Need a Good Doctor? Get House

One evening, while channel surfing, I came across a rerun of the hit series, House, a show about a brilliant doctor with incredible powers of deduction and knowledge of science but little-to-no bedside manner. Shortly after the episode was over and my channel surfing resumed, one of the twenty-four hour news channels was discussing possible health care reforms.

It seems as though in nearly every episode of House, the patients as well as Dr. House’s co-workers are frustrated with the good doctor—that is until the end of the show when he has discovered and solved the mysterious cause of the illness and saved the life of the patient. As I watched the news, I began to wonder if there really is or are any Dr. House (s) out there.

The world could use a few more good doctors like House, bedside manner or not. So many physicians enter the medical field with pure intentions, only to later fall prey to the wheels of the system and the limitations imposed by policies, procedures, and insurance companies. Patient care suffers, patient and physician frustration rises, and, no doubt, malpractice suits rise. Whether it’s a medical office, a hospital room, or an emergency unit, the doctors see the patient, diagnose, and quickly move on to the next patient in routine manner as they learn to ignore their valuable instincts and intuitive knowledge, as they slowly choose to lose their powers of observation and the thrill of the medical investigation.

Yet, the doctors who are still fighting the system and the disillusionment with the health care field, who are not giving in to employment burn-out, and who continue to serve the best interest of the patient; the doctors who spend time on the telephone arguing with insurance companies on behalf of their patient and are unafraid to argue with hospital administrators are the very doctors the public is most at risk of losing to other professional fields; and they are the doctors we need the most.

We need to help save the real doctors who are like House, the doctors who still have desire to serve the public, to assist with the healing process of their patients. We need to keep these doctors in the medical profession, to relearn from them how to practice medicine, and to make their creeds and practices the renewed policies of the medical community. It is from these good doctors who practice medicine because of the love of people and the love of the field, as opposed to practicing out of apathy or because of the love of the income, that health care reform needs to begin. Although the general public can and should offer any suggestions for or disagreements with potential reform, we need to listen to the doctors that we respect and learn from them how medicine should be practiced.

If I had the choice between a disgruntled physician with the knowledge and willingness to investigate a medical complaint and to maintain that investigation until the solution was found, a physician who would argue with the authorities who attempted to prohibit the medical answers from being found, or, a physician who would allow me to suffer or die because an insurance company wouldn’t approve a medical test or because burn-out and frustration with the system had reached the point that the physician simply did not care to try to determine the proper diagnosis, I’d choose the disgruntled doctor every time.

Receiving legitimate medical treatment and continuing to live always wins any argument when competing against the lack of a bedside manner.

Yes, we need more doctors like House.

So, to the true practitioners of medicine out there, bedside manner or not, thank you…and, we’re listening.



House stars Hugh Laurie and can be seen on the Fox Network and the USA Network. Check the local listings for times and dates.