Interesting episode, which I'll sum up for myself by pointing out that if the PPTH staff would
simply stop drinking coffee they'd all be a lot healthier....
Six years ago, my mother went to breakfast with a friend, who requested decaf coffee. Forty-five minutes later, she was on her way, via ambulance, to the hospital--where she spent two days in the ICU. Because she'd been given the wrong coffee. She was
allergic to caffeine. Good thing 13 wasn't, right? Can you say
involuntary manslaughter, House?
And 13, spiking the coffee of an opioid-dependent patient with
more narcotics--without knowing how much he'd already ingested? Let's try repeating after me again--only it's
your turn this time, 13.
Involuntary. Manslaughter. And
much easier to prove, too, as I do believe that 13 might just have a vague idea that House takes frequent doses of opioids. But maybe not, as she seems pretty clueless in the first-do-no-harm department anyway.
And... I won't even go into the sheer unlikelihood of
anyone getting the wrong blood with all the current checks and re-checks in place. And I'll also leave alone the illogic behind House's experiment, except to say, one bag 'tainted'? okay. an entire lot tainted? Uh... no. Just...
no. [And I'll just throw in here, for fun, that AB is the rarest blood type, and that the blood bank of a Level 3 trauma center is
highly unlikely to just toss a bag of the precious stuff at anyone who doesn't demonstrate a
medical need for the transfusion. Just sayin'.]
We all know that we'll never know how and why House knows Wilson's bloodtype. Because
that would require someone besides the viewers to actually
remember that the line was spoken. And if the writers can't remember Cuddy's several-episode-arc-of-desperation, mere months ago, to get pregnant, well then--it would be
truly unreasonable of us to expect them to remember one 60-second
scene, wouldn't it? [Even
Lisa Edelstein questioned this apparent oversight about Cuddy's character in
this November 20 TV Guide interview.]
What I
don't know--and yes, it's been frustrating me for over a week--is how the writers of last week's
Ugly got away with insisting that we
had to find that 'target rash' for a definitive dx of Lyme Disease. Considering that the rash can disappear after just a few hours
and that 50% or more of patients
never get any rash at all, I'm wondering if the med consultants had gotten into the continuity monkeys' absinthe that week. [
more info on Lyme here]
And by the way? I'd figured out Huntington's chorea for 13 a mere eighteen minutes into the episode. And sometimes I wish I had no medical backround at all, and could buy all these informational errors they are so freely disseminating. [
more info on Huntington's here]
[And by the way, again. I'm so
proud of myself that I didn't even touch on the fact that following House's liver [and kidney and lung] biopsy, the inadvertent patient was not made to lie quietly on his right side for two hours. There are
damned good reasons for this precaution. But i'm guessing that the immortal House is immune to all those scary little complications to which the rest of us are susceptible . I mean, a transfusion reaction, a large overdose of narcotics, three painful and potentially dangerous invasive procedures, and a short time later even
Wilson's aware that Super!House is --and I quote--"about to
run out of here...." Yup--
real proud of myself that I haven't mentioned this wee disregard of medical reality! ;) ]
And... we need more Wilson.
nope, doesn't work. These errors are so blatantly obvious anyone with a standard general knowledge can pick up on them. At least I do most of the time.
The throw-away diagnosis of lupus irked me to no end. It's not so easily treated as "let's give him steroids and boot him out the door." Not unless your medical consultants have lupus confused with a case of poison ivy. Jeeze . . .
*edited because I spell better when I've had at least 20 ounces of coffee*
Edited at 2007-11-21 04:16 pm (UTC)
I'd never heard of Huntington's, myself, until last night.
Anyway, after last night I really dislike 13. I can't judge her for the not-wanting-to-know thing, but I can and do hold it against her that she drugged House and then stabbed him.
The drugging in order to test him and make sure he wasn't going to die, I can sort-of forgive. The no-local-anesthesia liver biopsy, I cannot.
Interestingly, House apparently can forgive it. Another example of pretty girls making him stupid? Or is he just so screwed up that he figures he deserves the abuse?