Is there a doctor in the House?
West Haven author Andrew Holtz takes a look at the realities and misconceptions of the hit television show ‘House’
Thanks to Andrew Holtz and his book “The Medical Science of House, M.D.,” fans of the television show will be able to find out where the writers sometimes take liberties with reality. The book also gives insight into the oftentimes confusing medical world.
JONATHAN HOUSE / THE TIMES
You, along with millions of other viewers, tune in each week to watch Hugh Laurie transform into the finicky and amazingly wise Dr. Gregory House.
You’ve seen him help a patient with the rare African sleeping sickness, wake a man from a 10-year coma and diagnose a nun who was allergic to some copper that had been implanted inside her body years before. But you’ve got to wonder, could this ever happen in real life?
“My basic conclusion is the medicine in the show is possible, even if highly improbable,” said Andrew Holtz, a West Haven-based author who penned “The Medical Science of House, M.D.” “I was somewhat surprised. The show has some bizarre cases, so I went into it thinking (it was fantasy), but then I would do research and find that, oh, it has happened.”
In his book, released this past October, Holtz examines the television show “House” from a medical standpoint and addresses a number of issues he believes are relevant to everyone who uses the medical system.
Some of the topics include what goes on in the physical exam, the tests used to come to a conclusion and the importance of bedside manner. He also writes a lot about the sometimes complicated medical world, including the hospital culture and the rules those in it must follow. This gives readers a better idea of how the medical system works, thus making them more prepared when it comes time to deal with it.
Holtz said the book is not a “blow-by-blow description of what’s on the show; it’s more using the show as a starting off point.”
“For fans, I think it answers that question about how realistic is the show. For everyone else, I think it’s a way of getting to some important issues,” he said. “People need to know how our health care system works. It is approaching 20 percent of our economy . . . and we all use it all the time, and yet people are not really educated about how the system works. I hope this book offers some basic information about what is possible, what is not possible.”
Holtz said he got involved with this writing project when an agent for a publisher asked if he would be interested in writing a book on how realistic the television show is. With more than 20 years experience covering health issues, including 10 years as a medical correspondent for CNN, he was a natural choice for such a project. The only catch? He had never really watched the show.
“I’m not generally a big fan of watching medical-themed television shows because I’ve been working in this area for so long, I have a harder time suspending my disbelief,” he said. “So I tend not to watch these shows. As a work assignment, (“House”) was fascinating to dig into.”
For part of his research, Holtz said he watched the entire first season on DVD, and then jumped into the second half of the second season as it ran each week on FOX. He also talked to physicians, checked out online cases, read medical journals and used his own experience to create a book that he believes is both entertaining and informative.
He said for the duration of his writing he had zero contact with Fox or anybody affiliated with the show, since he wanted to remain completely independent. Only after his book was finished did he sit down and talk with the writers of the show, and he said that, just as he had guessed, they had done their own medical research before writing the plots.
Some of the things he said the show takes liberties with are the amount of time it takes to get test results back, which are shortened to fit into the hourlong episodes; the fact that the main characters do everything themselves (“it’s as if they’ve never heard of a radiologist”); and the neglect of the financial implications of hospitalization.
“One of the other lessons I got out of the show, which is not unique to ‘House’ but all medical-themed shows, is that aggressive, high-tech medicine is the best answer,” Holtz said. “The real fact is that’s not true. There are many cases where more medicine is not better medicine.”
Holtz said people watching “House” may walk away thinking that more tests are better, even though tests are many times invasive, expensive and sometimes dangerous in themselves. Many hospital tests have adverse side effects, and rarely does the television show deal with that.
“There can be consequences to medical intervention. House seems to be a character who is always pushing them to do more because he always wants to conquer the disease,” he said.
Another thing Holtz noticed is that the show portrays House as a “brilliant savior,” making viewers think that all of their medical problems could be erased if they just found that one super physician who knows everything.
This provides yet another example of where the show differs from reality.
“Of course, things are changed for television,” he said. “It’s made a little more dramatic.”
All in all, Holtz said the writers of “House” do a good job of bringing the intricacies of the medical world to the general public each week. He has even come across cases in medical journals that he said must have inspired specific episodes because of how similar they were to what took place in the show. And after all his research, Holtz can now call himself a “House” fan.
“I do watch it all the time now, partly because I am hooked into the characters. It is extremely well acted,” he said. “Hugh Laurie is a marvelous actor.”