Real Life "House" or "ER"

Friends will often ask if I watch ER, or House, or Scrubs and although I've seen an episode here or there, the answer is "no I don't." I've lived those shows and have no interest watching it played out on TV. Usually I'm met with comments like "oh you really should, its so funny" and "things like that aren't real". Guess what it IS real - where do you think the story lines come from. Hang out in an operating room for awhile and you will quickly become versed in sexual innuendos and other behaviors that will at least leave you wondering how some of these people go home to their spouse at night.

There are certain unwritten rules about the OR. There's a hierarchy just like the military. The attending physician stands in the middle of the patient all others are squished around yet expected to hold instruments and sometimes parts of the patient in a manner to help the surgeon at all times. Mind you the operating table is placed at a level for the attending so if he's tall you're balancing on a stool and if he's short you're bending over for hours. Most of the time you are expected to anticipate the surgeons needs, to be asked to do something in an OR usually means you are going to be chastised openly or "pimped" into humiliation. "Pimping" is a form of teaching, so I'm told. A more senior physician will begin asking you questions about your patient, the diagnosis, treatment or almost anything that may be minutely related. One day while "assisting" a prostate surgery I was asked about the anatomy of the region. I had studied up and got the first few questions right! You would think this would earn me a bit of respect and maybe the questions would stop. WRONG! The questions continued and they got harder and more detailed. A urologist would know the answers but most family practice physicians would not only not know but never need to know. So as the questioning continued and the time between the end of the question and when my answer was expected got narrower and narrower my answers began to falter. After getting several questions in a row wrong, the attending declared victory (I know he smiled under that mask) and said "what's wrong with you don't you know anything about this case". He then harassed me about not studying enough and no being prepared for the surgery. I was lucky this particular incident didn't involve cursing or throwing objects but the humiliation I had to endure after preparing myself for the case was miserable.

Like on tv the drama in the operating room is continuous. After you scrub in and are "sterile" you can't touch anything. An operating room technician will assist you into your gown and gloves then tie the gown for you. I've heard so many jokes about being "tied up" I could tie the knots blind folded. At the sink scrubbing in one day I was asked my opinion about monogamy. Didn't I think it was going against our human nature? Isn't it a shame that society doesn't condone us to follow our attractions to each other? What do you say then, to your superior whom you are not allowed to challenge at any level. Nor are you able to walk away. Leaving the scrub sink before your attending implies that you could not possibly be sterile. How could you scrub in quicker than an experienced "all powerful" attending. ( I promise to follow with some stories about the good ones, the attendings who truly care about your education and teach you to become an empathetic physician).

The drama is through-out the hospital. I had a therapist that would wait for me by the employee entrance on many occasions always asking me to go out for a drink. I gently reminded him that his wife and kids were home waiting for him, as were mine. The temptations are there. And just as on tv some people act on them and some do not. I did not.

-dr.momof4
"believe in your dreams for all dreams can come true"