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A number of years ago, a television series called
"Lifeline" followed a different hospital doctor
each week. It was one of the first shows to present
the reality of health care-that some people live and
some people die. That reality didn't match what the
public wanted to believe about hospitals, and the show
had a relatively short run.
Last year, when Tropical Storm Allison flooded the
Texas Medical Center and many patients had to be evacuated,
the media-seemingly still attached to the fantasy that
we can save everyone who comes into the hospital-tried
to make an issue about the number of patients who died
the night of the flood. That number-which would seem
normal to those of us who work in health care given
that one of the hospitals was a major trauma center
and the others were tertiary hospitals with heavily
used ERs-seemed surprising to the media and the public.
It brought home the point yet again that how we see
hospitals and how the public sees hospitals are vastly
different.
One of the latest forays into reality television, "Houston
Medical," (See Page 3) may be helping the public
to better understand our world. Not all the patients
in the show have had positive outcomes, but based on
television ratings, people are continuing to watch.
What this show does differently is present the personal
side of both the staff and the patients. It's not perfect.
The cameras sometimes focus longer than necessary on
grieving families, and too often when we see nurses
they're not identified as nurses. On the positive side,
the public sees the compassion and caring exhibited
by the staff. They see teamwork. They also see how quickly
the teams activate when a patient needs them.
The producers also have not edited the tapes so that
the staff appears perfect. Rather, the full range of
personality traits-from frustration and helplessness
to joy, from humility to occasional arrogance that we
see at work every day-comes through. With every episode,
it becomes more evident to viewers that health care
professionals rarely can compartmentalize their work
and not have it influence the rest of their lives, nor
can what goes on in their lives not influence their
work.
As a bonus to those of us who work or have worked in
the Texas Medical Center, and especially at Memorial
Hermann Hospital, the series has given us a chance to
see our colleagues shine. Some of our hometown heroes
are being seen across the country. In addition, the
show's focus on pediatric nurse Kirk Spencer, RN, may
do more than any advertisement ever could to recruit
men into nursing and help dispel a few stereotypes about
nurses.
"Houston Medical" appears to be succeeding
at helping deliver an important message: In hospitals,
we do what may appear to outsiders to be miracles every
day, but even when patient outcomes aren't always successful,
it's not for a lack of trying.
Discuss this and other topics with your colleagues
at www.nurseweek.com/rnvillage.
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