ArticleThe Journal of emergency medicine2012
ER vs. ED: a comparison of televised and real-life emergency medicine.
Article in The Journal of emergency medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reengineering the Concept of Emergency Care.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026Article
- Quantifying the portrayal of alcohol-related A&E attendances and prevention in the British medical documentary series '24 hours in A&E'.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Article
- Can medical drama motivate students to have an interest in the healthcare professionalism?Korean journal of medical education · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAlthough accurate health-related representations of medical situations on television can be valuable, inaccurate portrayals can engender misinformation.
objectiveThe purpose of this study was to compare sociodemographic and medical characteristics of patients depicted on television vs. actual United States (US) Emergency Department (ED) patients.
methodsTwo independently working coders analyzed all 22 programs in one complete year of the popular "emergency room" drama ER. Inter-rater reliability was excellent, and all initial coding differences were easily adjudicated. Actual health data were obtained from the National Heath and Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from the same year. Chi-squared goodness-of-fit tests were used to compare televised vs. real distribution across key sociodemographic and medical variables.
resultsAges at the extremes of age (i.e., ≤ 4 and ≥ 45 years) were less commonly represented on television compared with reality. Characters on television vs. reality were less commonly women (31.2% vs. 52.9%, respectively), African-American (12.7% vs. 20.3%), or Hispanic (7.1% vs. 12.5%). The two most common acuity categories for television were the extreme categories "non-urgent" and "emergent," whereas the two most common categories for reality were the middle categories "semi-urgent" and "urgent." Televised visits compared with reality were most commonly due to injury (63.5% vs. 37.0%, respectively), and televised injuries were less commonly work-related (4.2% vs. 14.8%, respectively).
conclusionsComparison of represented and actual characteristics of ED patients may be valuable in helping us determine what types of patient misperceptions may exist, as well as what types of interventions may be beneficial in correcting that potential misinformation.
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Registered trials
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