So, I’ve often wondered how much these “docs” know about the medical profession. I know they did some sort of tvshow about this and they tested some of the actors, but I don’t know how well they did…
But you’d think that after years and years (in the case of ER), they’d pick up a helluvalot of information. I’ve also heard that they right down alot of the technical jargon on clipboards…
So, what’s the deal?
They learn about as much as the actors on Star Trek learn about quantum mechanics.
Seriously - they’re not going to learn a whole lot more in making the show as you would in watching it.
However: I’ve heard that some of the actors over the years have sought out on their own how to do tasks that are frequently done on the program and do it “right” rather than blindly stabbing away with medical instruments.
Of course, on ER, they probably intubate more patients in an epsiode than most real ERs do in a week. 
You haven’t been in a level 1 trauma center, I take it? Otherwise, you’re right. ER has some of the jargon right, and even playacts the external stuff fairly well.
House, on the other hand is total fantasy. They make up drugs and diseases out of whole cloth. Their procedures have little or no relation to reality.
Naw. It’s just that Dr. House is so utterly brilliant that he knows about all the drugs and diseases you’ve never heard of.
Ahh, no. The real diseases they do “treat” they treat wrong. Like, one doesn’t die if a transplanted kidney fails, he just goes back on dialysis, but that just isn’t dramatic.
My understanding is that House is diagnostically more plausible than any other show… but then again it might have to do with the fact that they don’t treat run of the mill patients.
The thing that might be construed as fake is that the 4 people that comprise of House’s team do many of the operations and advanced procedures by themselves. For example, neurosurgical resections.
When Hugh Laurie was on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” someone in the audience asked him how confident he was with his medical skills.
He said that he pretty much forgets everything he says after he delivers his lines, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about a lot of the time.
So, if you ask him, he’s got no more medical knowledge now than before he started the show.
One of my favorite websites is a House medical blog (Medical Reviews of House) where a doctor dissects House episodes and grades the medicine. Once I saw they got an A-, but that was the highest I’d ever seen. The medicine usually comes in at around a D. Like picunurse said, they’re really going for the drama. i’t amazing how many times there are only 2 courses of action: one will cure the patient and the other will kill him. I have no medical background and even I laugh at that most of the time. That all said, I love the show.
The actors who play Cameron and Chase both said (on the DVD extras) that they thought they could probably intubate someone, but I think there were mostly kidding.
Minor quibble: season two, episode 15 got all A’s.
I remember reading an interview with that Bosnian (IIRC) guy when he joined the cast of “ER.” They gave him a boxful of latex gloves and sat him down with a real surgeon to coach him. He pulled on several dozen gloves in a row, learning how to do it very quickly, until he could do it flawlessly.
But I doubt he remembers medically-themed dialogue more than a day or two, if that.
He and his character are Croatian. And yummy.
After enough of these shows, I feel like I could intubate someone! Visualize the cords…I’M IN! Bag him!
I’ve read that some medical shows hire real physicians and nurses to appear as stunt performers. Sometimes when you see a close up of hands performing a procedure it’s actually the hired pros doing it.