A Letter to Michael Crichton

Dear Michael Crichton, Creator and Executive Producer of "ER,"

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your most savvy decision yet, hiring Goran Visnjic.  If there's one thing I like, it's a tall, dark, and complicated Eastern European hunk.  Yummm.

But the real reason I am writing is I would like to help your show.  I was recently watching reruns, and one scene specifically caught my attention.  Dr. Lewis had a patient who was coughing violently.  She put up a chest x-ray and explained to the patient that he had lung cancer, and he only had 6 months to live.

Since you are in TV, I will make a simple bulleted list of what is wrong here.

1.  An x-ray cannot show if a person has cancer.  It can show a growth or tumor of some indeterminate type, but only surgery and biopsy can reveal if the tumor is cancerous.  Even though cancer makes for better TV, the overwhelming majority of tumors, even those that pop up in popular cancer places like the lung, are benign.

2.  Doctors certainly do not hand out prognoses willy-nilly without a proper staging surgery and a pathology report.  Even then, a doctor would not (could not) precisely say exactly how long the patient has to live.  And they certainly cannot tell this information from an x-ray!

3.  Even if you could glean this information from an x-ray, a second-year ER resident couldn't do it.  Radiologists interpret x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, and everything else.  That's where they get that fancy name "Radiologist" from.

4.  Dr. Lewis sent that patient home with no consult from an oncologist, no surgery scheduled, no plans for treatment discussed.  Clearly, that is ridiculous.

And some other points...

5.  General surgeons do not perform brain surgery.  Or liver transplants.  Or tumor resections.  Or Cesaerian sections.  Or amputations.  You get the idea.

6.  Doctors do not bicker over patients like gangs in a turf war.  Everyone has their specialty, and they are too busy to go butting their noses into other people's cases.

7.  I don't care what city you're in, there are not seventeen major traumas every day in one hospital.  And they don't all require a thoracotomy.

8.  Medical personnel have been known to date outside their workplace.

That being said, I would be more than happy to offer my services as a medical consultant, since it is abundantly clear that you have no actual medical professionals on staff.  You wouldn't have to pay me as much as a doctor, certainly much less than you pay the people who pretend to be doctors.  I think you could really use my help.

I have enclosed my picture and home phone number.  Please pass them on to Mr. Visnjic the next time you see him. 

I look forward to doing business with you.

Sincerely,

Eat Roast Beef

Comments

[cancerbaby]

Rae, you are one funny lady!

And of course not all major traumas require a thoracatomy. Only the most special patients get those.

[Louise]

Dear lord! You have completely inspired me to write a letter to the producers of the movie "My Life Without Me" -- something I've wanted to do for sometime now.

I'm totally ganking your scene. Ha!

Looks like everyone is a night owl.

[Louise]

Okay, wait . . . how did you figure out how to change the colour scheme of your blog? Can you teach me? Please?

[Rae]

Louise, the blog will not stay like this very long. Since I am still in my free period, I decided to fuck around and see what the higher level lets you do. I thought I'd be able to do some totally awesome layout thing... but, that does not seem to be the case. Even though the regular templates are 10 shades of tragic, being about to screw around with the colors is not worth an extra $4 a month!

[Louise]

10 shades of tragic. You are brilliant. Well, I guess I'll be sticking with what I've got then.

Oh, you know what is most offensive about Michael Chrichton? He graduated from Harvard Medical School, and I believe he did practise as an MD for awhile (though not long, as he started living off his book and script writing soon after). He could at least make things right. Though I guess that isn't very good television.

[Noelle]

mmmmmmm. Goran Visnjic.

I can't get beyond the mental image of him [naked in my bed, whispering in my ear in that accent of his] to write anything coherent.

[Noelle]

Um, oops. Did I say that out loud?

Thanks for the laugh, I needed it! I haven't been very laughy or funny lately.

:)

[ruby]

oh man, Goran Visnjic is one reason I love my onc so much. After years of lusting after him on ER, I meet my oncologist, and he sounds JUST like him. He is Serbian, not Croatian, but the accent is so similar. I close my eyes and pretend is Luka treating me.