GREGORY HOUSE would never let a little thing like medical ethics stand in the way of curing a patient. But how bad are the bioethical lapses and unprofessional behaviour on medical dramas such as and ?
Matthew Czarny, a medical student and bioethics researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, decided to find out. He watched a total of 46 episodes from the two series and tallied up bioethical and professional breaches, as well as examples of good practice.
The most common ethical issue, particularly in House, was obtaining proper consent from patients or giving them enough information to agree to a treatment. Half of the time informed consent came up, the show’s doctors failed the ethics test.
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Patient confidentiality and the use of experimental procedures also drew Czarny’s attention. Sex raised the biggest professional issues, particularly on Grey’s Anatomy, which included 58 instances of sexual misconduct between doctors or nurses and 27 between these professionals and their patients (Journal of Medical Ethics, ).
Czarny now wants to explore how medical dramas affect how we perceive and behave towards doctors. “From my experience in the hospital, people will ask about things that they’ve seen on TV, anything that applies to their condition,” he says.
