[jmhmd]

The main thing that House MD has, that no other doctor in the world has, is not so much his superior intellect. It's that he and five other doctors spend 100% of their time on a single case, and can sit around all day discussing it, trying different things. If real world doctors had even a fraction of that luxury, you would see a lot more of what you describe.

[warner25]

Yeah, that's what I mean by the medical system just not being set up to allow this. I generally see a different doctor every time I make an appointment, because I'm assigned to a team in a clinic with constant turnover, the appointments are 20 minutes long, and the doctor easily spends more time on boiler plate stuff in the computer system than examining and listening to me. I don't even think they have time to look over the basic medical history, let alone have a whiteboard session to consider all the pieces of the puzzle and brainstorm possible explanations.

[coding123]

Jeez, no kidding. I imagine if they made a realistic doctor show they'd be constantly showing the doctor at the bar (on days off) trying to make money on side gigs like health startups.

Stumbling in a hangover to appointments on "work days" and giving everyone the same diagnosis as the last (and likely whatever sickness they themselves had recently). Also giving everyone fluids and an ativan so the patient says - "i feel much better doc".

It's kind of an open secret that the ER just gives a diagnosis of dehydration, provides fluids and ativan to get the pipe rolling and charge $4k a pop. Sure they might catch a case of undiagnosed covid, rsv or something else from time to time.

Also I'm not kidding but I would LOVE such a show.

[smileysteve]

You should check out The Resident. The first several seasons are about the doctor invested in a device that is a fraud, a private equity group buying the hospital, it eventually failing.

Chicago MD has some of the aspects you mention, especially overloaded, drug abuse, blame, police interactions.

New Amsterdam attacks it by the main character trying to solve the problems and running into bureaucracy.

[tomcam]

Are all of these well-written shows? They all look terrible in the descriptions but I’m hoping I’m wrong.

[smileysteve]

I rank New Amsterdam and the Resident better for the hospital politics; Chicago MD is more short episode drama (though does touch on mental health and social services more.

[hef19898]

Back when ER was a hit show, there was survey among medical professionals and hospital staff asking for their favorite medical drama series and the reasons for it. Grey's Anatomy, and similar series, constantly beat ER. The reason was that medical staff considered ER way too realistic. Makes sense, why would I entertain myself during my off hours with what is basically a documentary about my on-duty hours.

[Aeolun]

I’m half convinced the ER diagnoses everyone with no apparent issues with dehydration so they don’t feel stupid about coming in for no reason.

[light_hue_1]

You would not. 5 doctors talking about your case wouldn't help much.

People really don't understand the dire and primitive state of current medicine.

We are in the dark ages. We don't know why most drugs work; we have some notional idea but it's often an after-the-fact fiction that we tell. We don't know what causes the majority of diseases. In many cases we don't have treatments for the underlying problems, we only have treatments for symptoms.

If you want to see House MD, then tell your congresspeople and senators to invest in funding medical research so we can one day maybe leave the dark ages.

[lazyasciiart]

Also, the cases are usually in desperate enough straits that “here, swallow this seagull poop!” doesn’t get hints thrown out of the hospital.