Viewers glued to weekly instalments of fictional doctors ordering batteries of diagnostic tests and unorthodox medical treatments can be forgiven for believing that rafts of examinations and aggressive interventions are the norm.

But US experts said hospitals are unable to provide the cure-all solutions found on programs like the rabidly popular 'House', starring British actor Hugh Laurie as the maverick medical genius Doctor Gregory House.

"That's just unrealistic"

Research also suggests aggressively treating some ailments can do more harm than good, they said.

"The shows do tend to be very activist, very interventionist, very aggressive with their care... because action is more interesting," said Andrew Holtz, a medical journalist and author of a book on 'House'.

"You get the pressure to have aggressive medical intervention that almost always works and that's just unrealistic."

Not only does such treatment often fail to work, Holtz noted, but sometimes it can have side effects that outweigh the benefits.

"People don't see that on television," he said, adding that medical dramas contribute to a false conviction that any ailment can be cured.

"People have the belief that if you search hard enough, if you spend enough money, if you find the right doctor, you can get that rescue, that breakthrough, and those things just don't really happen in the real world."

Medical professionals often provide the background material that television writers use to script the unusual illnesses that afflict their unfortunate characters.

Allan Hamilton, a script consultant for the popular medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy', is also the chairman of the surgery department at the University of Arizona Health Services Center.

"This is Hollywood, anything can happen"

"They'll say 'we need a disease that looks like a person's going to die, but then there's this one thing that tips them off that they need to do further diagnostic tests.' Or 'we want a patient who is doing really well and everyone's really happy and then something goes dreadfully wrong,'" he said.

"I always joke with the writers, you know, 'this wouldn't really happen or that wouldn't really happen' and then they turn around to me and say 'yeah, but this is Hollywood, anything can happen.'"

As a medical professional, Hamilton is wary of the effects that depicting experimental treatments can have on viewers.

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AFP