7 Grey's Anatomy Cases Real Doctors Are Laughing At
These cases may have convinced fans, but the real doctors have diagnosed them as impossible, and a little bit ridiculous.
1. Fork in neck (S2, E20)
A patient arrives at the hospital with a fork in her neck, and Derek Shepherd orders her an MRI, but nobody thinks to remove the protruding metal fork from her neck. In the real world, the fork would have been ripped out of her neck by the magnet in the MRI. How could McDreamy, of all people, forget the basic rules of an MRI?
2. Izzie cutting Denny's LVAD wire (S2, E27)
If falling in love with her patient wasn't bad enough, Izzie cut Denny's LVAD wire to move him up on the transplant list.
Everything about this was unethical and unrealistic, but the worst part was that Izzie did not get her medical license revoked. There were consequences, but she continued to work at the hospital when realistically she would have been charged.
3. Ben's unauthorized procedure (S12, E18)
Hospitals have strict protocols, but everything went out the window when the hospital went into lockdown and Ben's pregnant patient began to crash while they were trapped.
Apparently, the only option was to cut her open and deliver the baby, unsupervised and unsupported. Ben ended up killing both the mother and baby in the impromptu surgery, which would never have occurred in the real world. Also, what kind of hospital shuts down to that extreme?
4. Toxic Blood (S3, E14)
When doctors start passing out in the OR with no explanation, it turns out that the patient had been taking a herbal supplement with her chemo, turning her blood toxic to everyone around her.
Although this episode was based on a real story, Grey's Anatomy overly dramatized it, with the remaining doctors forced to tag team and hold their breaths to complete the procedure while the patient was waking up, in an impromptu and, frankly reckless, feat.
5. Bomb in a body (S2, E26)
This episode was thrilling and dramatic, and a long stretch from anything realistic.
Realistically, the bomb inside the patient should have gone off; when it first hit him, during transport, or during surgery. There were many occasions where it would have been disturbed, but instead, it waited to explode at the last moment for dramatic effect, defying all logic.
6. Izzie operating on a deer (S4, E1)
Being a Grey's Anatomy doctor means you can operate on anything, apparently.
Izzie uses hospital equipment to shock an injured deer immediately back to life in the back of a pickup truck. This was unrealistic, highly unprofessional, and just dumb. Did nobody consider calling a vet?
7. Meredith's Drowning (S3, E16)
'No way someone submerged underwater for an hour and hyperthermic for 5 hours gets to live.'
After drowning in freezing water, a practically dead Meredith is intubated and brought back to
life, perfectly fine, even speaking. She should have been on a ventilator for days and realistically would have come out with some mental defects.