Home Forums Salem Place: The Main Board Do they even care about accuracy?

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  • #1054
    Bonbon
    Participant

    EJ is in surgery, under anesthesia, and has not been intubated?  And the surgical site has not been draped?  And they’re poking around in his brain and they don’t have his head in a vice?  Let me see, how many more things could they have screwed up.

    And now, he’s out of surgery and they have him on a ventilator?  Why?  The only explanation for that would be that his injury has damaged something in his brain that is not allowing him to breath on his own.  Sounds pretty serious to me.

    And the shaved head…  Let me tell you, when they shave you for surgery (which they rarely do anymore), they shave you all the way down, not just with a clipper but with a razor so there is no "five o’clock shadow" left over whatsoever.  IOAS, IOAS, IOAS…

    #16057
    53tdogs
    Participant

    expectling Day’s to make a story line factually accurate…Boink Zonggggggggggg Gweeeek!  < > Welcome to our world!

    #16061
    Patti
    Participant

     they’re never going to do it right, so why bother.  I must say, I thought it was pretty dramatic when they did Shave E.J.’s head.  All I could think of was ‘gee, I hope they don’t screw this up and do something like take a chunk out of his scalp.’  LOL.  It was pretty dramatic to see it actually done on-air though.

    #16063
    DeeLan
    Participant

    It’s not uncommon for someone to be on a ventilator after surgery, even for a simple surgery.    Once in a while a patient might have trouble waking up from anesthesia or the doctor just feels more comfortable with that course of action  If the surgery was late at night and they don’t want to be bothered by phone calls during the night.  If someones on heavy duty sedation which might be the case after brain surgery.  Even the injury itself could have depressed is respiratory system where he’s breathing on his own but not effectively exchanging the gasses and needs the control or a little extra push.

    When my husband had a gastric bypass they said he’d be on a ventilator only in the recovery room.  He was on it for several days due to sleep apnea and his CPAP machine wasn’t effective enough.  They also kept him pretty sedated so he wasn’t aware of much. 

    So, I don’t see him being on a ventilator as unusual, but if he wakes up and starts talking then I’d have a problem since you can’t or shouldn’t be able to talk around that tube.  It goes past your vocal cords and there’s a cuff (balloon) that they fill with air to make a seal and no air or minimal air should get up past that.  

    The other things as to how much hair to shave and how sterile the area is, that’s just plain ignorance.

     

     

    #16065
    53tdogs
    Participant

    remember about a month ago when Bo pulled his tubes out and Carly was sitting right there on his hospital bed?  Can a patient do that without ripping out his vocal cords?  I always see the medical shows, (real and the fiction ones where the doctor cannot get in the throat to "intubate"  – so another doctor has to do it.  I’ve been wondering about that since I saw that scene.  I thought at the time, that it was once again Days writer’s being "stupid is as stupid does". 

    #16068
    imported_JennM
    Participant

    Parietal lobe correctly.

    Then later they said something about the bullet being near the brain stem…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_lobe

    That lobe is nowhere near the brain stem… http://www.rah.sa.gov.au/birs/bi_brain.php

    I doubt a 22 could go through the Parietal Lobe and to the Brain Stem without passing through the Temporal lobe.

    Not to mention the entry wound area looked more like it was close to the Temporal Lobe (as opposed to the Parietal).

    I’m not a doctor, I’ve never played one on TV, but I *am* clearly smarter than the average soap writer.  Any writer using 5 minutes and Google could have come up with something more accurate than what they wrote… and they should at least teach the actors how to pronounce the names of the organs correctly.

    Come on, writers… if I could figure that much out, there’s no reason why you couldn’t.  Don’t they even have some sort of medical advisor on staff?  Even if they don’t – GOOGLE IT!

    Jenn

    #16069
    Patti
    Participant

     or more like a question.  I realize the urgency in E.J.’s case in that he has a bullet lodged in his brain or somewhere very near the vicinity of his brain stem; however, my question is can an operation be performed on a person who has a blood alcohol content so far over the limit as E.J.’s must have been?  I mean, the guy was ‘dead drunk’ when Sami shot him.  Can he even be administered anesthesia while he is in that condition.  I keep remembering when Chelsea was due for surgery and she drank the night before, so Daniel would not do the surgery until they got her blood alcohol under control.  Again, I realize E.J.’s case was an emergency, but can a patient survive anesthesia let alone brain surgery under those circumstances?

    #16076
    DeeLan
    Participant

    When they intubate they have to go past the vocal cords and make sure they’re in the trachea and not esphagas.  Sometimes due to anatomy or swelling from various reasons it’s hard to see so someone with more experience or just another eye needs to step in.

    The balloon is flexable so can be pulled out if tugged on, that’s why it’s taped in place and with a lot more than the 1 piece of tape that they show on TV shows.  It usually toes around the back or the head and if tape isn’t used they have holders that go around the head. It has to be kept stable and make sure it’s not going to shift and start pushing air in the stomach or pull back enough that air’s going into the stomach.

    A patient can pull them out and won’t rip out their vocal cords but the will have a very sore throat and in some cases cause permanent damage.  We had a patient who was very hard to intubate that the doctor had to put a bronchoscope through the tube and use that to visualize where he was and slide the tube down over that.  Sometimes they go in the nose which I hate, it makes the part sticking out shorter and much harder to tape.  Had one ER doc who decided the best way to get a tube in when there was too much damage to see was to put a guide wire through the guy’s neck/throat and pick up up with forceps through the mouth.  He threaded the tube over the guide wire and tried pulling the wire through the throat.  The only thing that happened was tha patient’s head kept bouncing on the table every time he pulled. It also got that doc reported for his behavior.  Another patient was getting a bath and when they turned him on his side the ventilator tubing got caught on the sice of the bed. When they turned him back the tube came out.

    #16090
    Bonbon
    Participant

    when the surgery is elective as opposed to emergency.  You cannot eat or drink anything before surgery but if it’s an emergency, they just deal with it.  I don’t think the alcohol would be a big factor other than having to adjust the amount of anethesia they would administer.  Certainly not an ideal situation but still manageable.  I’ve seen frequent cases on Trauma, Life In the ER, where someone has been shot, had an accident, or whatever, when they were so drunk they had to be restrained and they still did surgery. 

    #16093
    Patti
    Participant

     thanks, Bonbon, for putting some clarity on at least one of my issues involving this mess.  I was thinking, damn, wouldn’t it be something if E.J. did die, not as a result of the shooting, but from administering too much anesthesia to a brain already weakened or very close to alcohol poisoning; and, let’s face it, E.J. was passed out drunk when he was shot.  So drunk, in fact, that he did not hear Sami screaming his name over and over and over again, did not hear her enter the room, did not feel her take the gun out of his hand, and certainly did not SEE her shoot him.  See where I’m going with this?

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