Medical Drama: Accuracy Issues!

Sometimes, the widespread wariness towards the accuracy of medical dramas is seems a bit over-rated. Of course, my perspective is likely limited since I never watched any medical shows that existed before ER, cited by Goodman as the beginning of more accurately-portrayed medicine in drama. By definition, drama has the inherent license to stretch facts and stimulate each individual viewer’s imagination, from minimal to great extents. No accepted standard upholds the drama genre to clearly demarcate where fiction and fact cleanly divide. In this sense, I find that a simple gesture, like an additional written note at the beginning of each episode indicating that the ensuing presentation has not been meticulously prepared to give accurate medical facts, can answer much of the public concern. Goodman captured my perspective well in writing: “The relationship between audiences and media texts is more complex than is commonly recognized in popular discourse. Audiences do not passively receive messages in media texts, they actively engage with them to negotiate meanings according to their personal sensibilities, but also according to socially determined categories such as race, class, gender and nationality.”

Dramatized, abridged, and emotionally and ethically charged drama most often serves as a starting, versus ending, point for most engaged audiences. I personally grew up watching ER every Thursday evening. Perhaps more so because I was a kid, with minimal knowledge of medical terminology or politics, I loved the show because of its high level of person-to-person interactions and emotions. For me, the most that the show taught me about the medical profession or field itself is that, like many other settings, it is a site where all sorts of human interactions, emotions, and circumstances converge and interact dynamically.

That said, as more and more medical dramas are produced and enthusiastically received by the global public, standards for accurate portrayal are definitely on the rise. Because of this (in some ways, beneficial) trend, I think it has become harder for audiences to passively separate out aspects of fiction from those of fact in medical dramas. To discern, for example, whether the director is purposefully and artfully exaggerating insurance-related social issues to make a political statement in an episode, or is accurately and objectively portraying a truly dire situation, can require much active reflection and inter-personal debate. However, I believe this is part of the merit of medical drama—that it can galvanize critical thinking of societal issues (both specific and non-specific to medicine) and open up conversations outside the political floor.