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Despite the meticulous editing of each episode, producers admit that they can't avoid bending real medical data for the sake of entertainment. "Because it's first and foremost a drama, we go for the jugular," says Dr. Lisa Zwerling, an emergency room pediatrician and a four-year writer and producer of E.R. "When we're trying to come up with a story, we show the most dramatic presentation of a disease. Someone walks in with cancer, it's usually not the cancer in which the patient gets chemotherapy. Our cancer patients come in and die dramatically."
This blur between fact and fiction may very well mislead viewers. According to a 2003 study by J. Van den Bulck, published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, people who spend significant amounts of time watching medical dramas overestimate the success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by 60%. These individuals no doubt recall the numerous times that it has been shown to be successful on television. Could this delusion, stemming from medical dramas' inaccurate portrayals, affect how patients perceive healthcare and the real E.R.?
Medical entertainment may indeed have a significant role in shaping viewers' perceptions of the healthcare system. In 2002, Drs. Joseph Turow and Rachel Gans reviewed every single primetime U.S. hospital drama episode in the 2000- 2001 season in order to analyze their discussion of health policy issues. In their report, submitted to the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2002, Drs. Turow and Gans noted that "fictional TV shows have an impact on viewers' perceptions of issues such as the quality of managed care, the rights of patients under current law, whether insurance companies are providing sufficient coverage, and end-of-life decisions."
A 2000 study by JWT Communications found that medical shows affected youngsters' attitudes toward healthcare as well. Respondents drawn from grades 2 through 10 reported that they received their main impression of nursing from E.R. Drawing from a show that often emphasizes the primacy of physicians over nurses, the young people also expressed opinions that nursing was a woman's job, a technical job, and an inappropriate career for private school students, of whom more was expected.
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