emergency medicine: kinda like an un-funny version of "Scrubs"

Warning: the following is a complete waste of time!

I've always been interested in the social construction of health and disease, the supplanting of religion by science, the perception of healthcare and medicine by society. So it's interesting to see what people assume about you-- good or bad-- when it is revealed that you are a doctor. Also, some of it stems from the fact that so much of your time/development/personality goes into medicine that you can't help but view even your own life through a medical lens. As when JD in Scrubs looks at all of his friends in terms of what's likely to kill them. So, it's fair to say that at times my life does feel like an un-funny version of "Scrubs." (probably something from season 4-- was that the low point or what?). Anyway, interestingly, a survey of the ACP (Internists' professional association) a few years back asked what the most realistic medicine show on TV was. "ER" won at the time, I think primarily because it was the one most watched and most familiar to people. But "Scrubs," a comedy focusing on the absurdity of medicine and the hospital as work-place, came in a close third-- and this was after only one or two seasons...

Maybe because it's so related w/ questions of our own mortality and what it means about how or when we die, everyone has an opinion about everything medical or health related. Especially as we ?finish/enter a acrimonious "discussion" about how we'll be paying for it all-- or not.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/to-die-of-having-lived/

To quote Sir Ken Robinson, "It is one of those things that go deep with people, you know, like money and religion, and other things."

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html


It is a universal preoccupation.

And so it deserves to be mocked.

I think ER in particular lends itself to a certain kind of gallows humor. And also a certain amount of frustration (there are facebook groups "911 is for emergencies" and "being drunk is not an emergency" started by fed-up providers) that is sublimated in this same sense of humor.

So, here are a few of my favorite medically-related comic moments from various internet sources. I'm sure you can think of a few others.


Man Stroke Woman -- hysterical British series starring among others Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame:

ER Gyn exam- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wAYCgqc2uk

"May I be blunt with you?"- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eng-pRT9uA

Breaking bad news - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka0_wc4n8oc

Intimate role-playing, nurse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZIb1VPEpEk


This is a good website where apparently you put in a script and they create a cartoon based on it. This ER patient is a composite (probably) but it's not far off! (thanks Dr. Boddie) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m64cy1MMPg

At big centers, we often refer to patients sent in from outlying (and often smaller and less-resourced) health institutions as being sent from an "outside hospital." As in, "this is a 45 yo M referred from OSH on 11/3/10 for cough w/ a presumptive dx of..." This is a vid from med students out at University of Pennsylvania detailing a few issues w/ some referrals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xskFo75Wdhs

n.b. - "cathing" someone is a procedure that interventional cardiologists get paid a bit for in private practice. The other jokes are quasi inside jokes at the expense of the care providers being commented on. A favorite pass-time in medicine...

The outstanding movie Spies Like Us has hundreds of great moments. One great one is the "doctor" bit in which Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd play spies pretending to be doctors - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPOWpOg0o

Another great moment is when they do a surgery w/o knowing what they're doing, but I couldn't find it apart from in Czech!

The comedian Brian Reagan has a great take on his Emergency Room visit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-JRQXYy9wk

You can always count on Monty Python for good stuff. This Hospital Sketch from "The Meaning of Life" hits the heroism of the hospital administrator on the head - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxOu1DyVQV8&feature=related

The Onion is fantastic for some of my favorite bits:

Preparing for a hospital stay - http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38410

kidney donation video - http://www.theonion.com/content/video/anonymous_philanthropist_donates

an excellent example of the need for "further research" in academic medicine in which studies of the overtly obvious or esoterically irrelevant can be the basis of an entire career -
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/study_multiple_stab_wounds_may_be

Organ and tissue donation, anyone? -
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/medical_miracle_man_lives_thanks to stolen heart

"You are only as old as you feel" -
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/worlds_oldest_neurosurgeon_turns

And finally, a few bits from Scrubs, which thru Season 3 was some of the best stuff on TV (I hear Season 5 picked up a bit) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLGT24NYguM&feature=related

Dr. Cox, my personal hero - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRBq-6lVxzU&NR=1

Good luck!

--andrew s.