“When We Make Mistakes, People Die!”: Constructions of Responsibility for Medical Errors in Televised Medical Dramas, 1994–2007

Abstract

Despite the publicity of medical mistakes in recent years, most people vastly underestimate the frequency of errors, likely because media stories focus on flawed individuals, not institutional problems. This research examined contemporary medical dramas for constructions of responsibility in treating patients. Findings indicate that medical mistakes were rare in the storylines, meaning that health professionals were almost always depicted as behaving responsibly—to the extent that they were considered heroes. Mistakes were suggested to be due to the health professional's inexperience, institutional flaws that led to errors, and temporary personal problems. Health professionals were shown learning from their mistakes, suggesting that they would not be repeated. For committing mistakes, health professionals faced a range of consequences, depending on disclosure of the errors and whether patients had friends or families to push for restitution. Errors occurred throughout the years studied, but were greatest in the years when the dramas featured inexperienced medical students or residents as the main characters. Problems with the fictional health care system were largely ignored, suggesting one explanation for the focus on individual responsibility in real-life discourse.

Keywords:

• Chicago Hope, ER
• Grey's Anatomy
• Health Responsibility
• House, M.D.
• Medical Dramas
• Medical Errors
• Television Doctors

Notes

Secondary literature described the fictional doctors of programs like Marcus Welby, M.D. as caring heroes with unbelievable success in treating patients (Turow, 1989).

When Chen returns in the sixth season, she insists that her name is Jing-Mei, not Deb.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine A. Foss

Katherine A. Foss (Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2008) is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University.