Depiction of Multidisciplinary Teams in the Management of Pediatric Patients in Medical Television Shows

The goal of this study is to evaluate pediatric multidisciplinary teams depicted in medical television shows. The first 10 pediatric patient encounters in 8 medical television dramas in 2008 and 2018 were analyzed. Patient demographics, medical team members, and description of team member roles/actions were abstracted from each encounter. Multidisciplinary team members were depicted in each of the 80 encounters as follows: attending physicians (93%), resident physicians (41%), and nurses (51%); no medical students, advanced practice providers, pharmacists, or Child Life specialists were depicted. Attending and resident physicians were commonly depicted communicating with patients and ordering labs/medications. Nurses were often depicted administering medication/treatment. Misrepresentation of roles included physicians conducting criminal investigations, unsupervised resident physician care, and inappropriate patient communication. Based on our sample, critical members of pediatric multidisciplinary teams were not depicted, and several role misrepresentations were discovered, which may lead to unrealistic expectations by viewers of medical television shows.