# Recovery timeline from trauma in real life vs. TV

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovery-timeline-from-trauma-in-real-life-vs-tv/694876>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 5, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovery-timeline-from-trauma-in-real-life-vs-tv/694876 "2014-08-05T16:24:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovery-timeline-from-trauma-in-real-life-vs-tv/694876/1 "2014-08-05T16:24:04Z")

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This might belong in Cafe Society, mods please move if necessary.

Okay so I was watching an old episode of _Castle_ and it was the time when Beckett was shot in the chest and flatlined. Of course her boyfriend doctor saved her life (and then she dumped him, nice eh) and she was back to work a couple months later all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Then of course there’s _Grey’s Anatomy_ when Meredith drowned and was dead for-like-ever and recovered without a hint of brain damage and resumed being a surgeon.

Etc. etc.

What would the recovery timeline in real life be for such traumas? I can’t imagine someone not having brain damage, months of rehab, etc., let alone going back to work pretty much immediately after such catastrophic events.

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovery-timeline-from-trauma-in-real-life-vs-tv/694876/2 "2014-08-05T16:40:59Z")

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One thing it is not at all usually clear exactly what the timeline is in the movies/TV as they may skip huge blocks of time from one scene to the next.

But overall there have been very substantial cuts in recovery time over the last few decades for reasons such as using very precise cutting tools instead of the formally blunt instruments, a change to the view that most patients recover faster when they are up and around than laying in bed…

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**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovery-timeline-from-trauma-in-real-life-vs-tv/694876/3 "2014-08-05T19:18:27Z")

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Some people never really recover from major trauma surgery. “He was never the same after he got shot” was a familiar phrase about lawmen, soldiers, etc.  
James Brady being one example that come to mind.