How realistic is the TV show House in its portrayal of diagnostics?

Question

In a hospital, are there really teams of doctors who sit down and aggressively analyze patients' pathologies?

Answer 1

House is laughably unrealistic, but yes, there are teams of doctors who sit down to analyze a patient's differential diagnosis. This usually occurs in the late afternoon, after afternoon rounds. The coffee is leftover from lunch, which may account for House's perpetual bad attitude.

Such shows may have medical consultants, but still some terms are mispronounced and x-rays put on the viewbox backwards.

Give me a show about lawyers any day. Take Boston Legal for example. That's gotta be realistic.

Answer 2

I am a Certified Medical Assistant

Shows like House and Grey's Anatomy have real physician's and lab Techs helping the actors with their lines. The Medical Terminology is 100% accurate.

Answer 3

House is a great show, but not that accurate. Scrubs is actually pretty close to reality.

Answer 4

Yes and no.  Mostly no.

Certainly there are groups of doctors who work in teams--there will always be an attending overseeing several residents and perhaps a medical student or two.  They will "round on" their patients, meaning that everyone sits down and discusses all the cases on the floor and/or walks around the ward to see the patients.  During discussions, we certainly analyze the patient's condition and any test results and figure out what to do next in the way of treatment or testing.  We even use white boards sometimes.

There are also hospitalists whose job it is to oversee the hospital course of patients in their specialty.  Their team might be overseeing a difficult diagnostic case. You might also have a specialist with a lot of experience being called in to consult on a case that is particularly problematic.

None of these people would be allowed to just cherry-pick the "interesting" cases for themselves, or to do no regular work in the hospital.

House isn't particularly realistic in any way other than that they do seem to make sure their diagnoses have some basis in fact (they have a lot of advisors).  The same people would never do all the procedures they're shown doing, let alone the lab tests, they never seem to have to do any paperwork, they never have to actually admit anyone (the patients all just magically appear in a hospital bed).  And we rarely wrap everything up in an hour.  ;-)