Are We Doctors or Data Workers?
Stop, or I snap your nose off,” Gregory House tells a crying, wriggling toddler. In an episode of the medical drama series House, the titular antihero pulls a red fire truck figurine out of the child’s nostril. He places it down next to a firefighter and a police officer that he removed during previous visits. After a quick look, House grabs a magnet and extracts one final toy from the infant’s nose: a cat. This tiny patient wasn’t shoving these toys up his nose haphazardly, House explains. Each lodged toy represented a failed yet clever attempt to save the cat.
House’s bedside manner leaves much to be desired, but, as a medical student, I admire his ability to group seemingly disparate items together to explain the unexplainable. My early role model of a doctor, informed by Sherlock Holmes, Gregory House, and the natural sciences, was a neighborhood Nancy Drew, with the human body as her domain of expertise. Storybook detectives often leverage astute observation, an uncanny resilience, and a penchant for problem-solving to assist others—all desirable traits in a physician. Stripping away the layers of rapport-building and human connection, I thought, what were patient examinations but medical whodunits?
