Latest news with #HouseMD
Time of India
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
From Donald Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu: The biggest winners of the Middle East conflict – and the sorest losers
Most shows are defined by their endings. House MD saw the misanthrope Gregory House hang up his proverbial lab coat – the one he refused to wear – to go on a joyride with his cancer-stricken best buddy. Walter White killed the men who had swindled him out of his drug empire with a rigged machine gun. Heroes lowered the standards so much we didn't care what happened after Season 2, but if there's one show which was defined by its opening, instead of its ending, it was Newsroom . That show was defined by how it began. The Newsroom - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore...(Restricted language) Will McAvoy's monologue on American greatness became so iconic that it was practically ghostwritten for Vivek Ramaswamy's doomed 2024 presidential campaign—before being mugged by MAGA. In that monologue, McAvoy says America leads the world in three things: incarcerations, belief in angels, and defence spending—where it spends more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. That was over a decade ago. China and Russia have since tried to close the gap. They failed. And the recent strikes in Iran were a reminder of why. While there's a cliché that there are no winners in war, the truth is that most often the victor is America, unless of course it gets into a protracted engagement with a nation of guerilla warriors who can hide in caves or under the ground. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo So, who are the winners and losers of the recent gun-slinging in the Middle East? Winners Donald Trump - The Don is Back President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Many years ago, 1980 to be specific, Donald Trump made his first comment on foreign policy when he wondered out loud during a vanity interview why a powerful country like America couldn't deal with the Iran hostage crisis. The notion that America, with all its might, couldn't get anything done felt like a personal affront and since then Trump's enmity for Iran has been on par with his disdain for Barack Obama. As Jack Blanchard pointed out in Politico: 'Trump is in no doubt: The president believes — with some justification — that he has proved his critics wrong. America has asserted its military dominance in the region. Iran's nuclear programme has taken a severe blow. The pushback has been almost nonexistent. And that much-feared 'forever war' lasted less than 12 days. Trump is chalking this up as a comprehensive win.' In one stroke, he dismantled Biden's diplomatic era waltz with Tehran and Barack Obama's JCPOA legacy. So, what really is the Trump Doctrine? It's simply: We are America. We do what we want. US Military-Industrial Complex (and B-2 Spirit Bombers) In recent years, the US Military-Industrial Complex has often become the butt of jokes for its liberal posturing, pride parades, or generals in drag, but with seven B-2 Spirit Bombers, America proved that they can change the face of any country the moment they choose to. Operation Midnight Hammer – a 37-hour sortie – didn't just hit Iran's nuclear programme – but it was a live demonstration of the might of Uncle Sam and its defence contractors. Think of it as the world's deadliest product demonstration. Seven B-2 Spirit bombers, each priced north of $2 billion, flew from Missouri to Iran and back—13,000 kilometres—without being detected. They dropped 14 earth-penetrating GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing over 30,000 pounds and costing upwards of $10 million. Tomahawk cruise missiles followed from submarines in the Arabian Sea, launched like afterthoughts in a fireworks display. It was an end-to-end validation of every funding request the Pentagon made, and overnight B-2s went from semi-retirement anonymity to mythical status. No country should live with the delusion that it can match America once it decides to enter the war. The last two world wars prove that. Benjamin Netanyahu - Bibi's Churchillian Redemption Arc FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures while speaking before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) Before reality differed, Yahya Sinwar , the fourth Hamas chief and the architect of October 7, made a grave mistake. He overestimated the capability of the Axis of Resistance, and as Jeffrey Goldberg wryly noted in a fantastic piece in The Atlantic, 'underestimated the desire of Israelis to live in their ancestral homeland.' Isaiah 51:3 promised to turn Zion's deserts into Garden, her wastelands into the Garden of the Lord, and while that particular promise wasn't kept—forcing Jews to become lawyers, scientists, artists, bankers and pretty much everything worthwhile in Western civilisation—it also ensured that once Israel got its piece of land, no force on earth would move them from there. And one beneficiary of that was a former MIT engineer. After October 7, 2023, Bibi was a dead man walking, a political career running on its last fumes with Mr Security's image in tatters. Two years later, he has undergone his full Churchillian makeover—even ensuring some starvation for his opponents—and his biblical quest for revenge shows no signs of slowing. From exploding pagers to bunker-busters, Israel has methodically dismantled its enemies—with Khamenei seemingly surviving only because of Trump's largesse. Israel has destroyed Hamas' leaders in Gaza, struck the Houthis in Sana'a, collapsed Assad's regime in Syria, severed Iran's supply lines, and left scores of Hezbollah fighters dead in Yemen, effectively neutralising Iran's proxies across five fronts. At the centre of it all, Netanyahu—once politically doomed—has emerged as the architect of a brutal, precision-led regional reset, much like the intermittent-fasting enthusiast he worships. Of course, the only twist in the tale will be if in his moment of Churchillian triumph, he ends up meeting his Atlee. The NeoCons - MAGA who? Once dismissed as relics of the Bush-era disaster, the neocons are back—and this time, they've hijacked the Trump train without firing a shot. Marco Rubio holds every single position of note in Washington. JD Vance has completely forgotten his pre-electoral stances and is writing long elegies defending whatever Trump does. Tulsi Gabbard has taken a quick U-turn on regime changes. On the other hand, the leaders who once gave MAGA its voice—Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene—have been pushed aside, reduced to white noise that can be tuned out with a little ketamine. The neocons haven't just returned—they've won. No ground troops. No occupation. Just airstrikes, sanctions, and memos. And in a final act of irony, the movement that rose from the ashes of Baghdad now finds itself writing Iran's obituary—under the very banner it once despised. Sure, Trump feels like Dubyaman 2.0 but for most Americans there's barely any difference between bombing Iraq and bombing Iran. The Losers The Axis of (No) Resistance Iranian protesters hold up posters showing the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, and the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini in a protest following the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites Sunday, June 22, 2025, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Perhaps the biggest loser of the entire fracas is the so-called Axis of Resistance – which was once hailed as a proud banner of anti-Western defiance – and is now something only found in liberal campuses in Western countries. Hezbollah's strongholds in Southern Lebanon have become target practice for Israeli drones. The Houthis are bearing the brunt of Israeli-American strikes. Syria, post-Bashar, is very quiet about the entire thing. Iran's grand strategy has imploded: no regional deterrent, no credible escalation, and no propaganda victory to offset the military rout. The image of an unbreakable Shiite crescent has given way to bomb craters, leadership vacuums, and strategic paralysis. Palestine - A Geopolitical Afterthought The gateway of global liberalism, Palestine has slowly faded into geopolitical afterthought. Its civil infrastructure is shattered, its people are displaced, and its voice drowned out by larger conflicts. With at least 54,000 Palestinians dead (according to the Gaza Health Ministry), the world has grown desensitised. The humanitarian crisis is among the worst in modern memory—over 1.9 million displaced, widespread famine conditions, hospitals inoperative, and more than 70% of Gaza's buildings destroyed. The same nations that once called for ceasefires now focus on nuclear bunkers in Iran and Hezbollah convoys in Lebanon. The West Bank seethes with anger, but there are no cameras. Gaza is bleeding, but Tehran is trending. Palestine, which sparked this firestorm through Hamas's October 7 attacks, has now been pushed to the margins of the narrative it ignited. Pakistan - Real-Life Yes Minister Each episode of Yes Minister has a similar premise. First, Minister Jim Hacker has an idea, then Sir Humphrey Appleby spends the episode convincing him it's a bad idea and then eventually, Hacker comes around to believing whatever Appleby was pushing and that it was his idea in the first place. That's also Pakistan's national policy, where in true Orwellian fashion, day becomes night, and night becomes day. Take the last few days. First, General Munir – after giving himself a promotion to Field Marshal – visited the White House for a lunch with Trump and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Even as the repast was being digested, Pakistan had to condemn the US and Donald Trump for bombing Iran. While backing Iran is necessary to keep the quom at home quiet, it hardly yields any strategic gain. Meanwhile, the Trump outreach simply alienated civil society and religious parties, shaking hands with a man who just bombed a Muslim nation. Pakistan now finds itself diplomatically singed: embarrassed in Washington, distrusted by Tehran, and mocked at home. China - Middle Kingdom Humbled A civilisational power, China has always nursed a Middle Kingdom fantasy—unmatched in war, peerless in diplomacy. That illusion persisted until British gunboats shattered it in the opium-hazed 19th century. And yet, in recent years, Beijing has begun to believe its own myth again. It spoke of multipolarity, of "win-win cooperation," of replacing Washington's warcraft with Chinese statecraft. But when Iran burned, China blinked. The Belt-and-Road bonanza with Tehran promised roads and railways—but not rockets. Its 25-year pact with Iran offered infrastructure, not intervention. As US B-2 bombers reduced Fordo and Natanz to rubble, and Israel erased Hezbollah and Hamas leaderships one drone at a time, China issued a limp statement urging 'restraint'—then promptly vanished from relevance. The truth is, for all the pageantry of great power diplomacy, Beijing now confronts the one question that cuts to the core of geopolitics: when it matters, can you make anyone stop? The answer is a firm 'no'. Russia - Only Love, No War (with US) Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky) A decade ago, Russia controlled Syrian skies and fancied itself the chessmaster of West Asia. Today, Vladimir Putin is too busy explaining away tank losses in Kharkiv to worry about missile strikes on Qom. Once hailed as Iran's strategic partner, Moscow's contribution to the US-Israel-Iran conflict has been limited to press statements and public sulking. When the bombs dropped on Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, Tehran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi rushed to Moscow expecting S-400s or at least some satellite intel. What he got instead was a handshake and vague condemnation. In private, Putin offered sympathy. In public, he labelled it 'unprovoked aggression.' But in practice, Moscow didn't lift a finger. Iran expected its strategic partner to show up. It got a spectator. There were no air defences, no drones, no aid—just more Kremlin press releases and a few tweets. Russia's much-touted 2025 strategic pact with Iran, signed just after Assad's fall, forbids helping Iran's enemies—but notably doesn't promise any help for Iran itself. It's a paper tiger. Why the silence? Because Moscow has no capacity left. Its own war in Ukraine is draining missiles, air defences, and manpower. 'Iran desperately needs such systems,' said Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the Global and National Security Institute, in comments quoted by the Associated Press. 'But Russia itself needs these very weapons… for its own war effort.' Translation: don't expect any crates marked 'From Russia with Love' to land in Tehran anytime soon. All in all, McAvoy was right and wrong. Americans might have a myriad problems back home, but it has the capabilities to bring the world to it heel whenever it wants. No matter how many people are incarcerated or believe in angels. As a viral meme joked as the B-2s set off for Iran: 'The Supreme Leader is soon going to learn why Americans don't have free healthcare.'
News.com.au
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Hollywood star Hugh Laurie's wild insult to his fans leaked by podcast host
A podcast host has leaked a shocking statement from Hugh Laurie that saw the Hollywood star insult his diehard fans. The British actor famously played the belovedly bitter Dr. Gregory House in US TV drama series House from 2004 to 2012. However, it's now emerged that he'd rather do anything other than look back fondly at his time on the smash hit show. During a recent episode of the Doctor Mike podcast, host Dr. Mikhail 'Mike' Varshavski was chatting to The Pitt star Noah Wyle when he revealed he had invited Laurie onto the show for a similar interview. Varshavski told Wyle: 'I love that you're still connected to your characters very much. Most that play a role like John Carter get tired of that association. In fact, we invited Hugh Laurie to our show.' Varshavski continued: 'His staff was like, 'Oh, this is a good fit, we're going to reach out to him and see what he thinks. I'm going to read you quote-unquote what he said: 'He is not interested in opportunities like this, frankly doesn't care about the audience or reliving the show.'' Wyle laughed and said: 'That's so baller.' Varshavski then added: 'It's just such a direct and honest reply. It's not that he doesn't want to do your show, just he doesn't want to be House MD ever again.' In 2013, Laurie opened up about his experience filming the show, telling Radio Times that his experience was 'a bit of a nightmare' overall, despite the hefty pay cheque. He admitted: 'At this distance it all sounds absurd. Ridiculous! After all, what was I doing other than playing about, telling stories with a very nice bunch of people? What could be constricting about that? 'But the repetition of any routine, day after month after year, can turn into a bit of a nightmare. I had some pretty bleak times, dark days when it seemed like there was no escape. And having a very Presbyterian work ethic, I was determined never to be late, not to miss a single day's filming. You wouldn't catch me phoning in to say, 'I think I may be coming down with the flu'.
Daily Mail
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hugh Laurie's brutal response to podcast host who invited him on as a guest - and the massive disdain he showed for fans of House
A podcast host has shared the brutally honest rejection he received from Hugh Laurie when he asked him to appear on his medically-themed show. Doctor Mike, whose real name is Mikhail Varshavski, is a family medicine physician who launched a podcast named The Check Up With Doctor Mike. The podcast has featured a segment where Doctor Mike reacts to old House episodes and debunks what is medically accurate or not. House saw British actor Hugh, 66, take on the role of the cantankerous Dr Gregory House in the medical drama from 2004 to 2012. During a new episode with Noah Wyle, who played Dr John Carter in ER, Doctor Mike revealed Hugh's shocking reaction when he was asked to come on the podcast. Doctor Mike said: 'We invited Hugh Laurie to our show because a lot of folks like when we do House M.D. reacts. And his staff was like oh this is a good fit. We're going to reach out to him and see what he thinks. 'I'm gonna read you quote-unquote what he said. 'He is not interested in opportunities like this, frankly doesn't care about the audience or reliving the show.' Noah was clearly impressed with Hugh's line, and said: 'That's so baller' While Doctor Mike added: 'It's just such a direct and honest reply. Noah reiterated: 'So baller!' Doctor Mike added: 'Not just that he won't do your show, he just doesn't ever wanna be House M.D. ever again.' Noah insisted he is much more amenable, and said: 'I'm a gemini, middle child pleaser. I'll answer any question you'll ask me.' Referencing his part in The Pitt, Doctor Mike said: 'But you do care about the audience. In fact, it's driven you to do this new show and continue season two and continue crushing it, representing for us. Noah replied: 'I care about certain audiences.' Doctor Mike asked: 'Okay, and that healthcare audience falls into that mix?' He responded: 'This was scripted as a love letter to first responders and front line workers to say, we recognise what you guys have been going through.' Hugh's response doesn't really come as that much of a surprise as he previously told how starring in US medical drama House turned into a 'nightmare' despite him being the best-paid actor on TV. He was paid a reported £250,000 an episode and won two Golden Globes for his long-running role as curmudgeonly Dr Gregory House. But he suggested to the Radio Times in 2013 that his huge success became 'a gilded cage', with the actor even fantasising about having an accident just so that he could take a few days off. While filming the Fox show, Laurie had his car windows tinted to avoid being snapped by phone cameras and stopped buying his own groceries because he 'couldn't stand people photographing the contents of my shopping basket'. He admitted: 'At this distance it all sounds absurd. Ridiculous! After all, what was I doing other than playing about, telling stories with a very nice bunch of people? What could be constricting about that? 'But the repetition of any routine, day after month after year, can turn into a bit of a nightmare. 'I had some pretty bleak times, dark days when it seemed like there was no escape. And having a very Presbyterian work ethic, I was determined never to be late, not to miss a single day's filming. You wouldn't catch me phoning in to say, 'I think I may be coming down with the flu'. 'But there were times when I'd think, 'If I were just to have an accident on the way to the studio and win a couple of days off to recover, how brilliant would that be?'' The actor lived in Los Angeles while his wife and three children stayed in Britain during his time on the show. Asked if readjusting was difficult when he returned home after a near eight-year commitment to House, he replied: 'Yes, but probably more so for the family. 'For me it's been a delight to be back with them, to walk the dog, to listen to music and to read. I'm still appreciating and enjoying it.' Hugh, the former comedy partner of Stephen Fry, said that he might not be physically able to take on such a gruelling role again. At the time, he told the magazine that he would like a job directing, partly because it would allow him to wear his own clothes. 'If the opportunity presented itself, I'm not sure I'd either want or could physically do it. I imagine sportsmen come to a similar crossroads,' he said of taking a lead role in another major, ongoing series. 'Maybe there'll come a day when (footballer) John Terry says, ''I'm not up for the full 90 minutes any more. I can give you 60. Or perhaps I could just come on in the second half?'' The legs start to go and you realise you're feeling the pain a lot more.' He said 'some very good' scripts, 'some not so good and others so weirdly like House that you wonder what they're thinking of' were still pitched to him. He added: 'The big thing is that I'm a decade older than when I got that role. Even then the character was scripted as 10 years younger at 35 - and Fox would have preferred 28, to keep advertisers happy. Now if my name comes up for the lead, there'd be a shaking of heads. 'He could play the dad...'' He said of his future: 'I'd like to do something that involves wearing my own clothes for a while. It's an odd thing to go to work each day and wear someone else's. 'For House I also had a fake wallet with fake money in it, fake keys that didn't open anything and a fake watch that didn't tell the real time. All I can say right now is that there are things of my own I'm developing that I'm pretty excited about.' Hugh, who has spoken previously about suffering from depression, said that he still expects disaster to strike. But he added: 'When you assume that the worst is going to happen, you're freed up from any anxiety about the when and the where of it. Not that I'd ever be foolish enough to think I've finally got the hang of this life business,' The actor, who is gearing up for the release of his second album and set to star in Tomorrowland with George Clooney, said of his Hollywood status: 'One great benefit of not being on TV every week is that people will be a lot less interested in what I have in my supermarket basket. I could even un-tint my car windows - or at least opt for a lighter shade. 'When the ship goes down, the waves very quickly roll over the top of it and attention shifts elsewhere. It's just the natural order of things in TV - in life - and is as it should be.' In March 2020, Hugh briefly revisited the character to tell House fans what his iconic character would have made of the coronavirus pandemic. He tweeted: 'I can't speak for House, obviously – no one's written clever words for me to say – but I'm pretty sure he'd tell you it's not a matter of 'solving' Covid. 'This is an epidemic, not a diagnostic problem. We solve it together by staying apart.' He also praised healthcare workers, saying: 'When this is over, what say we all pitch in and buy health care workers, couriers, hauliers, farmers, millers, grocers, bakers, sewage workers, power workers, teachers, fire fighters and police officers a bottle of something?' he wrote. He later added: 'Thanks to those who've taken the trouble to tell me that decent pay and conditions for essential workers might be preferable to a bottle of something. Bigger thanks to those who knew that's what I meant.' Laurie also said: 'Chin up, everybody. This will work. However irksome it is for us, it's much worse for the virus. Picture the little bugger with its nose against the window, whining.'
Free Malaysia Today
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Free Malaysia Today
Experts point out how TV's Dr House often got it wrong
British actor Hugh Laurie played Dr Gregory House in the hugely popular TV series 'House'. (Hugh Laurie Official Instagram pic) ZAGREB : He's the maverick medic who loved to confound the medical establishment with his brilliant, unorthodox diagnoses. But Dr Gregory House, the misanthropic genius who was the star of the long-running 'House' television series, got an awful lot wrong himself, Croatian doctors claim. From a neurologist at work on the wrong end of a patient by performing a colonoscopy, or an MRI scan done by a physician who is clearly not a radiologist, Croatian researchers have pulled the American series up on its medical accuracy in a paper published this month. Denis Cerimagic, a professor at Dubrovnik University, and two fellow neurologists – all big fans of the series – listed 77 errors after analysing all 177 episodes of the show, which ran from 2004 to 2012. 'We focused on the diagnoses of main cases, reality of clinical practice presentation and detection of medical errors,' Cerimagic told AFP. He and his peers – Goran Ivkic and Ervina Bilic – broke the mistakes down into five categories including misuses of medical terminology, misinformation and simple weirdness – something which the show's anti-hero, played by British star Hugh Laurie, possessed in abundance. That limp They included the use of mercury thermometers – which had long given way to digital ones – the term heart attack and cardiac arrest being used interchangeably when they are not the same, and that vitamin B12 deficiency can be corrected with just one injection. Nor is there a universal chemotherapy for all types of malignant tumours, as one episode suggested. But arguably the biggest error of all is that Laurie – whose character's genius for deduction comes from the misdiagnosis that left him with a limp and chronic pain – uses his cane on the wrong side. The stick should be carried on his unaffected side, Cerimagic said, though he understood why the actor had done it because 'it's more effective to see the pronounced limp on the screen'. Their research also found medical procedures being done by specialists who had no business being there, like an infectologist performing an autopsy. At times the series also stretched reality beyond breaking point, with the findings of complex laboratory tests done in just a few hours. And doctors rarely turn detective and take it upon themselves to enter patients' homes to look for environmental causes of illnesses. Not to mention Dr House's unethical behaviour – 'Brain tumour, she's gonna die' the paper quoted him as saying – and the character's opiates addiction. The researchers say they may have missed other mistakes. 'We are neurologists while other medical specialists would certainly establish additional errors,' Cerimagic added. Medical errors Whatever their criticisms, the researchers say that modern medical series are far better produced than in the past, thanks to medical advisors. It is not like some 20 years ago when you had doctors looking at X-rays upside down, the neurologist said. 'Now only medical professionals can notice errors,' Cerimagic said. Despite its flaws, they thought the series could even be used to help train medical students. 'The focus could be on recognising medical errors in the context of individual episodes, adopting the teamwork concept and a multidisciplinary approach in diagnosis and treatment,' Cerimagic said. He said he and his colleagues were taken aback by the response to their paper 'House M.D.: Between reality and fiction' – which is not the first academic study to cast doubt on the good doctor and his methods. 'The idea was to make a scientific paper interesting not only to doctors but also to people without specific medical knowledge.'
Malay Mail
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Dr House gets it wrong: Croatian neurologists highlight 77 errors in popular TV series
ZAGREB, June 1 — He's the maverick medic who loved to confound the medical establishment with his brilliant, unorthodox diagnoses. But Dr Gregory House, the misanthropic genius who was the star of the long-running 'House' television series, got an awful lot wrong himself, Croatian doctors claim. From a neurologist at work on the wrong end of a patient by performing a colonoscopy, or an MRI scan done by a physician who is clearly not a radiologist, Croatian researchers have pulled the American series up on its medical accuracy in a paper published this month. Denis Cerimagic, a professor at Dubrovnik University, and two fellow neurologists—all big fans of the series—listed 77 errors after analysing all 177 episodes of the show, which ran from 2004 to 2012. 'We focused on the diagnoses of main cases, reality of clinical practice presentation and detection of medical errors,' Cerimagic told AFP. He and his peers—Goran Ivkic and Ervina Bilic—broke the mistakes down into five categories including misuses of medical terminology, misinformation and simple weirdness—something which the show's anti-hero, played by British star Hugh Laurie, possessed in abundance. That limp They included the use of mercury thermometers—which had long given way to digital ones—the term heart attack and cardiac arrest being used interchangeably when they are not the same, and that vitamin B12 deficiency can be corrected with just one injection. Nor is there a universal chemotherapy for all types of malignant tumours, as one episode suggested. But arguably the biggest error of all is that Laurie—whose character's genius for deduction comes from the misdiagnosis that left him with a limp and chronic pain—uses his cane on the wrong side. The stick should be carried on his unaffected side, Cerimagic said, though he understood why the actor had done it because 'it's more effective to see the pronounced limp on the screen'. Their research also found medical procedures being done by specialists who had no business being there, like an infectologist performing an autopsy. At times the series also stretched reality beyond breaking point, with the findings of complex laboratory tests done in just a few hours. And doctors rarely turn detective and take it upon themselves to enter patients' homes to look for environmental causes of illnesses. Not to mention Dr House's unethical behaviour—'Brain tumour, she's gonna die' the paper quoted him as saying—and the character's opiates addiction. The researchers say they may have missed other mistakes. 'We are neurologists while other medical specialists would certainly establish additional errors,' Cerimagic added. Medical errors Whatever their criticisms, the researchers say that modern medical series are far better produced than in the past, thanks to medical advisors. It is not like some 20 years ago when you had doctors looking at X-rays upside down, the neurologist said. 'Now only medical professionals can notice errors,' Cerimagic said. Despite its flaws, they thought the series could even be used to help train medical students. 'The focus could be on recognising medical errors in the context of individual episodes, adopting the teamwork concept and a multidisciplinary approach in diagnosis and treatment,' Cerimagic said. He said he and his colleagues were taken aback by the response to their paper 'House M.D.: Between reality and fiction'—which is not the first academic study to cast doubt on the good doctor and his methods. 'The idea was to make a scientific paper interesting not only to doctors but also to people without specific medical knowledge.' — AFP
