Could Emmy Award-winning medical dramas like "ER" be giving medical students the wrong ideas of what life is really like in the emergency room? The results of a fascinating new Canadian study suggest they could.

Dr. Peter Brindley, a critical-care specialist at the University of Alberta Hospital, and colleague Dr. Craig Needham decided to investigate the question while looking for the best ways to teach resuscitation methods to students.

Knowing that pre-conceived ideas about medicine can influence students even after they get accepted into med school, the pair decided to survey 80 medical students and residents about their attitudes. They were particularly interested in knowing how the students had learned to intubate patients, which involves carefully inserting a tube down the windpipe.

What started out as a somewhat trivial exploration into the minds of students uncovered some surprises.

"We asked medical students 'Where did you get some of your ideas before you even came into the medical profession?' And interestingly enough, 'ER came up as the number one influence," Brindley told Canada AM.

Brindley says he found the students' answers even more surprising given that he himself can't stand watching medical dramas anymore.

"But I'll admit, somewhat sheepishly, back in medical school, I watched these shows too," Brindley said with a laugh.

Knowing that ER was such an influence on the students, Brindley and Needham decided to watch a few episodes of the show and observe their techniques.

"We watched two seasons of ER and not once was the resuscitation done properly," Brindley notes. "And that's despite having numerous medical experts advising the show."

Brindley and Needham's study, published in the journal Resuscitation, is not the first to look at the influence of TV medical dramas.

A 1996 study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at three shows -- 'ER,' 'Chicago Hope' and 'Rescue 911' - and found that 75 per cent of the patients who went into cardiac arrest on those shows were revived. In reality, only about six to 15 per cent of patients in arrest in an ER survive.

The authors of that study argued that such small-screen inaccuracies "may encourage the public to disregard the advice of physicians and hope that such a miracle will occur for them as well."

Brindley agrees.

"I could certainly understand that harmless entertainment shows, every now and then, don't do things the way that medical evidence would suggest. And that's fine... The intriguing thing, though, is that there is a fair amount of evidence out there that it does influence both how patients and families feel. And perhaps - perhaps - it influences doctors."

Patients shouldn't be worried, Brindley emphasizes, because there is no reason to believe that Drs. Carter, Ross and Greene on "ER" are making doctors re-think their own techniques.

"Experienced physicians are not watching TV shows and then saying 'Perhaps I'll give that a go.'"