House ... the science is rubbish, right?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I've just started watching House (seen the first two eps), and I'm finding myself slightly annoyed by the science, or lack thereof. Is 'cleft chin' really a single dominant gene? (I've looked it up - it's not! Thank goodness, because neither I nor DH has one, but DS2 does!) Are babies protected by maternal antibodies for the first six months even without breastfeeding? (no, right?)

I don't generally watch doctor shows, but have been won around to Scrubs ... but the science on there is (afaik) good. Will I have to give up on House thanks to crappy science?

If you mean they tried to fire him over power battle between House and Vogler then you're behind - that's season 1, isn't it? We're on season 3 here.

I love House - watching from Oz, so probably behind. But an ep the other week linked lack of B12 with feelings of Guilt - could that be true! or is it really the 6 years of Catholic school ....

wow- you mean I have a whole season to watch before I come home! Joy of joys!!

The fundamental science is mostly fairly sound

it's the fact that the junior doctors stay up all night running PCRs and antiboy screens that's unrealisistic

everyone know they delegate that to ACtual Scientists.

(It is a hot topic in the tearoom every Friday as we compete for who guessed the diagnosis first.)

Wow, MrsB, I always had you figured as a pedant. If you say it's 'mostly fairly sound', it must either be mostly ok ... or you too have the hots for someone on there.

I am a bit puzzled by the 'same bloke doing PCRs and taking patient histories' thing. It's a bit CSI.

House does a lot of his own ops, doesn't he. V suspect.

I love it. It's madly soothing in its formulaic nature, and you get this pervy frisson of fancying someone you really logically shouldn't.

There is a computer program that helps you t identify tablets btw. The one I used a decade ago was called TicTacToe.

You can't always manage it, though, because some pills have very little by way of identification marks on them

Apart from the wide and varying appeals of the characters it's the fact they showcase obscure microbiological conditions I've studied but never met a real case of.

The joy when they had a patient with trypanosomiasis, for example - I had to look at ten-year-old slides to learn how to diagnose it and have still never seen a case.
And the very first episode I saw had tapeworm encysting in someone's brain, which lecturers always tell you about but you very rarely see.

And of course there are just enough factual and procedural errors for me to exercise my pedantry to its utmost .

(As an aside, according to Wiki, the creator, David Shore, originally intended for the show to be a CSI-type show where the "germs were the suspects")

ah, bugger

tis me, the striped and furred one

There was a chap with a cyst of a worm in the brain on a BBC documentary. As you say, very rare.

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I love it. Dh and I are now old hands, and automatically discount the first two theories.

And how to they keep breaking into people's houses to check them for toxins, without getting nicked???

oh yes

Lance from Neighbours all grown up?
The floppy-haired boy from Dead Poets' Society still alive?
Hugh Laurie looking dirty and being nasty?
The chick who played the hooker in the West Wing wearing some truly lovely suits?

and gratuitous science?

Oh so worth it. So so worth it.

hw wasn;t lance was he ? Wasn't he Spencer (pr something similar) ?

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You haven't seen West Wing!????

Great, great prog, you have a real treat in store. The later series were not so good but the first 5 were fantastic

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Love House. Have always entertained a strange affection for Hugh Laurie, and now it is socially acceptable to admit.

Love West Wing even more...

sophable, captain darling was Tim McInnerny, not Hugh Laurie. Hugh Laurie was Lieutenant George

Oh, I gave up with 24.

West wing is in a class of its own. trust me!

24 was way too confusing...

I became one of those annoying women who keeps asking catch-up questions. I am banned from 24.

oh, my mistake, he was Billy in Neighbours, not Lance

OMG, how can you not have seen West Wing? Worse, how can you think it's like 24?

West Wing eps stand on their own, and the whole thing is just incredible.

I haven't seen West Wing either. Or 24. Or The Sopranos DH thinks I watch too much tv anyway (and this was before I developed the MN habit!