en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Wed, 22 May 2013 11:13:13 GMT 15 By Adam Berman, Sarah Townsend and Katie Talsma
Leelenaw County Deputy Scott Robinson Q: Which shows do you watch? A: CSI, or just regular Cops on TV Q: Which shows portray reality the best? The worst? A: Probably Cops portrays reality the best, and CSI or Law and Order are the worst. Q: What is the most outlandish part of a show that you have seen or heard of? A: When they’ll get DNA tests or fingerprints back within a day, and in reality it takes months. Q: What are some of the mistakes or stereotypes that people draw from these shows? A: Whenever we actually have crime scenes to go to, people usually expect to have results within a week and it doesn’t happen. It typically takes months as compared to TV when they can do it within about a day’s worth of time. Q: Do you ever laugh at how ridiculous some of the shows are? A: Yeah, sometimes. They have to make it interesting. Q: What part of your job relates the most to some of these shows? A: Any time they have to collect evidence relates to what we have to do as far as fingerprinting and impressions. If you watch Cops, it’s pretty much what we’re doing as far as traffic stops and so on. Q: What part of your job relates to the shows the least? A: If you watch cops, they tape that for months. You’re not busy like that all the time. It’s not every day when they have robberies, or somebody with a gun. You’re lucky if that happens four or five times a year. Ann Chamberlain. Speckin Forensic Laboratories. Q:Do you watch any shows that are based off the forensic science profession? A:I watch them all- C.S.I., Law&Order, and all the specials on CourtTv and A&E Q:What are some major differences between your job and what can be seen on television? A:Just the time frame is much, much faster. And the science is blown wat out of proportion. On TV, if someone just touches something they can get DNA off of it, and it just doesn’t work like that in real life. Shows like C.S.I. also have their employees going to the actual crime scenes, working in the laboratory and arresting and interrogating people. Usually we just do one of those aspects. And we also don’t wear leather and stilettos to crime scenes. Q:Which shows portray reality the best? Worst? A:None of them portray real life, but C.S.I. probably the worst. I love the show and it’s great entertainment, but that’s all it is- entertainment. Q:What is the biggest mistake or stereotype viewers can draw about your job based on television shows like CSI? A:The biggest misconception is definitely how fast things go. Shows have to cram everything in to a 60 minute episode and they make it seem like a few days. But really, from the crime scene to the lab to the interrogation, it can take at least months, if not years. Q:What is the best aspect of your career? Worst? A:It’s different everyday, you never know what case you’re going to get. And the circumstances surrounding a crime are always different, so my job is definitely unique to say the least. It’s always a challenge. The hardest part about my job is some of the stuff I have to see, crime-wise, and thinking about what some people had to go through. They don’t show you that part on C.S.I. Q:Do you wish your job was more or less like the jobs portrayed on television? Why? A:The only reason I would want my job to be more like the shows is just to speed up the actual process. Some analysis and lab work seem to take forever, so it would be nice to have them be done in a day versus a month or two. Dr. Darrel Rosen Radiologist at St. Mary's HospitalQ: Which of the tv medical shows is your favorite? Why? A: ER. I’ve watched it since the beginning and you get to know the characters really well and there’s always something going on. Q: Do you feel that newer shows like House and Gray’s Anatomy do as good of a job with the medical drama as a much longer running show like ER does? A: Well I think Gray’s Anatomy is more about the people rather than the patient and the diagnosis, where House is really diagnosis driven. They have, one or two really tough cases a week. Of course, it’s also a lot about the characters and his relationships with them. But if you just want to watch a show because you’re interested in the medicine, House would be a lot better than Gray’s Anatomy Q: Has you ever seen a particular story line or scene and thought it was completely outlandish and would never actually occur in your profession? A: Well obviously they have to have their exotic type chases just because things like colds don’t make good tv, so the things that they would see even in one episode you might only see once or twice a year. Q: What are some of the mistakes you seen on these medical dramas? A: The hardest thing they have trouble with a lot more than three syllables and a lot of medical words are. They don’t pronounce them correctly. It just makes me cringe. The other thing I don’t like is that half the time, they might show an x ray that’s hung upside down or backwards. Like on Scrubs, the opening scene where it says ‘Scrubs’ across the chest x ray, that’s backwards. Q: Do mistakes like that affect whether or not you will watch a show? A: No not really, I’m not watching the show to be a better doctor, I’m watching to be entertained. Q: Are there any misconceptions from patients about how things actually work in the medical profession? A: I don’t think so, at least not in the radiology department I don’t hear anything like, “Why don’t you guys do it the way they did on ER.” Q: Do you think these actors portray your profession in a positive light? A: Well, I’m a radiologist and there’s hardly any radiologist you see on tv. Every once in awhile they had one or two scenes in the radiology department on the ER show, and the radiologist wasn’t portrayed in a very flattering way. Most of the time, they tend to do the radiology procedures themselves, which would never happen in real life. Q: What’s the best aspect of your profession? A: Being a radiologist is like being a detective. You have to look at pictures and look for clues about what’s wrong with the patient and a lot of times you can make a really interesting diagnosis and have a real major affect on a patient’s life. ]]> Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:29:00 GMT