# Awesomely stupid patients on TV medical dramas **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 26, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562 "2009-02-26T21:19:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/21 "2009-02-28T00:00:13Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Please note that I am not referring to awesomely stupid MOMENTS on tv medical dramas. I’m not interested in _House: MD_ showing its title character being able to walk without a limp because he was temporarily pain-free, even though an earlier episode went out of its way to establish that a huge hunk of his right thigh was missing; nor do I mean the incredibly cursed nature of County General on _ER_. > > No, what I’m looking for is patients on these shows who largely bring their suffering on themselves because they lie to their doctors for stupid reasons or do other stupid things. The families of the patients also qualify. Well this week on House there was the clinic patient who was worried about his legs - no matter where he poked his legs with his left index finger, he felt pain, but he hadn’t quite figured out that His left index finger was broken. A few weeks ago, however, there was a case where the patient wasn’t really stupid - she was lying about an important fact about herself because the fact was that she had given birth in secret and dumped the living baby . Even at death’s door I can imagine someone not wanting her family to know that. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/22 "2009-02-28T00:46:30Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > They believed the disease was sent from their deity, and so had never tried to develop any treatments for it. Normally it only affected colony worlds, but this time had spread to the homeworld and all outposts. The aliens secluded themselves in an attempt to ‘atone’ for whatever had brought this on them. Needless to say, it didn’t help. > > There’s a brilliant scene where Lenier and Delenn (who joined the seclusion to provide guidance and comfort) emerge, leaving nothing but dead bodies behind them. Not exactly. I remember it like this: centuries before on their homeworld, a group of freethinkers- the local equivalent of bohemians, radicals, parasexuals and whatnot- had said “F-U” to the moralistic predominant culture, and established their own progressive society on a island that was only accessable half the year due to sea conditions. One year sailors went out to the island at the start of the trade season, and found everyone on the island dead. Written accounts left behind detailed how a plague had devestated the island. The mainland culture declared that the plague had been God’s punishment for their sinful ways, and it became an iconic myth in their society, sort of like if a disease with specific tell-tale symptoms had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Except that that wasn’t the only instance of the plague. Isolated instances of it popped up from time to time, and such was the shame and stigma of it that it was invariably covered up by “respectable” people. Fast forward to the time of B5, and this time interstellar trade meant that if not quarantined the disease would spread like wildfire. But the authorities stuck their heads in the sand and presumed that penitence and prayer would spare them God’s wrath. It didn’t. The analogy to AIDS was pointed and deliberate. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/23 "2009-02-28T00:57:36Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > On another episode, a father, when asked whether he had ever been out of the country, deliberately did not mention spending 2 years in India because he did not wish to admit to having been scammed by a guru. His time in India was relevant because he had slow-acting leprosy and had unknowingly passed it on the patient fo the week, his son. At the end of the episode, the kid is naturally filled with rage This irritated me because is highly unrealistic. Yeah, I’m sure the show plays fast and loose. But Leprosy is a very slow-acting anyway. It would not affect someone just a few years after catching it. It usually lies dormant all the way from childhood to adulthood, so the kind wouldn’t have had it, either. Finally, it doesn’t cause pain, exactly: it causes nerve damage leading to numbness. (This, in bad situations, is what leads to skin damage and extremity loss). ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/24 "2009-02-28T01:18:30Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > A few weeks ago, however, there was a case where the patient wasn’t really stupid - she was lying about an important fact about herself because the fact was that she had given birth in secret and dumped the living baby . Even at death’s door I can imagine someone not wanting her family to know that. THAT one does make sense. I haven’t watched the show often but IIRC episodes I have seen before had patients lying about things like abusing prescription medication, engaging in risky sexual practices, or having plastic surgery. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/25 "2009-02-28T01:20:36Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Are you talking about the one where the parents killed their son, or the one where an entire race died off? I was talking about the first. Those two were among the most hard-hitting episodes of an SF show ever, especially the latter, where you expected a **Star Trek** , “Here’s the vaccine! You’re cured!” ending. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/26 "2009-02-28T02:02:16Z")
How about the parent on this season of **Private Practice** who refused to vaccinate her two younger sons because “vaccines made her oldest autistic”? After their vacation in Europe the middle boy was dying of the measles (yes, he did end up dying) and she _still_ had a fit when a doctor gave her toddler the vaccine so she wouldn’t lose him too. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/27 "2009-02-28T07:10:25Z")
In the B5 episode, with the dying child, the parents refused surgery that could cure the boy because their belief was that the soul resided in the body, and would be released if cutting was performed. Dr. Franklin tried everything he could to persuade them, and when that failed he violated ethics and orders and worked on the kid anyway. Kid is restored to health, but the parents reject him in horror, because his “soul had escaped” and a demon now animated the body. Then they pretend to rethink, take the kid back, and kill him, telling the aghast doctor it hadn’t really been the boy at all, but an evil spirit. Titled “Believers” it was one of the saddest, IMHO, episodes of the series. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/28 "2009-02-28T10:47:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I was talking about the first. Those two were among the most hard-hitting episodes of an SF show ever, especially the latter, where you expected a **Star Trek** , “Here’s the vaccine! You’re cured!” ending. [spoiler]Though…didn’t the station staff actually _succeed_ in creating a vaccine/cure, but by the time they’d finished it and went to the quarantine section to give it out, everyone had already died? And it could kill Pak’ma’ra, too, due to a similar cell-type they had. I forget—was that part supposed to be an analogy, too, or just a technical point for the story?[/spoiler] > [@elfkin477](#): > > How about the parent on this season of **Private Practice** who refused to vaccinate her two younger sons because “vaccines made her oldest autistic”? After their vacation in Europe the middle boy was dying of the measles (yes, he did end up dying) and she _still_ had a fit when a doctor gave her toddler the vaccine so she wouldn’t lose him too. There was something like this on ER once, too, though the parent was portayed _slightly_ more sympathetically. She wasn’t just some knee-jerk luddite, but had chosen not to vaccinate the kid(s?) based on careful research and weighing the (admittedly tiny) risks…or so she was loudly protesting to the docs, after the kid had ended up catching some hideous, potentially deadly old disease (I think it might have been Polio, but I’m not sure). :smack: ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/29 "2009-02-28T13:22:11Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Actually I think the germ of House’s genius lies in his assumption that his patients are both idiots and liars. He’s wrong that it’s true of EVERYONE, but the majority of the patients who get to him create their problem by refusing to man up. Bluntly put, my doctors know some of the most embarrassingly detailed info about me. Back when I was young and silly and actually had tried various drugs, when asked by my gp and gyn, they were told what i had previously tried. Hell, my gyn knew I was screwing around on my boyfriend and I didnt even tell my best friend I was messing around on him. I think my various doctors know more about me than my parents and husband combined. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/30 "2009-02-28T14:56:18Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > This irritated me because is highly unrealistic. Yeah, I’m sure the show plays fast and loose. > > But Leprosy is a very slow-acting anyway. It would not affect someone just a few years after catching it. It usually lies dormant all the way from childhood to adulthood, so the kind wouldn’t have had it, either. Finally, it doesn’t cause pain, exactly: it causes nerve damage leading to numbness. (This, in bad situations, is what leads to skin damage and extremity loss). I have the feeling a lot of the illnesses on House are unrealistic/exaggerated or otherwise not congruent with reality. I know next to nothing about medicine, but I remember one episode where they were doing a differential on someone with hallucinations. ‘‘Could be schizophrenia.’’ ‘‘That’s impossible. No genetic history of mental illness.’’ :rolleyes: Schizophrenia was immediately ruled out based on this really poor understanding of schizophrenia. Genetics may play an important role and increase the probability of developing this illness, but it’s perfectly possible for someone with no family history of mental illness to develop schizophrenia. I have the feeling if I were a doctor or someone who knew a great deal about diseases, that show would drive me apeshit. Since I’m completely ignorant in most cases, though, I love it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/31 "2009-02-28T15:48:35Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Well this week on House there was the clinic patient who was worried about his legs - no matter where he poked his legs with his left index finger, he felt pain, but he hadn’t quite figured out that His left index finger was broken. > > A few weeks ago, however, there was a case where the patient wasn’t really stupid - she was lying about an important fact about herself because the fact was that she had given birth in secret and dumped the living baby . Even at death’s door I can imagine someone not wanting her family to know that. Yeah, I can give that patient a pass: she was only a child herself–what, was she, 14 years old? Little girls do stupid things. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/32 "2009-02-28T15:51:25Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > This irritated me because is highly unrealistic. Yeah, I’m sure the show plays fast and loose. > > But Leprosy is a very slow-acting anyway. It would not affect someone just a few years after catching it. It usually lies dormant all the way from childhood to adulthood, so the kind wouldn’t have had it, either. Finally, it doesn’t cause pain, exactly: it causes nerve damage leading to numbness. (This, in bad situations, is what leads to skin damage and extremity loss). That was the point of it, actually. The father had very slow-acting leprosy, and the son’s had been exacerbated by another illness, which in turn made the first one worse, and so on. It was like putting **kanicbird** and **Der Trihs** in the same thread: a death duel inevitably results. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/33 "2009-03-01T04:31:40Z")
My favorite was from the first episode of House. “You’re _orange_, you idiot!” ---
**Author:** ![CircleofWillis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/54ee81/32.png) [@CircleofWillis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CircleofWillis)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/34 "2009-03-01T04:58:33Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > The first one who comes to mind is from the aforementioned _House_. It was an early episode, in which the patient’s parents deliberately and consciously omitted from their son’s medical history the fact that he was adopted, because they loved him as much as they would have if he were biologically related to them. Then they were shocked–SHOCKED–to find that, yes, the child’s genetic heritage might be relevant when trying to diagnose an unknown disease. Somewhat off topic.. IRL this happened as I was sitting in the waiting room of a perinatologist. Two… and I use the word loosely… parents-to-be… were railing on the invasive nature of the pre-natal questionnaire.. “It’s none of their business if the father has a history of drug abuse…”, “What’s the mother’s occupation? Making babies HAW HAW HAW”, etc. I ground down several layers of enamel from my teeth as I tried to focus on my blackberry email. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/35 "2009-03-01T06:04:26Z")
The problem is (from my limited medical experience) there are a lot of stupid people coming into hospitals. Nowhere near the majority, but how do you know who you’re dealing with? Today, for instance, some guy came into the ER who had badly broken 2 finger as a result of a drunken fall. Like, his pinky and ring fingers on his left hand were pointing in directions that should not be possible. When he found out he had to wait for x-ray to be called in (small hospital, x-ray is on call on weekends) he asked if he could go home. The Dr. says, “uhh…we have to x-ray and consult a surgeon…you’ll probably have to wait an hour or 2”. He says “won’t it heal on it’s own? I don’t really use my left hand. I don’t want to wait!” So I have no trouble believing there are people as stupid as the ones on House. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562/36 "2009-03-02T15:40:21Z")
> [@Nunavut\_Boy](#): > > The problem is (from my limited medical experience) there are a lot of stupid people coming into hospitals. Nowhere near the majority, but how do you know who you’re dealing with? Today, for instance, some guy came into the ER who had badly broken 2 finger as a result of a drunken fall. Like, his pinky and ring fingers on his left hand were pointing in directions that should not be possible. When he found out he had to wait for x-ray to be called in (small hospital, x-ray is on call on weekends) he asked if he could go home. The Dr. says, “uhh…we have to x-ray and consult a surgeon…you’ll probably have to wait an hour or 2”. He says “won’t it heal on it’s own? I don’t really use my left hand. I don’t want to wait!” So I have no trouble believing there are people as stupid as the ones on House. I’m more than willing to believe that the proportion of stupid ER patients to non-stupid ones is greater than the proportion of stupid persons in the general population to non-stupid ones. It’s self-sorting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesomely-stupid-patients-on-tv-medical-dramas/487562.md?page=1)