out they commented, "Good thing he's unconcious!"

Yikes!

Anonymous said...

i absolutely LOVE reading your blogs. you crack me up =)

-britt.

p.s. just say whatever the fuck you want =) (even if it does contain cuss words.)

Anonymous said...

Remarkable idea