The Oxford Handbook of Medblr

Once I started medical school though...I didn't have as much time to watch things and I stopped gravitating towards those shows when I did have time. In residency I couldn't watch them anymore because it felt like I was still at work (even if the shows were over the top and ridiculous, factually wrong, etc. to the point where the story wasn't really that much like work) and I needed to not be.

I thought maybe this show would be different and it was.

I made it 8 minutes before feeling like I was gonna have a panic attack and turn it off. The opening of the first episode is not super intense viewing either. It's basically character and background introduction and yet....had to turn it off.

Medical reality TV felt too much like work, and something like 24 hours in A&E is exactly the kind of stuff I DID see daily. It was far too much like being at work to actively enjoy.

Anyone else ever get flashbacks to traumatic situations from the past when watching medical scenes on TV? It makes me really feel for my medical friends with actual diagnosed PTSD because even having it happen rarely is a kick in the teeth.

It's hard to explain to non medics... but every horrible theoretical situation you see on TV is something many of us have personally been there to experience. We have memories of things just like this happening to ordinary people who deserved better. And that hurts, when we let ourselves sit down and think about it.

For me I struggled with The Bear for the same reason. The mix of interpersonal work stress was just Too Similar to working in some toxic medical department. I liked it but I found it so stressful to watch.

I haven't been able to watch or read This Is Gonna Hurt or Undoctored yet. At the time it came out, I was burning out in a toxic department and it hit just too close to home. My husband read it thought and I guess it helped him understand a bit more about what working in medicine is like.

-Use the password taped to the monitor

How to hack any hospital computer (L337 version for advanced security systems)

But then some mega-genius upstairs realized something: the system was only alerting for critical vital signs, but not for all vital signs that could possibly be bad.  Like, yeah, 200/130 is potentially life-threatening, but 130/90 is above ideal and can have negative effects on health.  Should the doctors be allowed to just ignore something that could negatively affect a patient’s health?  Heavens no!

So now the system generates a pop-up for any vital signs that are even slightly abnormal.  A pressure of 120/80 (once considered textbook normal, now considered slightly high) will create the pop-up.  We have increased our vigilance!

Well, no, what we’ve actually done is train doctors to click through a constant bombardment of pop-ups without looking.  We’ve destroyed their vigilance and made it much easier for them to accidentally skim past life-threatening vital signs.

But you can’t tell that to management, because you’d have to confess that you are a flawed human with limited attention resources.  They’d tell you “well, all the other doctors take every abnormal vital sign seriously, it sounds like you’re being negligent.”  And if you’re smart, you back down before you start telling the big boss all about your habit of ignoring critical safety alerts.

Pop up 2 - note, patient is on kidney disease register

Pop up 3 - note, patient is on hypercapnia scale 2 observations

Pop up 4 - WARNING VTE assessment 72 hours overdue

“Oh!! … huh”

Sometimes followed by a “…why?”

medicine is a broad church and there’s a place for everyone, and that’s something we can celebrate! it’s fantastic that you’ve both found a specialty you’re passionate about 💛

I think everyone gets similar response because we’ve all got different interests. I’ve got friends doing psych, ED, GP and T&O. I would never do any of those, and most of them wouldn’t do the others.

Me: EM, I have a training post for ACCS

Anyone: Oh, don't you want a family

“ABG does not stand for A Bone Graft.”

“What is PEEP?” “God help me.”

“Carbon Dioxide... for the surgeons among us, you might see that written on the machine as CO2.”

"Everyone thinks Ortho is a specialty for idiots, but that's usually just because we're not a diagnostic specialty and we don't pretend or try to be. If you don't immediately know exactly what you're trying to fix, chances are it isn't an orthopaedic issue. We're a specialty that provides solutions. If you don't know what problem you're trying to solve, refer to Medics."