House (Hugh Laurie) and Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) discuss treating a prestigious doctor in the HOUSE episode "TB or not TB" airing Tuesday, Nov. 1 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
©2005 FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY
Credit: Dean Headner/FOX. |
- First Broadcast
- November 1, 2005
- Writer / Director
- David Foster / Peter O'Fallon
- The patient
- Dr. Sebastian Charles, who fights TB in Africa
- How House gets involved
- Cuddy asks House to give a second opinion. Dr. Charles has diagnosed himself as having TB.
- The mis-diagnoses
- Dr. Charles is sure all of his symptoms are due to TB and he tries to use that to publicize his cause of treating and helping eradicate TB from poor areas of the world like Africa. But at first House declares that its his heart (sick sinus syndrome). "Loose throttle. Sometimes beats too fast, sometimes too slow." and after a stress test, they decide Dr. Charles needs a pacemaker.
- The privacy invasion / ethical breach
- House puts the Tilt-table test to its highest setting to either win a bet or get a good diagnosis. And he interrupts a press conference Dr. Charles is using to publicize his cause and shouts into the camera, "That is not TB" for no apparent reason except to be dramatic.
- The final diagnosis
- Nesidioblastoma ("An abnormal growth of the insulin-secreting glands of the pancreas").
- The clinic patient(s)
- Foreman, while wearing House's name tag, sees a woman who has discovered a lump in her breast and she assumes she has breast cancer and will die soon like her cousin did. Foreman, in a hurry, dismisses her concerns because it doesn't feel like a cancerous lump. The patient then complains about "Dr. House" to Cuddy and insists on an apology.
- For more information on this episode:
- At what point(s) in this episode does House take Vicodin? Other minutia.
- See the Fox official description of the episode including guest cast and descriptions from TV.com. (This is a pop-up.)
- Also check out the long Television Without Pity recap of this episode
- And for even more details see all the text of this House episode
- And Analysis of the medicine in the episode from "Polite Dissent".
- And Fox also has an indepth recap.
- Several people have suggested that Dr. Sebastian Charles was based on a "real-life infectious disease guru, Dr. Paul Farmer".
 Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder
Reviews of this book say such things as, "Kidder captures the almost saintly effect Farmer has on those whom he treats." Another says "Saints are notoriously difficult people, but who knew one could be so funny, so utterly charming, and finally so deft in accomplishing that most impossible of all job descriptions — changing the world?". Still another describes Dr. Farmer as one of "the most provocative, brilliant, funny, unsettling, endlessly energetic, irksome, and charming characters ever to spring to life on the page" |
- Quotations
- House: "The nameless poor have a face, and it's a pompous white man."
Cameron: "Yeah, what a jerk, saving all those lives like that."
- Wilson: "So it's TB, but not TB?"
House: "I'm complicated."
Wilson: "The guy does know tuberculosis. If he says it can manifest itself --"
House: "He's not even a real doctor, he's a human telethon."
Wilson: "Is that your problem with him? You see hypocrites every day, why is this guy so special?"
House: "You think I have a hypocritical attitude to hypocrisy? The problem is there are 26 letters in the alphabet and he only uses two of them. He treats thousands of patients with one diagnosis. He knows the answer going in. It's cheating."
Wilson: "So it's all because he's one of them useless specialists?"
House: "Oh, did I hurt the big time oncologist's itty bitty feelings? You're a big help to patients who actually have cancer. Other times you're just annoying."
- House: "You can't demand to be treated like any third-world sick person and call a press conference!"
Dr. Charles: "They treat me special! That doesn't mean I am! Now what kind of selfish jerk wouldn't take advantage of that fact?"
- Dr. Charles: "Look, I know I have a way about me. I know I piss a lot of people off, and a whole lot more I just annoy. But you're the first person that I've ever met who I think is actually annoyed by what I do. Do you think I'm not saving any lives, or is that a bad thing?"
House: "Right now, I'm just trying to save your life."
Dr. Charles: "Or do you just have a problem with hope? You know, the difference between our jobs is not numbers or styles. It's that I know I'm gonna fail. Even if I save a million people there's gonna be another million. You couldn't handle that. I think you resent anyone who can."
House: "Can't we just agree that you're incredibly annoying? Take the pills or I let you die, do an autopsy, call my own press conference, and make sure the world knows that you didn't die of TB. Corporate sponsors will be disappointed, but they'll find another disease."
Dr. Charles: "Why would you do that?"
House: "Because I'm just a mean son of a bitch."
- House: "How do you prove something exists when you can't see it? Does God exist? Does the wind blow?"
Foreman: "We know because the leaves move."
House: "Look for effects."
- House: "It's not about the kids dying every eight seconds, it's about the media stroking. Adulation and pats on the head."
Wilson: "That's your problem with him, isn't it?"
House: "Look at him, he loves it. Eats it up."
Wilson: "Yeah, the man actually enjoys what he does."
House: "Listen, I saved his life. That means I get credit for every life he saves from here on out."
Wilson: "I'll make sure Stockholm knows."
- For more quotes, see:
- The pages on House, House & Chase, House & Cameron, and House Rules
- See other selections of music and songs played during the first half of the second season of "House".
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The song playing as the doctor leaves the hospital is, according to the closed captioning, "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Leon Russell, available on his Retrospective album. You can hear a sample on Amazon's main page on the album.
