Thursday, September 22, 2011

House Teaches Ethics to Med Students. House?!

Mark Wicclair, Ph.D. teach bioethics to medical students. He has this to say about House:
"I really love the show."
Really. Wicclair, a professor of philosophy and an adjunct professor of community medicine at West Virginia University in Morgantown who also works at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center of Bioethics and Health Law, says he sees value in examining the world of health care according to House.
"Is it worrisome that medical students appear to enjoy watching a series that features such an unethical physician?...
It would be if one assumed that they look at House as a positive role model. However, this may be an unwarranted assumption." - From M. R. Wicclair, “The Pedagogical Value of House, M.D.—Can a Fictional Unethical Physician Be Used to Teach Ethics?” American Journal of Bioethics 8, no. 12 (December 2008): 16–17.
House can serve as the anti-ideal, Wicclair says. By violating one ethical rule after another, by assaulting patients, by bending their wishes to suit his will, by gaming the system, and on and on... House often demonstrates, in a powerfully emotional way, just why the rules exist.

There have been a number of studies and other evaluations of the ethics demonstrated on House and other shows. Just last month, researchers in Australia published the results of a study of medical students and what they learn from House, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy and other medical shows.

From a patient's perspective it is comforting to know that as medical students gain experience, they grow increasingly skeptical of the means and methods of Dr. House.

Read the full discussion in “House, M.D. vs. Reality


Some of the articles I used in my writing:
Czarny, M., E. Bodensiek, R. R. Faden, M. T. Nolan, and J. Sugarman. “Medical and Nursing Students’ Television Viewing Habits: Potential Implications for Bioethics.” American Journal of Bioethics 8, no. 12 (December 2008): 1–8. Abstract available at http://www.bioethics.net/journal/j_articles.php?aid=1709&display=abstract, accessed on February 8, 2010.

Czarny, M. J., R. R. Faden, and J. Sugarman J. “Bioethics and Professionalism in Popular Television Medical Dramas.” Journal of Medical Ethics 36 (2010): 203–206. Abstract available online at http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/4/203.abstract, accessed on April 1, 2010.

Trachtman, H. “The Medium Is Not the Message.” American Journal of Bioethics 8, no. 12 (December 2008): 9–11.

Wicclair, M. R. “The Pedagogical Value of House, M.D.—Can a Fictional Unethical Physician Be Used to Teach Ethics?” American Journal of Bioethics 8, no. 12(December 2008): 16–17.

Wicclair, M. R. “Medical Paternalism in House M.D.” Medical Humanities 34(2008): 93–99;

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