"Where the hell is that patient's nurse?!?!"

While I generally enjoy the TV show House, I feel like must complain about it a little bit. Apparently the hospital in the show does not employ nurses. My sister must be getting really tired of me yelling at the TV, “Where the hell is that patient’s nurse?!?!” All this blood drawing and medication administration that the main characters do would never happen in real life. The only doctors on my floor that administer meds are the anesthesiologists (during surgery and for epidurals). The obstetricians don’t even have access codes for the med pyxis. In this week’s episode the doctor is shocked to find out that the patient hasn’t urinated since the previous afternoon. If the patient had a nurse, they sure as hell would have known that his kidneys were failing much much earlier. Especially since he was on a drug known to cause nephrotoxicity. Despite my complaints, however, I do enjoy the diagnostic reasoning part of the show, as we have been learning a lot about it in my health assessment class. It is fun to see them do their medical detective work. The other medical shows I watch (ER and Grey's Anatomy) aren't much better in their portayal of nurses. I really just wish that there was some show on TV that depicted nurses in a positive and realistic manner.