Bui Huy BuiMaster ClarkEnglish 1304March 1, 2011Epinephrine or Demerol?When walking through the double doors of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, one is greeted with smells of latex and lidocaine (a common anesthetic). Suddenly, an alarm goes off. Nurses scramble to find the origin of the din, and in their frantic searching they spot itICU room 303. Immediately, a man sporting a scruffy beard and a dominating demeanor bursts into the room. His appearance resembles a hermit more than a doctor, as his messy band T-shirt is untucked, worn under a hastily thrown on sportcoat. The first thing he does when he enters the room is insult the nurses. You idiots! What do you think youre doing with those? he says condescendingly, ripping a pair of paddles from gloved hands. Throwing them into a corner, he reaches into the crash cart and produces a simple medical syringe, filled with a stimulant called epinephrine, and plunges it into the suffering patient. The alarm is stopped, and faint beeps signal the patients wellness.Meanwhile, intern John Dorian walks the halls of Sacred Heart hospital, pondering about his first day working within a hospital. Suddenly, a shrill alarm erupts in a room not too far ahead of him. He rushes towards the sound, getting his stethoscope up and off of his neck. The room is filled with nurses just a few minutes later. Dr. Dorian screams orders, desperately. This patient is the first friend he made at this hospital, when he was surrounded by cutthroat competition and amorality. Bring me 20 CCs of demerol, stat! he yells, receiving a syringe filled with a sedative. The patients heart is beating irregularly, known in medical terms as tachycardia. Quickly and precisely, he injects the serum through the patients I.V. line. However, he is too lateas indicated by the steady beep emanating from the machine. Damn it! John Dorian yells, in this moment not a doctor but a friend a fellow human being. After a second of composure and solemn looks from the nurses around him, he assumes his role of a doctor once again.Time of death, 13:32 and 34 seconds In his mind, plays a familiar narrator. It seems like, at the end of the day, we have to realize that life is a privilege. It could be taken away at any second.These dramatic scenes mimic reality, but instead they are just interpretations. From House M.D. and Scrubs respectively, these windows into the medical life are often the only tools that children and adolescents are able to judge the medical profession with, and thus they should be accurate and still be interesting enough to carry a viewers attention. Scrubs accomplishes this with a strong comedic theme intertwined with deep moral and personal dilemmas, while House M.D. battles modern topics of ethics and morality through Houses complete disregard for them. Each show has its own success; however each also has its own shortcomings. By utilizing both Scrubs contrasting lighthearted and profound nature; and its proper use of medical terminology; in conjunction with Houses brash disregard for ethics and social norms, a set of criteria can be established in which current and future medical television shows can be critiqued by.Houses main protagonist is most often times referred to as a curmudgeon, which fits him perfect as he is bad-tempered, malicious at times, and somewhat pugnacious. In fact, in the article The Pedagogical Value of House, M.D. announce that it is hard to imagine a worse role model for medical students than House. Also, when surveyed about Houses medical accuracy, only 33% of clinical medical students responded that such depictions were mostly adequate. Despite this, House M.D. garners extreme support from devoted a loyal fans. This is due to the fact that an unethical doctor can still provide lessons on ethics, if not more easily than an ethical one. The above article agrees that Houses actions can spark debate among viewers, and can actually be used in a classroom environment to discuss certain medical ethical issues, such as presented in the episode Honeymoon, where House ignores a patients wishes and goes through with a dangerous treatment. Questions can be asked about the nature of the situation, was House correct in his methods? The show, however lacking in medical accuracy, makes up for its deep ethical and moral conflicts, which have the blessing of also being interesting to watch. Houses success is also due to the falsity of a particular warrant, that viewers will see House as a positive role model, since he is a medical diagnostic genius, rather than a negative one. In The Pedagogical Value of House, M.D., a study confirmed that at least 60% of third- and fourth-year medical students responded that the treatment of nine of the 14 listed ethical issues were not treated appropriately. Of course, the small back stories of House contribute to its popularity, however they often do not clash with their professional lives. House M.D. prefers to stay focused on the medicine, straying only a few episodes from diagnostic anomalies. Throughout the shows history, only two patients have died to date, and this takes away from some of the accuracy of hospitals outside of fantasy. Houses definite selling point is its focus on ethical dilemmas, its dramatic back stories and heart wrenching episodes. Scrubss adherence to reality is somewhat farfetched; however there are moments of clarity where its profound meanings shine through. For example, in the introduction of this essay the reader is presented with what is actually the Pilot episode for Scrubs, My First Day. The entire episode sets a basis for what themes will continue throughout the series. The beginning is light-hearted, as John Dorian (J.D.) enrages a janitor, jokes with a friend, and even attempts to hit on a fellow colleague. However, the ending is in stark contrast to this, as his first patient passes away due to a heart failurethat J.D. could have prevented. It is moments like these that define Scrubs. Scrubs seeks to reveal important personal issues through the flaws of its characters, and also opens a window into the life of a medical student. Its medicine is spot on, as Associated Presss article, Is there a real doctor in the house? can attest to. Scrubs received a high pass in regards to medicine, losing only to E.R. in terms of authenticity. Kimberly Noble states that scrubs is funny, and definitely hits close to home, if home is the hospital. While Scrubs scores highly in this category, often times the humor is too much for the average viewer to take it seriously. It is not unusual to see dogs running around Sacred Heart hospital, J.D. and his best friend Turk to be hitting golf balls off of the roof, or even Doctor Cox, the leading physician, to antagonize and humiliate his group of interns. Even though this may hamper the show, many times this adds to the contrast of serious issues and humorous side notes. Scrubss predominate boon is in its realistic interpretation of medical life, when its not being overly funny. Laughter and tomfoolery occur in the halls of Sacred Heart, yes, but so do cries of anguish and sorrow. Patrick West states in an article on spiked-online.com that many medical shows are overly heroic, however Scrubs, on the other hand, has as its main theme ambiguity: good people die, bad people often survive. The surgeons and doctors in Scrubs arent heroes. They are flawed individuals. Scrubs is one of those programmes that has no hero.Medical shows would do good to learn from and mimic House and Scrubs. While each has its inherent flaws, their strengths far make up for their shortcomings. Todays television show should be critiqued and judged by compiling the strengths of both House and Scrubs into a list of criteria. A great medical show has to have varying back stories within it to grasp audience interest, and to keep the show from being too repetitive, as House does. Ethics should be tested and put into question, and the show should bring up deep thought while still being humorous as Scrubs is. The medicine should be accurate, and the shows producers should consult with certified medical professionals, in order to live up to the standard that Scrubs has given. Dramatic dark scenes should have a bit of comedy interjected at key moments to give a less dreary tone to the entire series, however it would be beneficial to have some episodes emotional to the point of tears, as Scrubs has done, blending the amorality and flaws of humans with intense situations to produce a heart wrenching episode. Medical shows must walk the line between House and Scrubs; be funny but still manage to be serious, inspire ethical debate all the while doing what a television show is supposed to do, entertain. As Scrubs has done, the contrast between humor and seriousness has to be strong, and yet it cannot go overboard. The show should simultaneously make one think about life and make one laugh at the world, encourage optimism while showing the dark face of reality. Also, it must take in elements of House; explore ethical dilemmas, provide an insight into each characters personal life, fatal flaws and insecurities. Like House, it must actively provide an intense environment, dramatic scenes dripping with suspense. A good medical show will inspire debate, have the possibility to encourage and cajole its viewers into joining the medical world, and create heart-wrenching momentssuch as the split second decision whether to use epinephrine or demerol.Huy BuiMaster ClarkEnglish 1304March 1, 2011Works CitedNoble, Kimberly G. "Is There a Real Doctor in the House?" Asap - Story. 3 Jan. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .Huber, Sam. "VM -- If Laughter Is the Best Medicine, Who Is 'Scrubs' Healing?, Jan 02 ... Virtual Mentor." Virtual Mentor:: American Medical Association Journal of Ethics | Virtualmentor.org. Jan. 2002. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .""SCRUBS"" The Peabody Awards | An International Competition for Electronic Media, Honoring Achievement in Television, Radio, Cable and the Web | Administered by University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. 2006. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .West, Patrick. "What JD and Co. Reveal about Real Life | Spiked." Spiked: Humanity Is Underrated. 23 May 2008. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .Wicclair, Mark R. "The Pedagogical Value of House, M.D.Can a Fictional Unethical Physician Be Used to Teach Ethics?." American Journal of Bioethics 8.12 (2008): 16-17. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011.