- The first chapter of this medical drama premiered on March 27, 2005 and has been on the air ever since.
- To date, no other production of this type had been able to maintain itself for so long.
- Although many of the stories shown are based on real cases, sometimes it is exaggerated too much to offer an attractive product for the general public.
Television series based on the lives of health professionals are at their peak. Every year new projects are released that have one aspect in common: They portray the lives of doctors and nurses in hospitals. But while some broadcasts are temporary, others have managed to transcend the time barrier. The best example is ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ that seems to have no end, but behind its success there is severe criticism for the fact that generates unrealistic expectations in patients.
A soap opera of doctors?
The first chapter of this medical drama premiered on the distant March 27, 2005. While this year and after overcoming the barriers of the pandemic, season 18 is being screened. With this, it has set a new record because no other work This guy had lasted so long.
In case you’ve never seen it, it focuses on the lives of the doctors, nurses, residents, and specialists inside the fictional Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital.
Much of its success lies in the fact that it not only focuses on the work involved in caring for patients, but also on the personal aspect of the doctors. For the same reason, there are from romances to love disappointments among health professionals.
In part, this has caused this series to be so popular not only among doctors but also in the general population.
As a curious fact, the title is a play on words and alludes to ‘Gray’s Anatomy’, a classic textbook on human anatomy first published in 1858 in London and written by Henry Gray.
A series with a lot of fiction and little reality
In that vein, the television drama also stands out because it shows many medical cases based on real events. Although sometimes strong doses of fiction are also injected to achieve more attractive stories. Precisely at this point is where the complaints begin.
In this regard, several doctors accuse ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ of exaggerating too much and generating unrealistic expectations in patients. all part of research conducted by staff at St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center and published in the British Medical Journal.
Based on the above, the objective of the research was to determine the degree of precision shown in the series when addressing the evolution of patients who had suffered some type of trauma.
Differences between real life and the one shown in the series
For the analysis, the 269 episodes in which 290 individuals suffering from a condition appeared were studied. They then compared their prognosis with that of people affected by the same problem in real life using data from the National Trauma Data Bank of the American College of Surgeons.
As a result, it was obtained that the difference between what was seen in the series and reality is wider than expected. Likewise, the authors point out that ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ can create unrealistic expectations for patients.
In this regard, research shows that the mortality of patients in the series was 22 percent higher than in real life. While the people treated in the emergency area were transferred more frequently than normal to the operating room (71 percent compared to 25). And the care of users of the fictitious hospital was also different in relation to long-term health care and the length of stay in the medical center.
Although in some cases it does show what patient care is like in a real hospital, in others there is a total distortion of life inside hospitals. Although in the end, like any television product, these types of changes are made to achieve a product that is more attractive to the general audience.
For now, in your case are you a fan of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’?