There's not much that's lovable about Dr. Gregory House, the title character of the Fox TV show House M.D., and yet millions of fans can't get enough of him. Still, with his crotchety nature, no one on the show was surprised when, in this episode, he views a patient's "niceness" as one of the symptoms of his illness. Everyone argues with him that if the patient is too nice to be healthy than surely Dr. House is too nasty to be normal. But as things progress and the patient gets sicker and sicker it turns out to be true. The niceness is one of the symptoms of his illness. Could it be syphilis? Could Dr. House's unpleasant personality be explained by the same disease? And, if his diagnostic skills have the same root as his nasty demeanor, would it be a bad idea to treat him?
As it turns out, no one on the episode actually had syphilis, but the show did bring up some interesting points. The most important information in the episode, in my opinion, was the notion that someone could have an STD for years and not know anything about it. Although many of the characters scoffed, and so did many reviewers, asymptomatic STDs are a major problem. After all, if everyone with an STD got tested and treated they'd be a lot less common than they actually are.
What the episode got right:
- Syphilis can go undetected for years.
- Syphilis can cause personality changes if the infection reaches the brain.
- Syphilis can damage various internal organs
- Syphilis tests are not very specific. So a positive syphilis test could actually reflect a different disease.
- It turned out not to be syphilis, but I can't fault how they talked about it.
- The Guide to Palliative Care talks about how House M.D. handled the issue of methadone for pain control
Source:
The CDC Syphilis Fact Sheet Accessed 5/10/08.
