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)
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.
Factual error: The show is suppose to take place in New Jersey but when detective Triter pulls House over and shows his badge, it's an LAPD badge. (00:57:00 - 00:59:00)
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.
Factual error: When going into anaphylactic shock, the patient is given epinephrine in her forearm. Epi would be given into her lateral thigh, or deltoid muscle. The forearm would be the least ideal place for an IM injection.
Factual error: During the differential, Chase suggests the underlying condition is a systemic infection. House says this is unlikely since the patient received IV antibiotics the previous week. However, the doctor in the intro scene remarks that he thought the patient had C. Diff, which is treated with oral vancomycin, not IV. Oral vancomycin has next to no oral absorption, and would not treat a systemic infection. Moreover, even if vancomycin was orally absorbed, it would only treat infections caused by gram positive organisms and not other infections caused by gram negative organisms. (00:12:30)
Factual error: When Andie is going in for her MRI, Chase starts the machine with Andie's steel IV pole in the room. No doctor would ever do that considering the damage that would be done to machine and patient. (00:05:45)
Factual error: There are several episodes where doctors continue to defibrillate a patient even after s/he flatlines. A flatline (asystole, where there is no electrical activity in the heart) cannot be corrected by defibrillation, which stops a heart that's in an abnormal rhythm and gives it a chance to start in a normal one (the heart has already stopped when there is a flatline).
Factual error: The rabies foreman was experiencing is advanced enough that there is complete numbness to the bite area. As such, it would almost certainly have been untreatable in real life - by the time symptoms actually show, cases are almost always fatal.
Factual error: The scene where Wilson gives Foreman his rabies jabs was outdated even by the early 2000s when the episode is set. Rabies shots haven't been administered to the abdomen since the 1980s - particularly not in the First World.
Factual error: The patient is diagnosed with legionnaire's disease, caught from the AC unit above their desk. The legionella bacteria causing the disease is found in warm water (commonly dehumidifiers, industrial AC cooling towers, hot water tanks) - the key point being that a water source is required. The problem with this is that the AC unit above the patient's desk is a window unit. These sorts of AC units don't use water as a coolant - you can't catch legionnaire's from them.
Suggested correction: They don't use water as a coolant, but they can collect water that condensed from the cold inside the unit.
Which still doesn't allow for legionella to breed, not least the limited amount of collected water drains away (i.e. not like in water tanks and cooling towers). Healthcare professionals have consistently confirmed that window AC units aren't legionella risks for this reason. If you check the CDC website, it explicitly states that window AC units aren't potential legionella sources.
Factual error: Naegleriasis is a rare disease, and all the known cases involved people who had submerged their nostrils in contaminated water (commonly while swimming or diving). Foreman's exposure was just that he walked past a mister spraying contaminated water: nowhere near enough exposure to get infected. It's also highly unlikely Foreman would have survived Naegleriasis (which has an extremely high death rate) and without lasting brain damage - particularly given the length of time before diagnosis.
Factual error: Cameron forces House (against his wishes) to do the biopsy on Foreman because Foreman has made her his medical proxy. This is completely incorrect; Cameron may be Foreman's proxy, but that doesn't mean she can overrule the attending doctor. Having the right of medical proxy allows her to *refuse* a test in Foreman's name (or refuse consent to any number of medical activities on Foreman), but absolutely not to order a test or operation contrary to the attending doctor's views. (00:34:45)
Fidelity (aka: Truth or Consequences) - S1-E7
Factual error: House rules out Lyme disease from being the cause of the sickness, since he says Lyme disease presents with a rash, which the husband would have noticed. However, although a rash is a common symptom of Lyme disease, it is by no means universal. Estimates suggest that around one-third of people with the disease don't exhibit that symptom. Doctors wouldn't therefore rule out Lyme disease solely in the absence of a rash. (00:10:25)
Factual error: The whole episode is caused by medications being mistaken for one another. But the reason why is actually impossible. The patient states that the pills he took (in error due to a switch) had no letter or marking on them. With few exceptions - none of which apply to the medication the patient took - the US FDA law states that all solid medications must have a letter and/or number on each pill which allows them to be identified. No pharmacist would ever give out blank pills.
Factual error: House diagnoses contagious ecthyma in a patient exposed to a donkey. This zoonosis is however NOT transmitted by donkeys. "Contagious ecthyma virus causes papillomatous lesions on lips and mouth, and sometimes on the interdigital areas of primarily young sheep and goats. The hosts of contagious ecthyma virus are sheep, goats, alpacas, chamois, Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep, Doll sheep, steenbok, wild thar, dog, camel, reindeer, musk ox, and man." https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-524180-9.50039-X. (00:27:07 - 00:27:40)
Factual error: In an episode with a severely overweight patient who is thought to have diabetes, it is discovered he instead has Chagas disease. Cameron then informs the patient that he acquired this illness from his food when, in fact, Chagas disease is a protozoan that is spread through the bite of the triatomine bug.
Suggested correction: While the main vector for the infection is through the triatomine bug, Trypanosoma cruzi (the parasitic organism that causes the disease) can be transmitted through food, and thus Chagas was caused by the food the patient ate. It should also be noted that Trypanosoma cruzi is not transmitted by the bite of the triatomine bug, but rather through its feces, and it's only spreads once the feces enters the blood stream (which it can do through a bite site or scratching an open wound).
