What Do Real Doctors Think Of TV Medical Drama 'HOUSE'?

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Gary Larson, medical director at Procure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma City.

My kids liked watching the series and encouraged me to watch as well. The first season or so, the stories had some consistent internal logic as well as some parts that were realistic medically. As time went on, the medicine became further and further from anything resembling reality.

The premise was that House was supposed to be good at diagnosing unusual cases, but he was so sloppy that I would have failed any medical student working up a patient the way he did. He would hear part of the patient’s history, then (like a blindfolded monkey throwing darts) order some diagnostic study, imaging, or treatment — all of which took him down the wrong path until, during the last 10 minutes of the episode, he miraculously came up with the correct diagnosis.

One episode that comes to mind involved making the diagnosis of lung cancer by looking at the patient’s fingernails, which showed clubbing. After spending $50,000 for diagnostic studies, he finally examined the patient and made the diagnosis — something any medical student would be expected to do during the initial patient encounter.

I will say that his character was a moderately accurate portrayal of a drug addict — self centered in the extreme — with a host of enablers whose lives he helped destroy, plus no ability to form functional relationships.