The Real Grey's Anatomy: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at thte Real Lives of Surgical Residents

by Andrew Holtz

Overview

The ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy has generated a flurry of interest in how medical professionals really make it through one of the most rigorous educational programs around, but how much of the medical drama seen in Grey’s Anatomy is pure entertainment, and how much is an accurate reflection of life both in and out of the OR?

In The Real Grey's Anatomy, a well-known medical journalist provides some answers. He examines a group of new surgical residents at a major teaching hospital in the Pacific Northwest as they tackle the roller-coaster ride of long hours, fascinating procedures, mundane office tasks, and emotional ups and downs that comprise the life of a student of surgery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425232118
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/05/2010
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	772,257
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Andrew Holtz, MPH, is a health journalist. A former CNN medical correspondent—and co-anchor for the Your Health program—he now works as a freelancer covering health and medicine. Holtz earned a Master of Public Health degree in the Oregon MPH program. He received his BA from Stanford University where he majored in broadcast communication and minored in physics. He is a board member and past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The First Day 5

2 The First Cut 12

3 Some Background 17

4 Codes and Trauma 20

5 Unexpected 29

6 Flame On 32

7 Hospitals Never Close 35

8 Holidays 51

9 Truth in a Bottle 59

10 Match Day 61

11 Bad News 72

12 Amputation 85

13 Communication 90

14 Treating Bad People 110

15 Death 118

16 The Personality of Surgery 139

17 Institutions Have Personalities, Too 177

18 Extracurricular Activities 184

19 Family 190

20 Hospital Roman 197

21 Hierarchy 200

22 Taking Care of Yourself 207

23 Transplant 217

24 Memento 222

25 Strange Memories 228

26 Evidence 232

27 Research 237

28 Generations 242

29 This M&M Isn't Sweet 257

30 The Pause That Protects 262

31 Twenty-First-Century Charts 268

32 Get Me off the Website 277

33 Practice Makes Perfect 279

34 A Discharge 283

35 The Bill 285

36 Planning for the Worst 293

37 Reputations 301

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

The overachievers on the hit TV show Grey's Anatomy stand on the shoulders of M.D.s from decades of medical dramas. But health journalist Holtz finds more than a kernel of truth in the ABC white-coat soaper and notes, “[O]ur attitudes and beliefs about surgery and medicine shift and adapt unconsciously” while we take in the fiction from Seattle Grace Hospital. What unfolds in the book is a Cliff's Notes for surgical residents: the grueling hours—a max of 80 a week; the weird operating flukes—a flame bizarrely ignites from the gas in a surgery patient's gut; the need to give good care even to bad people. The anecdotes, however, seem as likely to come from Grey's as from real life. On the struggle in treating ailing criminals, one resident confides, “I don't feel like my care was compromised by being aware that he was a criminal, but it definitely made me think about it.” There's little new in these tales from the sick ward, but Holtz gives them all a Hollywood glow. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly