Character mistake: Cameron suggests the patient is suffering from either "Buerger's disease" or "Berger's disease" (it isn't clear which she means). Foreman rejects this out of hand, since he says the patient has never been out of the USA. However, neither of those two diseases is region-specific. Buerger's disease relates to thrombosis (clotting) of arteries and veins of the hands and feet, and is associated with the use of tobacco. Berger's disease relates to kidney inflammation. Neither is region-specific. (00:33:00)
Visible crew/equipment: After a message is left on House's answering machine, when House heads back into the hospital, just as he tells Cuddy, "Great outfit," the boom mic dips into view over his head, at the top of the screen. (00:19:15)
Continuity mistake: Chase is doing the crossword and asks Foreman what the answer to the clue "iodine deficiency in children" is. The close-up shot of the magazine shows Chase has already written the answer in (cretinism), so why is he asking Foreman the same question? Then, when Foreman gives the (same) correct answer to Chase, he writes it down - only, of course, it's already been written down. (00:02:58)
Factual error: When House is looking over his whiteboard of symptoms for the swimming patient, the symptom "Intercranial Hemorrhage" is shown on the board. However, this is an error. The correct term is "Intracranial Hemorrhage." Anything inside the head is referred to as "intra" not "inter." This is a common mistake for laypeople, however the highly trained and knowledgeable Dr. House should not have made that error. (00:31:25)
Factual error: House's team listed the potential offending organisms of the infection as "MRSA, H. Flu, VRE, and pseudomonas." House then suggests Vancomycin and Aztreonam. Vancomycin only covers gram (+) organisms and Aztreonam only covers gram (-) organisms. VRE is a gram (+) organism, thus it would not be covered by Aztreonam. VRE stands for vancomycin resistant enterococcus, thus it would not be covered by Vancomycin either. House's team therefore failed to cover for an offending organism that could have caused the infection during their initial differential. (00:09:10)
Role Model - S1-E17
Factual error: House and Foreman tell the Senator that he has toxoplasmosis, which is caused by a fungus. Toxoplasmosis is actually caused by a protozoan parasite.
You Don't Want to Know - S4-E8
Factual error: Dr. House argues that the symptoms of the patient (DIC, bleeding, and multisystem failure) can be explained by the fact that they gave him the wrong type of blood (type AB). House says the reason they could make such a mistake is that they don't test blood type, they test antibodies. Dr. Foreman responds it's because the human body only makes those antibodies when you have that type of blood. This part is incorrect. In fact, it's the exact opposite. You only produce antibodies against the antigens that you DO not have. If you did, your immune system would attack your own red blood cells (RBCs), which would cause autoimmune hemolytic anemia (aiha). For example, if your blood type is A, you make antibody B and vice versa. A person with blood type AB has A and B antigens on the RBCs, but does not produce antibodies A or B and is therefore a universal recipient. Ironically, the latter is also mentioned by Dr. Wilson in a conversation with House earlier in the episode when he says "Of course you're type AB - universal recipient. You take from everybody." House then says that the patient has blood type A, but he's making an extra antibody of type B, which led them to believe he has blood type AB and therefore give him type AB blood. House then deduces that this caused the immunologic reaction, leading to the diagnosis, SLE (lupus), which can cause acquired aiha. It's correct that giving type AB blood to a person with blood type A would cause this, but the first part is wrong. If he is type A, he is supposed to make antibody B, not antibody A, so if he were making an extra antibody, it would be antibody A, not antibody B. (00:38:20)
Character mistake: Episode 6.12, Moving the Chains: Marcus tells House that he and Eric were arrested for stealing a car, he was 16 and Eric was 14. He also says that his brother never did anything criminal after that. In season 1, we were told that Eric was 16 when he was arrested for stealing a car.
Factual error: House is playing 'Metroid: Zero Mission' on his Gameboy at various times. The Metroid series does not feature space monkeys, nor are there distinct levels. The sounds coming from the game in the show do not match it in real life, and Samus morphing into a ball is most definitely not a failure state.
Continuity mistake: As House describes the lady's symptoms, in the front shot Chase has a small book/pamphlet in his hand. The camera changes to a side shot in the middle of House's description and suddenly the book is on the table and no longer in Chase's hand. This happens right in the middle of House's line and Chase doesn't make any quick movements to account for this discrepancy.
Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where House and Allison are walking down the stairs, they round a corner and we see a dolly shot down a short hall with a glass wall in front. During this shot, a camera, cameraman, and dolly are visible in reflections on the glass. (00:08:20)
Continuity mistake: The text with the symptoms written on the board changes several times, watch the letter F on the left. Sometimes it has a line across it, sometimes not.
Continuity mistake: When House is talking to Luke about the Vitamin K deficiency and eating the hamburger, the lid on the ketchup bottle is closed on the shots facing House and open on the shots facing Luke.
Continuity mistake: Most of the time, whenever House puts down his Nintendo DS, the angle at which it is bending changes. For example, in one shot, it is not bent at all and in the next it is almost closed.
Continuity mistake: Chase is 26 years old in season one. In season two he's 30.
Continuity mistake: House is about to inject Ezra Powell (Joel Grey) with what is supposedly a lethal dose of morphine. In the shots where they pan out to show House addressing the room at large, the syringe is very full, almost completely. When they zoom in on House holding the syringe, it is only filled a fraction of that much - maybe a quarter to a third. This doesn't happen just once, but every time they switch between shots.
Revealing mistake: In the opening scene during the game, one of the shots of the boy is reversed. You can see that the text "Tartans" on his jersey is mirror imaged. (00:00:25)
Continuity mistake: Season 6 - Ep. 6 Known Unknowns Before House goes to the hotel he's out on the street and the collar of his shirt is up during all front and back angles, except for a brief single back angle where it's down. Then it changes to up again.
Continuity mistake: Dr. House is listening to a patient's heart with a stethoscope. However as the shot cuts to his face you can see the stethoscope is not in his ears.
Factual error: In episode 414, "Living the Dream," the patient Evan is given a nerve function test. We see Kutner and Taub performing the test by puncturing Evan's legs with needles. Modern nerve function tests actually rely on electrical impulses from a small computerized device, with no needles necessary.
Suggested correction: House ordered an EMG (electromyography) to test for motor nerve entrapment. During an EMG, one or more small needles (electrodes) are inserted through the skin into the muscle. The electrical activity picked up by the electrodes is then displayed on an oscilloscope. An audio amplifier is used so the activity can be heard. When an electrode is inserted, a brief period of activity can be seen on the oscilloscope, but after that, no signal should be present.
