Media and Medical Humanities

This podcast, On Media and Medicine, an interview with Kirsten Ostherr, was very interesting. It covered a broad range of topics and I learned a lot of new information. This episode was about what do movies, TV dramas and social media have to do with real life doctor patient relationships? Ostherr discussed about the relationship between media and medicine.

There were a lot of topics that were interesting. One thing was when they talked about medical reality TV and TV dramas. I love Grey’s Anatomy, and in the interview she discussed how there are only some aspects of accuracy in these types of shows. These shows claim to represent medicine how it really is. As she is a medical scholar, Kirsten knows the techniques for shows to produce a certain reality. The way these medical shows are, they tend to only focus on the most dramatic kinds of interventions. However in reality, the crazy things doesn’t happen on a daily basis in a hospital. Day to day life in a hospital may be dramatic but there is a lot more care for people with chronic conditions. It is not very dramatic and it is not over quickly but the dramas try to give us a sense that that is actually what goes on in hospitals.

This podcast differs from the written essays and articles from class, in that hearing a voice tell the story instead of reading it gives me a better understanding of the content and the tone of the piece. When listening, you can tell exactly what message the author or in this case, Kirsten is trying to project and listening allows us to build a connection with her.