Defibrillation question

1 As seen in a commercial for an upcoming TV show episode ---- hospital scene, pt laying (lying?) flat in bed/stretcher, side rails down (OK). Male MD/nurse (?) with defib paddles in hand, paddles positioned over sternum/left lateral chest (OK-ish), ready to fire.

Here's the kicker --- pt in a hospital gown, no gel pads; therefore the defib firing attempt would be thru the gown!!??!!??

Now it's been eons & eons since I last used a defibrillator, but don't you still have to make direct contact to the gel pads on the bare chest? Not thru fabric? Uhhhh - i'is there something new out there in defibrillator land? Or did I just see another DUMB incorrect
over-dramatized made-specially-just-for-TV spectacle?

We used chest gel pads for AED training, so wouldn't this be applicable to general defibrillation also. I love catching medical bloopers on TV, so this just jumped out at me!

So... did I catch a blooper? Thanks. Last edit by amoLucia on Sep 17, '12 : Reason: spelling
I was taught direct contact with skin, last week by the AHA.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Hollywood! YEARS ago, I saw blood being given (on a soap opera) from a glass bottle, and if you followed the tubing, it was going into the patient's nose. I 'bout wet myself I laughed so hard!

Never, never mistake commercial television for instructional material.

TV dramas still shock flat lines. Asystole is a very stable rhythm....aka "dead". You can't shock asystole as there is no electrical activity to shock....yet they continue to do so on many tv dramas & movies.

Quote from marycarneyWelcome to the wonderful world of Hollywood! YEARS ago, I saw blood being given (on a soap opera) from a glass bottle, and if you followed the tubing, it was going into the patient's nose. I 'bout wet myself I laughed so hard!

Now I question everything I learned on ER

I watched "The Vow" the other night... When the female lead was unconscious in the hospital the big bore blue oxygen hose was taped directly to her face going into her mouth... No ETT, no securement device...

To answer the OP's question - No, you would not shock through a patient gown.

When taking my BLS course we were instructed to remove the person's shirt and to even try to remove any hair on the person's chest if we could but who really has time to pull a razor and some shaving gel out at a time like that?

If they are really hairy, you can use the first set of pads to "give them a wax" and then apply a new set of pads.

No, it's done on bare chest. And justbeachy, the shocking asystole on tv drives me insane. I quit watching hospital dramas because I can pick out mistakes. Shocking asystole in real life can cause damage to the myocardium. The odd thing is, these shows have a medical consult.

One of my favorite medical inaccuracies from Grey's Anatomy is how often they convert an abnormal rhythm (sometimes v-fib, sometimes asystole) using a precordial thump. The kicker is that they usually try the thump after several rounds of defibrillation.