Television

Critics who say reality TV is fake must not watch the ultrasound scenes on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. On a recent episode, Khloe Kardashian visits an infertility doctor with her sister, Kim, and receives an ultrasound of her uterus and ovaries.

Instead of being like most Hollywood scripted shows, KUWTK portrays this scene with spot-on accuracy. Watch the video below… (Caution: Some adult language is censored during this scene).

What KUWTK did right

We can all see that this doctor’s visit is legit. Maybe it was scripted, but at least they recorded the ultrasound as true to real life. Here are the things they did right and something Hollywood needs to study for future TV shows.

1) The physician has the machine turned at the appropriate angle. It is facing the physician and pulled down where he can reach the dashboard. The camera still is able to give him plenty of TV time while Khloe and Kim can watch the scan on the wall monitor.

2) Khloe is pretty much covered with a paper sheet during the scan and the physician or sonographer inserts the probe. This is a very accurate scenario for a real life internal vaginal ultrasound. Sonographers and physicians who scan make sure the patient is comfortable and covered while the scan is being completed. We utilize vaginal scanning to view the uterus and ovaries and also first trimester babies. We scan on top of the belly for second and third trimester pregnancies or other types of imaging.

3) The machine is relatively quiet. The only noise heard in the background is the cooling fan on the system. No heartbeats or added sound effects are slipped into the scene to make it seem more authentic. Finally, TV got this detail correct.

4) The physician uses the appropriate probe and the appropriate anatomy is shown on the screen. The images we see on the monitor are the uterus and ovaries. Many times, shows present anatomy on the screen that doesn’t match the discussion they are having or the sounds coming from the machine.

5) The ultrasound equipment is a top of the line GE ultrasound machine. No ancient relic from the 1980s being thrown into a scene because it’s the only thing in the props room. Hollywood must think no one will know the difference. This physician uses modern ultrasound technology to do his job.

Reality TV might get a bad rap for not being truly “reality”, but this scene was the most accurate ultrasound example on TV to date. Maybe Hollywood films and television directors need to learn from Keeping Up with the Kardashians as an example of what to do when filming an ultrasound scene.

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Shannon Moore Redmon writes romantic suspense stories, to entertain and share the gospel truth of Jesus Christ. Her stories dive into the healthcare environment where Shannon holds over twenty years of experience as a Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer. Her extensive work experience includes Radiology, Obstetrics/Gynecology and Vascular Surgery.

As the former Education Manager for GE Healthcare, she developed her medical professional network across the country. Today, Shannon teaches ultrasound at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and utilizes many resources to provide accurate healthcare research for authors requesting her services.

She is a member of the ACFW and Blue Ridge Mountain Writer’s Group. Shannon is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. She lives and drinks too much coffee in North Carolina with her husband, two boys and her white foo-foo dog, Sophie.

Proof (not to be confused with my debut medical thriller with the same title) is a medical drama starring Jennifer Beals as renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Carolyn Tyler.

Dr. Tyler is recruited by billionaire Ivan Turing to investigate near death experiences (NDEs) as he is soon to face the other side due to a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Tyler is a skeptical atheist and believes death is the end— even though she’s had a NDE herself and longs to reconnect with her teenage son who died in a car accident.

Of course, Turing uses his wealth and a big donation to the hospital to obtain Tyler’s cooperation.

Through the course of her investigations, nearly every religious permutation of the after life is explored— past lives, reincarnation, and soul jumping among them.

The issue becomes when families become aware of Tyler’s investigations and want information that in real life she should never disclose. They’re clearly HIPAA violations. I’ve blogged extensively on HIPAA here, here, and here.

Why is HIPAA so important? It is the law. It’s what healthcare workers are instructed (pounded into the head) to protect every single day. It’s not taken lightly. Medical people have been fired for violating a patient’s privacy by disclosing healthcare related information.

However, the television show Proof seems to not understand what HIPAA entails.

In one instance, a mother who lost her son begins to believe his soul has inhabited another child’s body because he has the same rare blood type, same rare heart condition, and was a piano playing genius. The mother latches onto him and offers to pay for his medical care.

It becomes a sticky situation because the mother who lost her child begins to overstep her bounds and Dr. Tyler begins to believe she’s at risk for kidnapping this other boy over the loss of her son.

To prevent her from taking that step, she begins to list a litany of medical reasons why this patient isn’t her son. The problem is, this mother has no right to any of this information. It is a HIPAA violation.

In another instance, Dr. Tyler convinces a wife to donate her brain dead husband’s heart. Now, she has a vested interest in this happening because one of her patient’s with a rare blood type (evidently everyone in this show has a rare blood type) has been waiting for a heart for years and is running out of time.

The wife agrees and the heart is transplanted but the patient nearly rejects the heart. When the wife of the heart donor catches wind that this has happened (she seems to be hanging around the hospital after the donation has occurred) Dr. Tyler gives her detailed medical information on how the patient who received her husband’s heart is doing.

Again, this wife, even though she donated her husband’s heart, has no right to this information. In fact, donor and recipient identities are highly protected. It’s not that these families never meet, but it usually happens months after and is coordinated by the organ bank and not doctors on site.

In fiction, you can break the rules. Healthcare workers can disclose medical information but they should also face a consequence for it just like we do in real life. The plus, it dramatically increases the tension which is always the goal of any work of fiction.