Episode Details

D:Hey Yael, do you have...

Y:Shh!  I'm watching my favorite medical drama, "Very Attractive Doctors."

D:Sorry.  What's going on?

Y:A terrible accident victim was just brought into the ER.  Oh no, she's flatlining!  Quick, grab those paddle things and shock her!

D:Wrong move.

Y:Whaddya mean?  See, Dr. Smith is trying to shock her back to life.  Flat line!  Clear!  Zap!

D:That may be how it's done on TV, but not in real life.  See, those paddles, which are part of a machine called a defibrillator, don't work by shocking the heart back into action after its stopped beating.  The word fibrillate mean flutter.  It's used to describe what can happen when you have a heart attack.  When the electrical pulses that make your heart beat go haywire your heart starts to beat irregularly, or flutter.  

Y:So what do the paddles do?

D:They use just enough voltage to shock the heart back into a regular rhythm without burning the skin.  It's kind of like restarting a computer when it freezes up.  The defibrillator tries to do just what its name means--it de-fibrillates, meaning that it stops the irregular beating and resets the heart to beat regularly.  

Y:And when the patient flatlines?

D:Then her heart has stopped beating.  That's when its time for CPR and drugs, not the paddles.  A defibrillator can't shock a heart back into life after its stopped working.  It can only help stop a heart attack.

Y:[CHAGRINED] So "Very Attractive Doctors" isn't one hundred percent medically accurate.

D:No, but it is totally Hollywood.