House

"It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what. The weird thing about telling someone they're dying is it tends to focus their priorities. You find out what matters to them. What they're willing to die for. What they're willing to lie for." – House, Season One “Three Stories”

I don’t usually have much time to watch TV; between school, work and family a few minutes to spend on the couch is hard to find. But over Christmas break and all the snow I finally got the opportunity to veg out a little. What I discovered was Fox’s awarding winning medical drama House. For those of you who have never heard of the show I’ll give you a brief synopsis. Doctor Gregory House, portrayed by Hugh Laurie, is a brilliantly talented but rather misanthropic individual who heads a team of diagnosticians at the Princeton- Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. He and his team solve cases that no one else can, often using rather unconventional manners.

I’m a premed student and have known for several years that practicing medicine is what I want to do with my life so I do realize that the show is nothing like the real world and yet I have learned some very interesting things from watching it. For example, this semester I am enrolled in Genetics and House actually gave me an idea for a paper I have to over genetic disorders. More than that though I think I can relate to the characters or the situation and that is what draws me in. The show tends to be very satirical in nature but it sometimes challenges the viewer to think about a concept. To me any decent TV show should do so, which is probably why I’m not a huge fan of the drunken individuals on reality TV.

House is different from your average medical drama, there is more to be learned from the actual diagnosis to hidden meanings in the witty banter. One of the things House always assumes is that everyone lies and ironically enough he is normally right. This makes him sounds like a rather jaded individual and he is abrupt, often crude, unpredictable and pessimistic as well but if you can get past that he will make you laugh at the sheer absurdity of things.

This show isn’t for everyone but for me it is great. It was while I was watching an episode earlier that I got the idea for this post. After thinking about it I would like to do sort of a continuation with a new episode each week and essentially dissect to see what other interesting things I can learn about both philosophy and medicine. This has all been nothing but an introduction about the show and why I think it’s fabulous, but the best way to see if I’m right about this would be to just watch an episode for yourself.