“That will never happen!” I screamed at my TV screen as I watched the first episode of “Doctor Odyssey,” Ryan Murphy’s new series about a team of cruise ship medical professionals who act like anything professional.
In the first few minutes of the show, which takes place on the fictional cruise ship, The Odyssey, you’ll see several violations of safety and etiquette, as well as decorations about cruise medical facilities. As the episode progresses, the show features everything from the ship’s first officer accidentally tripping on psychedelic candy to the onboard doctor performing an emergency appendectomy on one of his nurses while the ship battles a storm.
Sure, it’s okay to suspend reality for the sake of entertainment, but since there are already so many false cruise stereotypes floating around, I called on a real cruise therapist to help set the record straight.
Liz Baugh, Chief Medical Advisor for Scenic Luxury Cruises and Tours’ oceangoing expedition ships, is a health, safety and environmental offshore physician and former Royal Navy physician with over 25 years of experience in marine medicine. In an interview, she confirmed that most of what you see on the show is a misrepresentation.
“We’re a lot more conservative than that,” Baugh said. “Everything is very calm and measured when we practice medicine at sea, but that doesn’t make for exciting TV, does it?”
Why do passengers seek medical treatment onboard?
In the show, people visit the medical team — Drs. Max Bankman (Joshua Jackson) and nurses Avery Morgan (Philippa Soo) and Tristan Silva (Sean Teale) — plastic surgery and iodine poisoning to get rid of their weight from eating shrimp. Slap But Baugh told me that emergencies are rare, most people seek treatment on ships for much smaller ailments than the show would have you believe.
“In my experience most people who come to cruise ship medical centers…. [there] for things like ear, nose and throat infections; Small musculoskeletal [issues resulting from steadying themselves on a moving ship]; and seasickness.”
To avoid seasickness, which Baugh said is the most common of the three, he advises travelers to seek medical advice from their doctors before setting sail and be prepared with any prescribed motion sickness medications. She also suggests considering cabin location when booking, as rooms are lower and closer to the center of the ship to reduce movement.
What cannot cruise ship medical facilities do?
Dr. Odyssey will have you believe that cruise medical centers have unlimited capabilities, from skin grafting to operating on penile fractures. That’s just not true. On cruise ships, medical facilities are mostly designed to treat aches, pains, strains and bruises.
“There were a few things that happened — the absolute cringe — you know, penile fractures,” Baugh laughed. “I was talking to my colleagues about this, and … in your career, maybe once every seven or eight years you find something like this, but you certainly can’t do surgery on a ship on it.”
Of course, efforts are made to stabilize passengers in the event of an emergency, but the onboard medical offices are too small to hold all the necessary equipment for every situation. The extent of capabilities and the size of the medical center varies by ship. Generally, the larger the ship, the more medical staff on board and the more space allocated.
Medical treatment on ships usually does not include specialized services, such as dialysis or cancer treatment. Although ship medical centers are stocked with basic medications, they are not full-service pharmacies. That’s why travelers need to make sure they bring an adequate supply of their prescription medications for any trip they’re planning.
Cruise medical facilities are also generally not equipped to perform more than the most basic life-saving surgeries.
“No, we don’t do anything like that [an emergency appendectomy]Just because there’s a lot of equipment and drugs and follow-up you need,” Baugh explained. “But you also need someone who’s a qualified general surgeon. … Some doctors are … dual-certified surgeons and medics, but some Not surgical, so you can’t ask them to do surgery.”
What types of emergencies can cruise medical centers handle?
One type of minor surgery — a tracheotomy — that appears on the show can actually be handled by the onboard medical staff, Baugh says. However, it is employed as a life-saving measure only if the medical staff cannot facilitate the patient’s breathing in any other way.
According to Baugh, you won’t be surprised to learn that the most common type of life-threatening emergencies are heart-related.
“Thankfully, in the four years I’ve worked with Scenic, we’ve had no deaths on board, which is fantastic,” said Baugh. “If there were to be a death on board, the most common cause is cardiovascular disease, leading to some form of cardiac arrest.”
Most, if not all, cruise ships – even river cruise ships, which usually do not have medical facilities on board because they are always so close to land – have defibrillators to help a passenger who suffers a heart attack while sailing. Many cruise ships also have X-ray and lab capabilities on board.
How often do passengers need to disembark in an emergency?
You have to suspend belief to accept the show’s appendix-disposal storyline. Bankman and Silva were forced to perform an appendectomy on Morgan because the Caribbean ship was too far away to extricate him. Generally, unless a ship is in the middle of an ocean voyage or expedition voyage, the ship may send a passenger to a land-based hospital in the event that adequate treatment is not available.
“Medical evacuation is done when we’ve got a major emergency, because this is potentially life-threatening,” Baugh said. “It is very rare indeed. Over the past four years with Scenic, we’ve probably done one medical evacuation every year.
As opposed to medevac by helicopter or Coast Guard vessel, “medical disembarkation is usually [for] Someone who needs … intervention that we are unable to provide [on board]”Baugh explained. In those cases, the patient is stable enough to wait until the ship docks and can be transported to a land-based medical facility.
Those situations are not common either. “We might have three or four of them every year,” Baugh told us.
In the case of most expedition cruises, the passengers’ doctors are required to fill out a form indicating that the guests are healthy enough to travel. It is important for them to establish a baseline of health and fitness before embarking on expedition cruisers because those yachts can be both physically demanding and remote. There are a few hospitals nearby and a few medevac options available if something goes wrong.
If emergencies are rare, what do ship doctors and nurses do all day?
Baugh assured me that, despite the lack of frequent emergencies, a day in the life of a cruise ship physician is still busy. And it’s not the wining, dining and dancing that the show’s characters enjoy more often than their jobs.
A typical day involves opening the medical center and checking that all equipment is in working order before the clinic opens. After staff see patients for the day, they follow up with previous patients — changing dressings, checking blood pressure, and the like. Inventory and ordering come first so physicians can stock up on supplies that may be running low.
That doesn’t mean doctors and nurses are done for the day as soon as the facility closes. They are on call 24 hours a day, and also have other shipboard duties.
“They’re not just doctoring and nursing on board,” Baugh said. “They are also part of the health and safety team. they [conduct] Training … to ensure that crews, especially in passenger areas, understand what a medical emergency looks like and how to raise the alarm.”
And, of course, they have mandatory rest periods to allow them to perform at their best when passengers need their help.
And what about crew etiquette?
No self-respecting cruise ship captain would be caught dead playing strip poker with his officers, but viewers of “Doctor Odyssey” might think otherwise. As the bankman removed his shirt, I rolled my eyes once more.
Earlier scenes showed members of the medical team standing next to the passenger pool, responding to emergencies in their swimsuits and watching each other – and the guests.
“The medical team can be invited to dine with the guests, but that’s with the captain’s permission,” Baugh said when I asked her how comfortable doctors and nurses could be with passengers. “If they are invited to dine, they need to get permission to do so, but with that comes all the professional responsibility of not drinking and being appropriate in your conversation. … Those boundaries should not be crossed.”
But pushing boundaries is what “Doctor Odyssey” does. So, the next time you observe characters asking passengers to dance or curing a guest of an illness that’s rare even on land, remember: it’s not really a cruise ship clinic. He only plays one on TV.
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