This week's gripes about Grey's Anatomy

Okay, so I missed the first half hour of the show again (I seem to have begun a pattern here), but nonetheless I'll take my stab at dispelling Grey's Anatomy - induced misconceptions.

1) Most hospitals have places to store severed penises. Those places do not include the trustworthy hands of surgical interns. Nevermind the fact that ice evinces an inherent proclivity to melt, and that after just a few hours the severed penis would be floating in lukewarm bloody water; unless, of course, the surgical intern devoted much of her already limited time to opening her little red and white cooler, dumping the broth from the penis soup contained therein, and re-packing the cooler with ice. Anyhow, the take-home-message is that severed penises are kept in special severed bodypart refrigeration devices, and are not carried around ad nauseum by surgical interns.

2) At an academic medical institution, the chief of surgery typically does not hand-pick his successor. Rather, the hospital board makes the decision, generally at the behest of a cadre of executive faculty members (i.e. multiple chiefs of other services in the hospital). This actual scenario provides much less drama and interpersonal competition, however.

3) Yes, indeed, surgical interns sometimes scrub into cases and find themselves merely holding a retractor. However, this task generally finds its way into the category of "things I hate about internship," and does not cause ejaculations of joy and awe as we once again saw from Dr. Grey in this episode. The girl is seriously going to lose her sh*@ when she actually gets to make an incision or close a wound.

4) Every newborn baby has its blood oxygen content checked via pulse oximetry. Cyanotic heart conditions such as Tetralogy of Fallot generally do not just 'slip by,' waiting for the gallant surgical intern to swoop in and save the day.

Well, that's about enough. If I had watched the whole show, I might have had more. And by the way, if my fault-finding becomes annoying, feel free to send me a nasty email or berate me mercilessly in my comments.


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In other news, this and this are pretty cool. It appears the scene in Star Wars in which Luke's severed hand (a lot of talk of severed body parts today, I know) is replaced with a robotic hand may become more fact than fancy in coming years.