The second definition with the quote from Clueless made me laugh a little harder than is appropriate. But then blasting Robbie Williams and singing along probably isn't appropriate either. So what do I care?

It will be interesting if they make House see a therapist for a while. It would be very negligent of the hospital to not require a doctor who made a suicide attempt at work seek some kind of counseling. Though I can't say that this show needs *another* new character in the form of a psychiatrist.

I also think it was a mistake not to make sure the pills were taken. I thought this was SOP. I've been in a hospital room where the nurse wouldn't leave the room until the pills were taken. She stated as much. (And the patient in that case was definitely compos mentis.) I can see how it happened, though, and IMO it was definitely tied to the game. It was only because of the game that the other team barged in and insisted on grabbing the patient, thus jostling the table, making the patient and everybody else forget what he had been about to do. You wouldn't see that kind of melee in a hospital room under other circumstances. I'd say House, the men's team and 13 all bear responsibility. House should have foreseen from the competitiveness in the group sessions that a race to diagnose could result in something like this. If he wasn't prepared to be on the spot to make sure things didn't get out of hand, he shouldn't have set it up this way. The men's team were jerks, concerned only to win. I think I blame them even more than 13 for that very reason. They're the ones who should have been fired, not the women. (Question: Do we have any evidence that anyone put House in the picture as to how it went down in the patient's room?) As for the patient, he may well have thought there was a change of treatment, what with all those tests, so he wouldn't necessarily question anyone about the pills. I think House knew very well - even without Cuddy - that he bore some of the blame.

Okay, so I was rewatching this episode and I realized: the writers screwed up. Now, granted, most of the medicine in House is completely unrelated to anything approaching real life (blood will never turn green from the amount of contrast required in a CT even if your kidneys are made of rubber), but I take issue when it affects the patient's outcome. Like the bubble study that would have diagnosed bacterial endocarditis in "House Training," they actually cured the PotW. Ivermectin is indeed the antibiotic of choice for strongyloides. HOWEVER, it is responsive to at least three other kinds of antibiotics. There is therefore a good chance that, if they tried another antibiotic, it would have been one of the three that treat strongyloides. But wait...they DID treat! Right before House got all into the spots of necrosis on the lungs and started suspecting cancer, 13 (I believe) said that they gave him another course of antibiotics to no effect. So essentially, they gave him the treatment, but his disease magically didn't respond. Grr.

Maybe he had a virulent strain, or maybe there were complications from his SMA? OR! Maybe it's a television show written by creative people, who, while intelligent, did not attend medical school! I don't know... But I really do understand the nitpicking. If I were a doctor, it would niggle me the wrong way as well. It just depends on why you watch the show, I suppose. To some of us, the ends justify the means-- if we get a great Foreman moment out of the episode where he kills that woman, is it that necessary for the medicine to be completely realistic? If this ep furthered 13's characterization and helped along the House-death debate, does it really matter?

Regarding House bearing responsibility, and House's reaction to the patient's death: Cuddy asked House to hire a team, and his headcount is 3. House brought 40 contractors into the hospital. I don't know where you work, but this would never fly in any normal business. (That's why this is TV. I know.) He turned the hiring of three qualified doctors into a game. Ultimately, it is the game that caused the problem with the pills. I agree that if the treatment had not been interrupted, the patient would have taken the pills -- despite my theory that the patient did not want to take the pills. I believe House wasn't as hard on 13 about this patient's death because the patient actually told him he wanted to die. He was tired of struggling with his disease (for which there is no cure), tired of becoming more and more helpless. To the patient, death was a way out. I've watched the episode twice now (except the intro to the PotW, I didn't get that on tape) and I have not seen any friends or family beyond his dog. Other than Hoover (who has a short life span), there wasn't much holding this man here. He wanted to move on and believed there would be something better to move on to. To back me up, the previews show next ep's PotW quoting him, saying "He says you killed his dog." Note she does not say, "He says you killed him and his dog." I found that particularly interesting. Whether she actually is talking to his spirit, or we have another "House v. God" on our hands, the writers are making a distinction for some reason. I know better than to trust the previews (which are usually WAY out of context), but I'm looking forward to learning what that is all about. (And another herd of teal deer scamper through...)

In terms of: House didn't know 13 came up with the diagnosis, and we didn't actually see 13 come up with the diagnosis either, just the discussion in the group session ... Remember that House was spying on the men's team via his web camera later in the episode when they were in his office, and weren't supposed to be talking. And that the women's team had their group session conference in his office as well. It's highly plausible that he was spying on them during their session via the web cam, and since he was all of their DDX, rather than cutting over to the men's DDX (or who knows, maybe he had a web cam attached to the computer in the conference room too, so he could watch both), it's likely that he heard 13's diagnosis even if we didn't. He certainly saw how she handled the DDX session.

The treatment for uncomplicated threadworm infection is ivermectin or albendazole (thiabendazole is also an option but is rarely used in the Western world because of adverse effects). They should not be confused with antibacterials like ampicillin and gentamycin, which is exactly what they treated him with. *shrugs* The only problem in treatment I can see is that they should have used more than one dose, but I'm fine with it being a time-issue. Using a tilt-table test was fairly dumb though - but I suppose it provided a nice visual.