Houseis one of those shows everyone seems to have seen at least once. It’s most likely becauseHugh Laurieis absolutely stellar as the cantankerous and crusty Dr. Gregory House, who seems to have about as much bedside manner as a kindergartener’s dying classroom bean plant. However, in a surprising turn of events, many experts praiseHousefor its medical accuracy and consider it one of the best dramas for seeing how the diagnostic process works. Coupled with plenty of interpersonal drama between doctors, ethical dilemmas straight out of your favorite bioethics case study reader, and rare diseases that will make you scramble to open up WebMD,House’s brand of medical television delighted audiences enough to earn eight seasons and more than a few Emmys and Golden Globes. But how accurate isHouse, really? And at the end of the day,is anyone really watching itfor its medical accuracy?
Using a crack team of doctors and his wits, an antisocial maverick doctor specializing in diagnostic medicine does whatever it takes to solve puzzling cases that come his way.
‘House’s Medical Accuracy Is Great in Terms of Diagnostics
As previously mentioned, a2020 article from Business Insiderasked some doctors and nurses to rate medical dramas by their accuracy and entertainment factor. While series likeGrey’s AnatomyandThe Residentare listed as having poor accuracy (unsurprising) and high entertainment factor, shows likeScrubsandHousewere ranked high in both categories, withHousebeing named the most accurate of the series listed.Specifically,Houseis often praised for the way it presents the diseases and the diagnostic process.
There’s a phrase you’ll hear people throw around in university classrooms often: “if you hear hoofbeats, think horses and not zebras.” It basically means that the most common answer is typically the one you need to consider first; if someone has a runny nose, the first thought should be allergies or a cold, notcerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea. However,Housetakes a different approach to this saying and puts the zebras first — which is a good thing, because everyone in the show ends up with zebras.The only horses we ever see are during House’s clinic duties.This, of course, ups the drama and makes the medical puzzle more interesting, and in many episodes, that problem-solving aspect is accurate. The team is wrong, often, which happens a lot with these special and rare cases, and there’s a process of sitting together, looking through the symptoms, and throwing out ideas only to be refuted with other symptoms and missing qualifications for the diagnosis. This collaboration and consultation is a daily thing for doctors working on cases like these.
In addition, thediseases themselves are (mostly) accurate.There are instances of made-up disorders and exaggerated symptoms and treatments — this is still first and foremost a medical drama for entertainment, after all — butmost of the diseases present with the proper symptoms and receive a workable treatment.A good example is Season 2’s “Acceptance,” where a death row inmate is put in House’s care and is eventually diagnosed with a pheochromocytoma, a rare tumor. The symptoms of the case start vague and seemingly unconnected, with hallucinations and trouble breathing, but slowly get more specific, with mood issues and issues with his bowels. Each of these symptoms eventually points to the diagnosis, and blood tests and MRIs are issued to find the solution. The symptoms in the episode do actually lead to the diagnosis in a probable way (even if the diagnosis isveryrare). Though it may not always be entirely on point, it’s definitely quite a few leagues above other series. Most would say that this is where the accuracy ends.
‘House’ Isn’t Quite as Accurate at Portraying Doctors Themselves
Houseis full of inaccuracies in the way it handles its characters’ actions.Let’s be real here. Everyone on this show is a criminal. Are their crimes done with good intentions? Sure! That’s what makes for good TV! But do real doctors go around breaking into patients’ houses? Absolutely not.
While House as a character comes off strangely charming with his blunt and sarcastic words and his crude way of handling patients,a doctor in real life with that kind of attitude would have landed in some hot water. Doctors do have to be tactful, even with difficult patients, and they can’t get away with a lot of the experimental treatments House performs. In fact, House’s actions landed him in jail towards the end of the series after he ran his car intoDr. Cuddy’s(Lisa Edelstein) house, and for various other infractions — forging prescriptions, substance abuse, failure to report murder, sexual harassment, breaking and entering — his jail time should have been longer andhis medical license revokedpermanently.
Speaking of that aforementioned unreported murder, the murder itself was carried out by Dr. Chase (Jesse Spencer) in Season 6’s “The Tyrant.” Faced with President Dibala (James Earl Jones), a dictator responsible for egregious human rights violations and putting a genocide plan into motion, Chase switches his blood sample for one that will give an incorrect diagnosis, knowing that it will kill Dibala if they give him the wrong treatment. He’s successful in his assassination attempt, but Dr. Foreman (Omar Epps) questions him about why he was in the morgue just before the blood test and the truth comes out. Though Foreman says he can’t cover this up for Chase, he burns the morgue sign-in log. This somehow doesn’t result in any actual consequences for the characters. While this, of course, makes for a fascinating moral and ethical dilemma for the doctors — and the audience — to face,in the real world, it would have come with legal action and a license revocation.
And, naturally,the behavior ofthese charactersis an absolute HR nightmare.House has dedicated himself to becoming the personification of a toxic workplace. He’s mean, he’s belligerent, he’s unethical, he harasses and belittles his team, and he has so many inappropriate relationships with his coworkers (and subordinates) that it would make an HR manager quit on the spot. Chase and Foreman’s competition to be House’s right-hand man often goes well beyond what is reasonable and healthy in the workplace. House somehow got away with causing most of the hospital’s lawsuits with his bad attitude, and Foreman’s career somehow survived plagiarizing a paper… honestly, the whole place is a mess. It’s a miracle the hospital is still managing to operate.
We Still Love ‘House,’ Despite It All
However, when we watch a show likeHouse,are we really watching it and expecting perfect characters doing perfect medicine? If we wanted every bit of a medical drama to be realistic, we’d be better off going and sitting in a hospital. We wouldn’t want to do that, though, because the point of TV is to be entertained.
Would Cuddy and House’s romance fly in the real world? Probably not. Does it make an excellent storyline that makes us ship them? Absolutely. Would we want a bastard like House to be our doctor? Maybe if we had a super rare illness, but let’s be real. He’d make us cry. But in the show, his wit, sarcasm, laundry list of crimes, and nasty attitude are fun to watch, because we often see doctors as kind, selfless, and morally upright, and it’s neat to see the other side.Househas its ups and downs with accuracy, but it’s typically nothing but ups on its entertainment factor, and sometimes, that’s all a medical drama needs to be.
