Medi-dramas give patients unrealistic expectations: experts
People love watching television doctors working miracles on patients
with mystery ailments or devastating injuries but these medi-dramas are
feeding patients unrealistic expectations, experts warn.
Misleading health information may come from TV advertisements
for prescription medications |
Viewers glued to weekly instalments of fictional doctors ordering
batteries of diagnostic tests and unorthodox medical treatments can be
forgiven for believing that rafts of examinations and aggressive
interventions are the norm.
But US experts said hospitals are unable to provide the cure-all
solutions found on programs like the rabidly popular "House", starring
British actor Hugh Laurie as the maverick medical genius Doctor Gregory
House.
Research also suggests aggressively treating some ailments can do
more harm than good, they said.
"The shows do tend to be very activist, very interventionist, very
aggressive with their care... because action is more interesting," said
Andrew Holtz, a medical journalist and author of a book on "House."
"You get the pressure to have aggressive medical intervention that
almost always works and that's just unrealistic."
Not only does such treatment often fail to work, Holtz noted, but
sometimes it can have side effects that outweigh the benefits.
"People don't see that on television," he said, adding that medical
dramas contribute to a false conviction that any ailment can be cured.
"People have the belief that if you search hard enough, if you spend
enough money, if you find the right doctor, you can get that rescue,
that breakthrough, and those things just don't really happen in the real
world."
Medical professionals often provide the background material that
television writers use to script the unusual illnesses that afflict
their unfortunate characters. Allan Hamilton, a script consultant for
the popular medical drama "Grey's Anatomy," is also the chairman of the
surgery department at the University of Arizona Health Services Center.
"They'll say 'we need a disease that looks like a person's going to
die, but then there's this one thing that tips them off that they need
to do further diagnostic tests.' Or 'we want a patient who is doing
really well and everyone's really happy and then something goes
dreadfully wrong,'" he said. "I always joke with the writers, you know,
'this wouldn't really happen or that wouldn't really happen' and then
they turn around to me and say 'yeah, but this is Hollywood, anything
can happen.'"
As a medical professional, Hamilton is wary of the effects that
depicting experimental treatments can have on viewers.
"Are we going to suddenly raise people's expectations?... You do
worry about that. People see this and there's a question in their mind,
'well are there people like that that we could find... is there a House
that could fix me?'"
Sandra Buffington, director of the University of Southern
California's Hollywood, Health and Society program, argues that the
power of medical dramas is one should that can be harnessed to educate.
Her program receives funding from the US government's Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and organizations like the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation to help television writers develop accurate
health stories.
"When the drama is compelling, the viewer is completely transported,"
Buffington said.
"They forget their surroundings, they're completely in the story,
they see the characters as family and friends, almost as loved ones....
They are much more receptive and open to learning."
Buffington's program has worked with shows including "Grey's Anatomy"
and "ER," but had one of its greatest successes with a storyline about
an HIV-positive character on the daytime soap opera "The Bold and
Beautiful" that featured information about an HIV/AIDS information
hotline.
"The highest peak in callers all year was, we got 5,313 calls in a
single day, was the day that Tony told his fiancee Kristen that he was
HIV positive."
Buffington acknowledges that the "huge" impact of medical dramas is
just as powerful, even when storylines are unrealistic or just plain
wrong.
"That's why we're in business, because so much of this information is
inaccurate or may be outdated."
For Holtz, the most misleading health information on television comes
not from medical dramas, but advertisements for prescription
medications.
"Television ads are some of the most crisp and concise storytelling
that exists," he said.
"They tell this story that if you come, if you get our product, you
will have a life that's full of sunshine and butterflies and romps in
the grass. It's just purely fantasy." WASHINGTON, AFP
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