TV Series and Bioethics
Medical ethics experts criticized the series "Dr. House" and "Anatomy of Passion"
Copper newsAnalysis of the content of the popular medical series "Dr. House" and "Anatomy of Passion", conducted by American scientists, showed that they abound in ethical contradictions and violations of professional norms, PhysOrg reports (Spoiler alert: TV medical dramas 'rife' with bioethical issues and breaches of professional conduct).
The content of the series about doctors attracted the attention of medical ethicists from Johns Hopkins University a few years ago. For their research, they chose the second seasons of the TV series "Dr. House" and "Anatomy of Passion".
Having studied in detail the plots of all the episodes of these seasons, the scientists came to the conclusion that they demonstrate 179 cases of violations of medical ethics in 11 different areas, from the lack of informed consent of the patient (such violations were most common) and unacceptable departure from accepted standards of treatment to the legality of organ transplantation and human experiments.
In addition, the researchers analyzed 400 cases of professional interaction of the characters of the series, both with colleagues and with patients. Moreover, this number includes only polar cases characterized as "typical" or, on the contrary, "egregious". The most frequent manifestations of unprofessionalism when communicating in the series were open disrespect for employees and patients, as well as attempts to introduce sexual overtones into communication. Out of 178 cases of contact between medical workers, scientists were able to name only nine as typical.
Researcher Matthew Czarny stressed that in the course of his work, he and his colleagues in no way evaluated the series from the standpoint of their possible use for educational purposes and the expediency of their demonstration in medical ethics classes. According to the scientist, the purpose of the study was only to obtain scientific material for discussions on this topic.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru29.03.2010