Commentary
Angela T. Robinson, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM
Alan H. B. Wu, PhD
November 2025—Watch any television medical show and you’ll see a typical scene: Ambulance lights flash and a siren sounds while the patient is transported through the crowded streets to reach the nearest hospital. The EMTs emerge with the stretcher and rush through the ER doors as the doctors, nurses, and assistants hover over the patient to take initial vitals. A provider calls out: “I need a BMP, CBC, type and screen . . . and I need it stat!”
This is the time the TV show might go to a commercial—or anywhere else but the clinical laboratory. Yet it’s where medical laboratory professionals produce the vital laboratory information that is reported to the physicians before they make major medical and triaging decisions.
Therein lies the problem for the clinical laboratory: the media’s inattention, which results in the public’s lack of awareness of the lab’s importance. During the pandemic, mainstream media did feature the laboratory while more than 1.5 billion SARS-CoV-2 tests were performed in the lab as of December 2022 (in addition to the other 14 billion clinical lab tests performed annually), and laboratorians worldwide shared a moment of importance. Now the profession has returned to obscurity. While news reporting when it’s factual plays an important role in informing the public, it is TV that has the most influence in shaping public perception and providing health education.
Here, we summarize (using comments from medical lab professionals on lab social media platforms) the failings of TV and cinema to portray the work of medical laboratory scientists accurately.
The first noted medical show was City Hospital (1951–1953), which only occasionally depicted laboratory medicine and its professionals and grossly misrepresented them.
Remington Steele had one episode in 1983 in which a laboratory security compromise of medical records was investigated, but the suspense was worse than the writers intended when it was discovered the nurse ran the tests without a provider order. In a 1989 episode of Hunter, detectives followed a trail of revenge and fraud leading to the tech who analyzed the semen sample. When they interrogated the tech about the standard procedure for another lab technician to verify test results, he quickly claimed his innocence to the fraud—until the detective accused him of getting paid to alter test results. The tech responded: “Do you have any idea what a lab technician makes?”
The clinical laboratory had some visibility in St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), but the show failed to accurately portray the action. In one scene Dr. Phillip Chandler (Denzel Washington) enters a hematology lab to run the Coulter STKS and find bands; he took over the analyzer because the lab tech was at dinner. Then there was the medical resident who walked into the blood bank laboratory, again with no one in attendance, and opened the refrigerator door to retrieve a unit of blood after moving the food on the shelf out of the way. That prompted a letter to the producers and directors, who apologized for their inaccuracies.
Hollywood has not been much better, with no shortage of movies dedicated to viral outbreaks and pandemics but generally casting only scientists. There was Outbreak (1995), Contagion (2011), 12 Monkeys (1995), I Am Legend (2007), 28 Days Later (2002), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Crazies (1973, 2010), Carriers (2009), The Bay (2012), and Containment (2015), among others, with Contagion most closely depicting the epidemiology and sociological sides of an epidemic. None of these movies highlights the important role laboratory professionals and pathologists play during such a crisis. Instead, the characters conduct laboratory-based research investigations.
How do viewers who are resolute, committed, and responsible laboratory professionals react to a scene in a medical show that depicts the laboratory inaccurately?
It is like listening to an unbalanced centrifuge or seeing the label placed on the blood tube incorrectly. Here are two such scenes:
- Royal Pains (2009): The doctor claims an unstained slide is Gram cocci positive Staphylococcus aureus simply by looking under the microscope.
- Scorpion (2016): A doctor claims that a type AB negative patient cannot receive type O negative blood.
Performing lab tests requires training and expertise that physicians don’t typically acquire in their general medical training, but TV shows suggest otherwise. ER (1994–2009), for example, showed doctors running a fluorescent microscope in the middle of the night to diagnose a patient with syphilis.
While no laboratory area is immune to the TV virus, the blood bank and microbiology are most infected. Here are just a few of the incorrect TV and movie portrayals of laboratory medicine as revealed by colleagues:
- Direct unscreened whole blood transfusions.
- Doctor performs blood typing in the lab—next to the patient’s room.
- Doctor visually can determine MRSA from Acinetobacter.
- Doctor said the culture came back positive for tapeworm.
- Doctors draw their own specimens using a red top for a CBC.
- An ACD yellow top microbiology blood culture vial spins in a centrifuge.
- Doctor drew blood, held up the tube of whole blood . . . shook the tube . . . then pronounced the blood type.
Phlebotomy skills are lacking in the TV world. Burden of Proof, a 2023 documentary, showed a patient in agony, but a colleague of a lab professional was convinced the 90-degree angle of the five-inch needle with fingers bracing the needle in the antecubital vein would explain those facial expressions.
The website Cracked.com featured a mention of how TV gets people’s jobs wrong, and one of the examples was doctors performing laboratory tests.
How do these inaccuracies occur? Hollywood employs few medical laboratory consultants to fact-check actions and storylines. One exception is the TV show Crossing Jordan, for which Barbarajean Magnani, PhD, MD, formerly of Tufts University, was a pathology consultant.
TV gets some things right, among them: The Sam Fujiyama character (Robert Ito) in Quincy M.E. (1976–1983) won the support of some in the laboratory with his role as the forensic laboratory technician, and he was honored during Lab Week. Al Roker and Katie Couric in 1995 signed Lab Week posters and featured medical laboratory professionals on The Today Show. In May 2024, Caballero Casting, the agency for Mayfair Witches (novelist Anne Rice), posted a casting note on laboratory Facebook pages for an experienced lab technician for an acting role as well as an advisor consultant for the show. However, the individual has not been listed publicly in posted casting information.
The Pitt (2025) has been hailed as perhaps the most accurate medical show of all time, yet our medical laboratory colleagues say the blood transfusion episodes still fall short in their accuracy. The show is said to be “a realistic examination of the challenges facing health care workers in America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a hospital,” but depicting the behind-the-scenes heroes of health care would be of value too.
Inaccurate portrayals may have perpetuated the undervalue that the field of pathology and laboratory medicine suffers from within the medical profession and by the general public.
One author (AW) has undertaken a 10-year multiphase campaign to raise awareness. First was the publication of eight paperback books containing real and de-identified medical short stories in which the clinical laboratory plays a vital role in identifying and solving medical problems (Wu AHB. Exp Rev Precision Med Drug Develop. 2016;1[3]:233–234). Next was a TikTok campaign titled #labtales (https://www.tiktok.com/@labtales), which contains posts that encapsulate quickly some of these and other stories with images and narration by a professional influencer. The channel has enjoyed 60,000 followers and 120,000 likes (Wu AHB, et al. J Appl Lab Med. 2025;10[1]:192–199).
Creating a television series would reach the widest possible audience, and work on that is underway. The key characters are pathologists and laboratory professionals. The model for this show is the popular TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS, which use science to help detectives and lawyers solve crimes and prosecute criminals. Screenwriter Will Lupica is helping to create a pilot script and show bible for a dramatic show that features the exploits of a clinical laboratory director, with laboratory section chiefs—chemistry, toxicology, hematology, microbiology—as the protagonists. The plan is to feature board-certified laboratory professionals and to portray them accurately as they perform laboratory tests to provide the important medical data physicians and nurses need to diagnose, treat, and care for their patients. Unlike crime, in which most of the viewing audience has a passive interest, this show will also provide an educational component for patients and their families as they learn about how results of lab tests are used to make medical decisions to treat (or not) the medical problems we all have or will face. This may be the best way in which to convey the true value of actionable laboratory results and the work it takes to produce them.
Angela Robinson is a retired associate administrative director of pathology and laboratory medicine and now a clinical advisor for Long Island, NY, medical laboratory scientist colleges and universities. Dr. Wu is professor of laboratory medicine, University of San Francisco Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and co-core laboratory director, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. The views expressed in commentaries published in CAP TODAY are not necessarily those of CAP TODAY or the College of American Pathologists.
On TV and in film, the misportrayal of the lab
Summary
Medical shows often inaccurately portray the work of medical laboratory professionals, leading to a lack of public awareness about their importance. While some shows have depicted laboratory medicine accurately, many have misrepresented the field, perpetuating its undervaluation. Efforts are underway to create a television series that accurately portrays the work of laboratory professionals, aiming to educate the public about their vital role in healthcare.
Commentary
Angela T. Robinson, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM
Alan H. B. Wu, PhD
November 2025—Watch any television medical show and you’ll see a typical scene: Ambulance lights flash and a siren sounds while the patient is transported through the crowded streets to reach the nearest hospital. The EMTs emerge with the stretcher and rush through the ER doors as the doctors, nurses, and assistants hover over the patient to take initial vitals. A provider calls out: “I need a BMP, CBC, type and screen . . . and I need it stat!”
This is the time the TV show might go to a commercial—or anywhere else but the clinical laboratory. Yet it’s where medical laboratory professionals produce the vital laboratory information that is reported to the physicians before they make major medical and triaging decisions.
Therein lies the problem for the clinical laboratory: the media’s inattention, which results in the public’s lack of awareness of the lab’s importance. During the pandemic, mainstream media did feature the laboratory while more than 1.5 billion SARS-CoV-2 tests were performed in the lab as of December 2022 (in addition to the other 14 billion clinical lab tests performed annually), and laboratorians worldwide shared a moment of importance. Now the profession has returned to obscurity. While news reporting when it’s factual plays an important role in informing the public, it is TV that has the most influence in shaping public perception and providing health education.
Here, we summarize (using comments from medical lab professionals on lab social media platforms) the failings of TV and cinema to portray the work of medical laboratory scientists accurately.
The first noted medical show was City Hospital (1951–1953), which only occasionally depicted laboratory medicine and its professionals and grossly misrepresented them.
Remington Steele had one episode in 1983 in which a laboratory security compromise of medical records was investigated, but the suspense was worse than the writers intended when it was discovered the nurse ran the tests without a provider order. In a 1989 episode of Hunter, detectives followed a trail of revenge and fraud leading to the tech who analyzed the semen sample. When they interrogated the tech about the standard procedure for another lab technician to verify test results, he quickly claimed his innocence to the fraud—until the detective accused him of getting paid to alter test results. The tech responded: “Do you have any idea what a lab technician makes?”
The clinical laboratory had some visibility in St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), but the show failed to accurately portray the action. In one scene Dr. Phillip Chandler (Denzel Washington) enters a hematology lab to run the Coulter STKS and find bands; he took over the analyzer because the lab tech was at dinner. Then there was the medical resident who walked into the blood bank laboratory, again with no one in attendance, and opened the refrigerator door to retrieve a unit of blood after moving the food on the shelf out of the way. That prompted a letter to the producers and directors, who apologized for their inaccuracies.
Hollywood has not been much better, with no shortage of movies dedicated to viral outbreaks and pandemics but generally casting only scientists. There was Outbreak (1995), Contagion (2011), 12 Monkeys (1995), I Am Legend (2007), 28 Days Later (2002), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Crazies (1973, 2010), Carriers (2009), The Bay (2012), and Containment (2015), among others, with Contagion most closely depicting the epidemiology and sociological sides of an epidemic. None of these movies highlights the important role laboratory professionals and pathologists play during such a crisis. Instead, the characters conduct laboratory-based research investigations.
How do viewers who are resolute, committed, and responsible laboratory professionals react to a scene in a medical show that depicts the laboratory inaccurately?
It is like listening to an unbalanced centrifuge or seeing the label placed on the blood tube incorrectly. Here are two such scenes:
Performing lab tests requires training and expertise that physicians don’t typically acquire in their general medical training, but TV shows suggest otherwise. ER (1994–2009), for example, showed doctors running a fluorescent microscope in the middle of the night to diagnose a patient with syphilis.
While no laboratory area is immune to the TV virus, the blood bank and microbiology are most infected. Here are just a few of the incorrect TV and movie portrayals of laboratory medicine as revealed by colleagues:
Phlebotomy skills are lacking in the TV world. Burden of Proof, a 2023 documentary, showed a patient in agony, but a colleague of a lab professional was convinced the 90-degree angle of the five-inch needle with fingers bracing the needle in the antecubital vein would explain those facial expressions.
The website Cracked.com featured a mention of how TV gets people’s jobs wrong, and one of the examples was doctors performing laboratory tests.
How do these inaccuracies occur? Hollywood employs few medical laboratory consultants to fact-check actions and storylines. One exception is the TV show Crossing Jordan, for which Barbarajean Magnani, PhD, MD, formerly of Tufts University, was a pathology consultant.
TV gets some things right, among them: The Sam Fujiyama character (Robert Ito) in Quincy M.E. (1976–1983) won the support of some in the laboratory with his role as the forensic laboratory technician, and he was honored during Lab Week. Al Roker and Katie Couric in 1995 signed Lab Week posters and featured medical laboratory professionals on The Today Show. In May 2024, Caballero Casting, the agency for Mayfair Witches (novelist Anne Rice), posted a casting note on laboratory Facebook pages for an experienced lab technician for an acting role as well as an advisor consultant for the show. However, the individual has not been listed publicly in posted casting information.
The Pitt (2025) has been hailed as perhaps the most accurate medical show of all time, yet our medical laboratory colleagues say the blood transfusion episodes still fall short in their accuracy. The show is said to be “a realistic examination of the challenges facing health care workers in America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a hospital,” but depicting the behind-the-scenes heroes of health care would be of value too.
Inaccurate portrayals may have perpetuated the undervalue that the field of pathology and laboratory medicine suffers from within the medical profession and by the general public.
One author (AW) has undertaken a 10-year multiphase campaign to raise awareness. First was the publication of eight paperback books containing real and de-identified medical short stories in which the clinical laboratory plays a vital role in identifying and solving medical problems (Wu AHB. Exp Rev Precision Med Drug Develop. 2016;1[3]:233–234). Next was a TikTok campaign titled #labtales (https://www.tiktok.com/@labtales), which contains posts that encapsulate quickly some of these and other stories with images and narration by a professional influencer. The channel has enjoyed 60,000 followers and 120,000 likes (Wu AHB, et al. J Appl Lab Med. 2025;10[1]:192–199).
Creating a television series would reach the widest possible audience, and work on that is underway. The key characters are pathologists and laboratory professionals. The model for this show is the popular TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS, which use science to help detectives and lawyers solve crimes and prosecute criminals. Screenwriter Will Lupica is helping to create a pilot script and show bible for a dramatic show that features the exploits of a clinical laboratory director, with laboratory section chiefs—chemistry, toxicology, hematology, microbiology—as the protagonists. The plan is to feature board-certified laboratory professionals and to portray them accurately as they perform laboratory tests to provide the important medical data physicians and nurses need to diagnose, treat, and care for their patients. Unlike crime, in which most of the viewing audience has a passive interest, this show will also provide an educational component for patients and their families as they learn about how results of lab tests are used to make medical decisions to treat (or not) the medical problems we all have or will face. This may be the best way in which to convey the true value of actionable laboratory results and the work it takes to produce them.
Angela Robinson is a retired associate administrative director of pathology and laboratory medicine and now a clinical advisor for Long Island, NY, medical laboratory scientist colleges and universities. Dr. Wu is professor of laboratory medicine, University of San Francisco Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and co-core laboratory director, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. The views expressed in commentaries published in CAP TODAY are not necessarily those of CAP TODAY or the College of American Pathologists.
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