Richard Dragon #10: A Medical Review

April 14th, 2005

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Richard Dragon #10 “Out of the Past, part four”
Chuck Dixon, writer
Brad Walker, penciler

The splash page in Richard Dragon #10 features a very bad OR (Operating Room) scene. At least, I think it’s the OR, it might be taking place in the Emergency Room — the previous issue wasn’t clear about that and this one is no better. It’s not like there are just a few minor errors and I’m being nit-picky — the scene is full of them. Think of it as one of those puzzle pictures they used to give you in grade school: how may errors can you find?

splash page from Richard Dragon #10
Click on the picture for a full-size image

Here’s the mistakes that caught my eye, from the top to the bottom of the page:

  1. The nurse checking Teddy’s pulse is
    A) doing so using a watch, and
    B) nowhere near Teddy; she appears to be taking the bed’s pulse
  2. The doctor is not wearing gloves, a gown or eye protection.
  3. Actually, nobody in the room is following sterile technique, and most aren’t even wearing masks.
  4. Teddy is not under anesthesia.
  5. The nasal canula is drawn incorrectly.
  6. Teddy is still wearing his clothes. One of the first steps in any trauma assessment is to examine the entire patient, at that requires removing their clothes. With chest wounds they particularly need to examine his back to look for exit wounds.
  7. There is only a single IV. Anyone with trauma experience will you that one of the first tasks is to place two large-bore IVs.
  8. Duct tape is not generally used to restrain patients.
  9. There aren’t any heart monitor leads in place. With chest surgery this is understandable, but later in the issue the heart monitor plays a big part, so they can’t have it both ways…(and yes, this was a trick question as you had to have read — and remembered — the comic!)
  10. The bed is a standard hospital bed, not a surgical bed.
  11. There are non-essential people in the room (the policemen for instance).
  12. What’s with all the blood in the hand sink?
  13. Those aren’t surgical instruments; they’re torture implements…and isn’t that a bottle opener?
  14. The perspective and lighting are off.

I know it may seem like I’m being a little picky, but is a surgeon wearing gloves really too much to ask?

5 Responses to “ Richard Dragon #10: A Medical Review ”

  1. Dave Lartigue
    April 15th, 2005 at 7:42 am

    I can add one more and elaborate on one. I worked in Sterile Processing for a couple of years and nobody was allowed NEAR the OR without at least wearing hear protection. Miss purple-hair needs to get a cap on pronto, as well as some booties.

    But the other one is, I can’t imagine my hospital was radically different in that surgical instruments, even surgical-grade bottle openers, weren’t just sent up to the room on a towel. They were in a metal tray, arranged in a certain order. Maybe in this scene the supply cart is off-panel and they’ve removed some instruments and placed them on this towel. But even if that’s the case, there are a lot more supplies we should be seeing. A trauma room without a rib cutter? Only one basin?

    Sure, it might be nitpicky, but the thing is, hospital scenes are something comics have a lot of. Would it kill you, as an artist, to make a single visit to one, just to see what you’re gonna be drawing?

  2. Aaron Sapp
    April 15th, 2005 at 9:56 am

    I picked up on the hair and shoe covers. I also thought that what you are calling an IV was a RA limb lead for an EKG and wondered where the leg leads are. And I was going to call it an NG-tube instead of a NC and suggest that unless they want to be putting it back they need to secure it. But lets do this right.
    A-If he is fading that fast I’d like to paralyze him and intubate him.
    B-If he doesn’t need intubation I’d like O2 15L non-rebreather at least, if not assisted ventillation by BVM.
    C-What was the trauma that brought him in? Since I don’t know I want him on a backboard and in a C-Collar. You’ve already mentioned the ekg leads and the IV’s.
    If we’ve got that under control lets get him exposed please.
    Make sure no one slips and falls on the standing water around the floor drain.
    Throw those used gloves in the trash please.
    It would be nice if the recording nurse at least had a pen if she’s going to use a blank sheet of paper instead of a flow sheet.

  3. Jon H
    April 15th, 2005 at 10:17 am

    The whole floor looks wet. Note the floor under Nurse Bed Pulse.

    It looks like the procedure is happening in someone’s cellar.

    “Nurse! It will put the lotion on it’s skin!”

  4. Floyd Flanders
    April 18th, 2005 at 1:47 pm

    Plus there are dirty gloves just lying on a table there on the left. What a filthy hospital.

  5. Timmo Warner
    April 21st, 2005 at 9:55 pm

    A correction to a previous comment.

    Except for the standing water around the drain, the smears below everyone’s feet and the bed legs are supposed to be their reflections showing up somewhat in the floor. If they had been coloured to match the people and objects above them, this effect would have come across better.

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