Friday, December 23, 2011

[UN]Reality TV: Part 2


Grey's Anatomy, now this one show which raised my expectations like none other. The doctors were all so good-looking, Katherine Heigl was a lead protagonist & I don't have to explain how much she excited me. The men on the show were real men, surgeons who held life by the balls & made it dole out what they wanted it to. The hospital was never short of exciting cases, brilliant procedures. Everyone was free to do what they saw fit. Importantly, I can't recall a single episode where an intern collected blood. Ah, those were the days. 

I went through around 3 seasons in 2 months time. And in the span of some 40 episodes, they'd found a bomb in a body, almost killed a patient and brought him back because Heigl was in love with him & they'd got to scrub in on cardiac surgeries! Yes, Cardiac! The hope of an intern scrubbing in on those is even more perverse than Dr. Chase actually coming to a surgical diagnosis on House MD. 

I remember reading an article that when House MD was pitched to the network executives by the creator David Shore, he promised them a medical drama which wouldn't be all about white coats talking in corridors; a show where the diagnosis would be the lead character. Imagine the exact opposite & you've got Grey's! The show revolves more around relationships than even The Bachelor. Everyone's more concerned about who they're gonna wake up in bed next to than their own careers! 

Dear aspiring doctors, because I'm your friend, I'm going to tell you the harsh truth. While you may find time for a relationship while studying medicine, it's by no means the way its portrayed in movies/tv shows. They want you to believe that you're so stressed with your practice & studies that you just crave quickies for venting frustration. They're WRONG!! Medicine is that bitch which holds your life by the crotch and steers you around in meaningless circles till either your social skills die or your libido does; you decide which one is worse. Most people you'll find are so intensely career oriented that they that you can literally smell tyres burning before you ask them out on a date. Here, time is short, unfortunately tempers are too. So, if you planning to join us in this worldwide social experiment, ask the professionals; stop watching TV shows. Ironically, at the end of five years of training, I can't say I'd like to date anyone apart from a doctor myself. Am I just a glutton for punishment or a perverse sociopath? Medicine's a bitch that also screws with your mind. Did I say that already? Well, now you know. 

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4 comments:

  1. Right now, for a moment, I felt that Grey's Anatomy's projection of medicine was more realistic than how this post suggests it to be.
    Don't get me wrong, there is hardly anything I like about Grey's.

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  2. @mkk Diagnostically, the show is as accurate as it can get. Even the newest advances are cross-checked, and vague conditions aren't ever made up. I appreciate that. But, what about the people?!? I swear if a bar like Joe's opens up opposite my hospital, I'd have serious problems operating!

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  3. What I was meaning to say was that you exaggerate how bad medicine has treated us and not that your description of Grey's was wrong.

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  4. But even in real life, I think surgeons are the cooler more chilled out people who'd go to Joe's, you know.

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