Dr. House M.D. reviews. S1E03. Occam's Razor

This week’s episode of House was the best so far, at least in terms of the medical mystery at the heart of it. The solution was plausible and not as far fetched as the first two episodes. Dr. House and the young guns didn’t bounce around from diagnosis to diagnosis as much as they did in previous episodes. However, I was confounded by their tendency to start treatments for diseases without running simple (and quick) confirmatory tests. It’s hard to believe that this very sick patient was in the hospital as long as he was without anyone drawing a simple blood count — a test that takes maybe 15 minutes to run. I can only assume this is because the young guns persist in doing every test and procedure themselves; the hospital is bound to have a lab and specialists — use them!

The title and theme of this episode was “Occam’s Razor” — a medical “law” taught during medical school. The scene where the doctors were writing all the patient’s symptoms on the board and trying to figure what conditions would cause them was eerily reminiscent of my internal medicine rotation in medical school.

Hugh Laurie continues to fascinate as Dr. House and Omar Epps is the strongest of the young gun doctors (by the way, their specialties are neurology, immunology and oncology). Sean Patrick Leonard’s Robert Sean Leonard’s character is actually developing a personality — a first for him. The other two young guns are getting stronger, but are still mere shadows next to Epps and Laurie.

You want some medical nit-picks? Well, OK. I’m happy to oblige.

1. Protein, DNA and RNA gels take several hours to run.

2. Even though an infection may not have been at the heart of the problem, the patient still had a dangerously low white blood cell count and needed to be in isolation — isolation which was broken by Dr. House storming into the room in his “Eureka!” moment.

3. Thyroid hormone replacement is an oral medication, not an IV medication. It needs to be started slowly and gradually increased, not slammed into the patient full strength.