"I have never broken into any of my patients' houses," she added dryly. "I have on occasion made house calls, but I ring the doorbell and if they're not home, I come back later."
Yet she brings this up not simply as a critique, but rather a way of illustrating the show's metaphorical take on medicine.
"One of the things we do, one of the great pleasures of being a doctor, is you get to ask all these incredibly nosy, intrusive questions," Sanders said. "People can feel extremely violated with intimacy. Of course, it's part of a trusting relationship, you hope, but you probe into the inner recesses of their personal life as if you were breaking into their house."
"Their propensity to break into houses is a perfect visual representation, a psychological representation, of what we're doing," she continued. "I love that."
Sanders is also impressed by the fact that a House episode unfolds the way a hospital admissions note does. "We call it an H&P, history and physical, even though it includes much more than a history and physical," she explained. "All my columns follow that very rigid format. And House also follows that rigid format."
The teaser, for example, sets up how the illness presented and information about a patient's age and social situation. Then, as in the Diagnosis column, House progresses through symptoms, investigations, and finally a resolution. The difference is that Sanders as narrator is far more personable and far less prone to insults than House.
She is obviously an enthusiastic fan of the show that employs her, but not an apologist for it. "There are things about House that rub against what I think a good doctor is. And certainly I am way nicer to my patients," she laughed. "There are some things I hate about the House character. Some of the things I love about medicine, the character of House doesn't value at all."
Two examples she gives are taking a patient history and doing a physical exam, things House rarely does, and never does well.
House doesn't respect much, but he respects rationality above all. Yet Sanders isn't impressed by his empirical method, either. "House is what the world would be like if nobody practiced evidence-based medicine," Sanders said, deploring his refusal to check for evidence unless it fits what he expects to find.
Though she admires the fact that he recognizes the limitations of testing and cares about thinking things through, she also believes that deduction is a much smaller part of the science of medicine than the show portrays. "What we know about the body is so very limited that you can absolutely do the logical thing and be completely wrong. And actually, this happens to House a lot of the time. In fact, it happens three out of four times," she joked, alluding to the episodic formula.
Article comments
1 - Namaste
Thanks for the interviews, DK. It's good to get the point of view of the people who are medical professionals out there -- and who have nitpicked with the best -- and to know that they appreciate the difference between reality and entertainment as well. I do agree that it's sometimes a wide gulf, but I always say that if I want reality, I'll watch Discovery Health (and even reality is heavily edited).
2 - Diane Kristine
Hi Namaste, good to "see" you. I agree, and it's funny that we seem to expect more from a medical drama than a cop show or show set in an office, for example. There's not a lot of accuracy about any workplace you see on TV.
3 - Mary K. Williams
This was very, very good Diana. Glad you're keeping track of the good Dr. still.
4 - Phillip Winn
If work environments were realistically portrayed on television, what would be the point of watching? We could just go to work!
Real-life hospitals are fascinating at first, then dreadfully boring most of the time. A TV show has to remain interesting 17 hours a year for as many years as it can. I've watched 79 episodes of House and I'm still interested. I can't imagine still being fascinated after 55 hours of observing a real hospital.
5 - Karen Smith
Thank you Diane for a well written, very insightful look at the BEST show on television. Great job!