People want to believe that hospital work is exactly like TV. In their fantasies, doctors race into rooms with fabulous hair and genius diagnoses, nurses crack wonderful jokes as they hang IV bags, and every crisis gets resolved in sixty minutes, just in time for a slow-motion walk down the hall to inspirational music.
The truth? Hospital hallways do not have dramatic lighting, inspirational music does not begin to play, and the nearest thing to a grand finale is when, after a few tries, the vending machine will accept your crumpled five-dollar bill.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that hospital staff spend their days in non-stop emergencies. While life-or-death crises do take place, much of the work involves paperwork. Mountains and mountains of paperwork. Entire forests have been decimated to the cause of forms that must be filled out in triplicate. There are also hours of waiting: waiting for labs, waiting for consults, waiting for a printer that's been "jammed" since 2012. It is not the glamorous montage that people perceive.
Another popular myth is that hospital workers know absolutely everything. Ask about a rare tropical parasite found in only three people in history, and people are surprised when the response is, “Let me check.” In reality, the phrase “I’ll look that up” is as vital a tool as a stethoscope.
Medicine changes constantly, and no one has the entire medical encyclopedia in their head. Google may not be an option on the hospital computers, but let's just say "consulting the system" is a bit of a euphemism for the electronic alternative.
Then there's the idea that all hospital employees are cool, calm, and collected every minute of every day. Of course, workers are trained to be calm, but a lot of times calm looks like gallows humor whispered around the break room at 3 a.m.
Or sprinting down the hallway to catch a patient who decided to "stretch their legs" while attached to half of the cardiology department. Sometimes calm is being able to nod gravely while a patient explains that they sustained their injury in "a dispute with a raccoon."
