Ian in the House

I finally watched the show House, M.D. tonight on Fox. I was impressed -- it was a quality drama, certainly more engaging than Grey's Anatomy. The characters actually seem to have some depth, and one gets the impression that the script might actually have been written with the consultation of a real life M.D. That's not to say that the show accurately depicts the workings of a hospital, as it too falls victim to the universal TV medical drama fallacy that any single doctor can and will care for every type of patient and disease that walks through the door. It appears that TV scriptwriters skirt the issue of specialization as an expedient for limiting the number of characters in the show while still allowing for breadth in subject matter, a dramatic contrivance for which I can't say I blame them. Nonetheless, most disease entities presented in House actually exist, and the on-screen presentation fortunately does not completely do away with verisimilitude. The 'mystery' format also makes for fun watching from the standpoint of a medically trained individual, as it provides the opportunity to guess the diagnosis ahead of the revelation in the show (for instance, I called the upper lobe lung cancer and the Lambert Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome in the pregnant patient in tonight's episode).

Of course, I could nit-pick every detail and tell you that small cell lung cancers occur much more commonly close to the lung hilum, rather than the periphery; that any doctor who suggests the diagnosis of myasthenia would also recognize that eyelid weakness is the first and most sensitive manifestation; and that nobody walks into the OR without a mask, as Dr. House did during the emergency thrombectomy; etc. But frankly I'm more inclined to be charitable towards this show than towards Grey's Anatomy. At least this show won't lead my future patients to think that I'm just another surgical intern like the ones on 'that TV show,' and hence must be a blundering fool. Oh well.