Holby so wrong tonight

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AJLang

AJLang

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
OMG what on earth are Holby playing at saying that undiagnosed diabetic is suffering from a HYPO and is given glucose glucagon from the cupboard which should be stored in a FRIDGE. So wrong on so many levels.
 
I too had a shout at the telly.
also after major surgery and undiagnosed she would have been hyper Not hypo!!!!
 
I just love to shout at the telly when I spot those diabetical 😉 mistakes .
 
Oh dear, I haven’t seen that yet. I shall look forward to having a good shout. Probably a good job they’re axing it then, if they can’t be bothered to get their facts right!
 
Perhaps this is how they plan to end it? Just have increasingly silly medical story lines to go with the implausible non-medical stories?
 
I have noticed on several TV programmes either about health or an incidental occasion, that the information is wrong, or misleading, or downright dangerous. I always thought they had medically qualified people advising on such occasions but obviously not. Even if they need a dramatic effect it should still be correct information. I have seen where someone is having a hypo and they are given insulin. Although I once did see a film which stuck in my mind where it was very realistic where the girl was having a hypo and they were trying to get her to drink juice - they made that dramatic by making her obstinate and refuse saying she is OK. Very realistic and much more dramatic because it could well be a true event.
 
And people would much rather believe what they’ve seen in the media than a person who actually lives with the condition. My daughter and I have spent far too much time arguing with people who neither have diabetes themselves, nor look after anyone who does, yet still think they know more about it than we do. We’ve been quite lucky too, I’ve heard far worse horror stories than we’ve actually had ourselves! And then you get this sort of TV rubbish, yes it’s only a drama but people still believe it. They do supposedly have medical advisers but they clearly don’t always do a very good job! Makes you wonder what else they don’t get right. I haven’t got a clue what they are on about when they are doing heart operations and so on, whether any of that is accurate, but presumably there are people out there who do!
 
Lilian said:
I have noticed on several TV programmes either about health or an incidental occasion, that the information is wrong, or misleading, or downright dangerous. I always thought they had medically qualified people advising on such occasions but obviously not. Even if they need a dramatic effect it should still be correct information. I have seen where someone is having a hypo and they are given insulin. Although I once did see a film which stuck in my mind where it was very realistic where the girl was having a hypo and they were trying to get her to drink juice - they made that dramatic by making her obstinate and refuse saying she is OK. Very realistic and much more dramatic because it could well be a true event.
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I had a colleague who was a medical adviser on a TV programme.
 
Lilian said:
Even if they need a dramatic effect it should still be correct information. I have seen where someone is having a hypo and they are given insulin.
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I did wonder about that. It's possible that they preferred giving the safer alternative rather than the more risky one even though it doesn't really make sense.
 
Ljc said:
I just love to shout at the telly when I spot those diabetical 😉 mistakes .
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I do too (at *diabolical* mistakes
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- I don't watch Holby but I often shout at period dramas, as I.Know.Stuff about history, especially the Middle Ages
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I’ve just watched the episode, and played the critical bit back with the subtitles on to see whether he said hypo or hyper, as it’s hard to tell! The doctor actually said she was hypERglycaemic, which would obviously be correct and all the symptoms matched being high, then he said she needed glucose (and actually fetched what looked like a glucagon kit, which he miraculously didn’t need to mix up...) OK so people aren’t going to know what glucagon is or how it works, but suggesting that glucose will cure a hypERglycaemic attack - oh for goodness sake...
 
Sally71 said:
I’ve just watched the episode, and played the critical bit back with the subtitles on to see whether he said hypo or hyper, as it’s hard to tell! The doctor actually said she was hypERglycaemic, which would obviously be correct and all the symptoms matched being high, then he said she needed glucose (and actually fetched what looked like a glucagon kit, which he miraculously didn’t need to mix up...) OK so people aren’t going to know what glucagon is or how it works, but suggesting that glucose will cure a hypERglycaemic attack - oh for goodness sake...
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Yes I couldn't quite catch exactly what he said, perhaps that was intentional. You can't have people self diagnosing from what they watch on the TV, that would never do.
 
I would not always rely on the subtitles. We often have a laugh at what was said and what the subtitles say. At the trooping of the colour the other day the narrator was talking about the guard and the subtitles were talking about the card.
 
Alannah said:
and all I need is someone well meaning to jab me with insulin during a hypo because they saw it on the TV.
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But that's exactly what they didn't show!

And I wonder if that's why they (implausibly) made her hypo, so requiring glucose/glucagon?

If they'd shown the patient being hyper then she'd have needed insulin and as you note that's not what you want a random person on the street trying to do.
 
Ignorance may be fatal. Some years ago I was in the reading room of a national library near closing time and felt decidedly hypo. As a supervisor was watching me, I explained I needed to take some glucose tablets, and asked to be allowed to do this, as eating was not allowed. She said "No, you can't do that, you will have to go outside." I attempted to do so, fell over hitting my head on a desk, and knocked myself out. An unqualified first aider, having been told I was hypo, thought it a good idea to give a rather large dose of insulin from the Novopen in my pocket. Fortunately they had called an ambulance, and I ended up in hospital. It was just as well I was kept in overnight, as it took a long time for blood sugar to return to normal.
 
I don't watch TV (just DVDs and Netflix) so I'm usually spared this kind of thing but two things always set me off.

One of them was during an Iron Man film where he invents a brand new element in the periodic table in order to power his heart device thing. He did this by standing on the floor, forming a sphere with his hands and seemingly doing some "oscar winning" meditating complete with every emotion known to mankind. Then after no more than 100 seconds, a new element appeared as though by magic in front of him. I can't remember what triggered more anger - that we were asked to believe he had created a new element in less time than it takes my kettle to boil or that he wasn't wearing any protective clothing for the inevitable highly radioactive emissions which would come from such an element.

The other thing that gets me is seeing either scientific maths on a blackboard in the background or watching computer programs being "run" when all they are doing on the screen is scrolling through source code. My family are sick to death of me using the remote control to freeze the screen until I'm happy that what they've displayed isn't bullshit. 🙂

If I ever see diabetes being mis-represented I'll report back dutifully and let everyone know.
 
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