Sawbones: Medicine in Movies

Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine

Justin McElroy

History, Comedy, Sawbones, Health & Fitness, Medical History, Medicine

4.8 • 15.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Miracle drugs, strange side effects, classical conditioning: there are many films where the plot hinges around the existence of some unrealistic medicine. Justin brings to the plate the pills and medical devices in Dune, Robocop, Scanners, and more, while Dr. Sydnee ascertains how close they are to reality – or not. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/ Border Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/our-services.html

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion.
0:07.2	It's for fun.
0:08.7	Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil?
0:14.2	We think you've earned it.
0:15.8	Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth.
0:22.6	You're worth it.
0:25.9	All right.
0:27.5	Tommy is about some books.
0:30.6	One, two, one, two, three, four. To be we came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out
0:52.0	pushed on through the broken glass and Had ourselves a look around
0:56.0	The medicines
0:58.0	The medicines that ask Alan McCorm
1:00.0	For the mouth
1:05.0	Hello everybody
1:06.0	And welcome to Sawbones
1:07.0	A marital tour of Misguided Medicine
1:09.0	I'm your co-host Justin McElroyackerel and i'm sidney mackleroy
1:12.5	co-host and lead researcher this is olive mackleroy miss olive mackleroy she's not in the audio product
1:18.4	no but she is on my lap and she keeps trying to lick the microphone we won't let her though
1:24.3	because we're professionals and cat but she's professionals. But she's a professional kitty.
1:28.8	She's a professional kitty, but we're professional podcasters.
1:32.0	Sid, I wanted to mix things up this week.
	...

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