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Paging Dr. Jackass
Everyone else was presenting lists of things they got for Christmas. I hate to follow the trend, so instead this year I'm posting a list of things I have learned from watching House, MD:
- When you go into the hospital, the first three or four diagnoses are always wrong.
- Diagnoses are determined by what treatments almost kill you.
- Office politics don't apply to the smartest people in the office.
- You know you're being handled by an expert if he never visits you and just has his flunkies do all the work.
- Everyone who goes into the hospital has a seizure, even if they only went there for a broken bone.
- You're going to lie.
- Bedside manner can readily be exchanged for brutal sarcasm with few adverse consequences. This also applies to professionalism, and sensitive matters of race and/or gender.
- Surgeries are best monitored audibly, and should be visually blocked by a hand held up to the TV screen to avoid queasiness.
With that all said, this show is fantastic and I've devoured seventeen episodes in the last five days or so. I intend to keep going.
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And yet it's so addictive!
But I feel so weird being like, this man is an unrepentant asshole and everything medical going on in this show is absolute BUNK, most of it unresearched, this is godawful... omgwhycan'tIstopwatching.
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"The doctor should consider the patient in his 'well' context rather than simply as a walking medical condition. This entails assessing the socio-political context of the patient (family, work, stress, beliefs), in addition to the patient's physical body, as this often offers vital clues to the patient's condition and its management."
"Rather than consider the myriad of diseases that could afflict the patient, the physician narrows down the possibilities to the illnesses likely to account for the apparent symptoms, making a list of only those conditions that could account for what is wrong with the patient. These are generally ranked in order of probability.
The doctor then conducts a physical examination of the patient, studies the patient's medical record, and asks further questions as he goes, in an effort to rule out as many of the potential conditions as possible. When the list is narrowed down to a single condition, this is called the differential diagnosis, and provides the basis for a hypothesis of what is ailing the patient."
"Treatment itself may indicate a need for review of the diagnosis if there is a failure to respond to treatments that would normally work."
That SOUNDS a lot like what House and his "department of diagnostic medicine" do. I'm sure you know more about this than I do and it probably is a large amount of bunk; I'm just pointing out that as a strictly textbook reading, it sounds like your average episode of House, MD.
I'm aware that we're dealing with an EXTREMELY specialized branch of the hospital, that House treats one patient a week, and that they ONLY go to him if no one ELSE can figure out what it is or how to treat it -- usually because half the people involved are lying -- so the case is guaranteed to be more complicated than the "ordinary".
But it still seems like a RIDICULOUS coincidence, always, on all accounts, and a lot of these episodes seem like they're giving people wacky rare diseases that can't be detected -- because, uh, if these things could be detected, the episode would be twenty minutes long. XD "It could be lupus. Oh no-- Wait, this test shows it's scleroderma. Okay, everyone can go home." House would die of boredom.
House is such a dick and I totally love watching him tear down the entire hospital every episode.
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You?
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X-over drabble with star of your icon plzthnks? *shameless love for the irreverently good!stupid*
Also, your mini-drabble from the holiday card rocks so hard. :D
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Hmm...
Vexen took one look at the newcomers, clinical and unperturbed. "You have a lot of interruptions," he said, irritated, and sent a wave of darkness into the patient's body, letting it trace the contours of her insides. He shrugged. "It's lupus."
The good doctor that he had been speaking with was snapping crossly, "Much as I hate to admit it, interruptions are my job description," and then he paused sharply and stared at Vexen. "How did you do that?"
A shrug. "It was easy."
The staring continue. "You... You cheated," the human said, an almost betrayed accusation.
"What are you talking about? I diagnosed the patient," Vexen demanded. "Now let us resume our discussion--"
House straightened, hitting the tiled floor sharply with his cane. "It isn't lupus," he said with dignity, and turned to follow his staff.
* * *
"I can't believe it," Vexen said numbly. "It was cutaneous poryphria?"
Perhaps House sounded slightly smug when he pronounced, "The photosensitivity and ulcers were right, but the arthritis was a pre-existing condition. When the patient went into a seizure and had an attack triggered by the sedatives, I knew there was more to it than readily apparent."
Vexen rubbed his arm, as if cold. He was never cold. "It's alright," he murmured, mostly to himself. "No one ever has to know about this failure. Corrected by a human..."
"Beg pardon," said Dr. Gregory House, leaning a little closer and putting a pointed hand to his ear. "Were those my praises you were quietly singing? I couldn't hear through the self-recrimination."
The scientist glared at him. He wasn't a doctor ANYWAY. Clearly out of his element. Anyone would've made the same mistake. "We start with the hospital," he told the army of Dusks and Alchemists that sprung up behind him.
At least this way his credibility wouldn't drop in the eyes of the Superior and those blasted neophytes. No one would have to know.
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I adore House.
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"Do you have any better ideas? Other than lupus?"
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Another important thing to know is that it is better to be confident and condescending than right. (As long as you are right before the patient dies or the hour runs out--except in the case of a two-parter.)
Hey friends..
(Anonymous) 2007-02-12 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)I'm a new on kay-willow.livejournal.com
looking forward to speaking to you guys soon