Summary
- House and his team frequently make morally questionable decisions in order to save lives, often having to choose between difficult options.
- The team faces intense challenges and must navigate complex medical cases, sometimes resorting to morally gray actions to reach a diagnosis and treatment.
- Despite the difficult choices and moral dilemmas they face, the team is determined to give their patients and each other the best chance at survival.
The team in House, M.D. is forced to make life-altering decisions daily, but some of these decisions are incredibly complicated and challenging for the team to make. House is one of the most intense and dramatic medical dramas, with the diagnostic team dealing with some of the most medically challenging cases possible. The series follows the team as they try to navigate complex medical cases, which sometimes require testing, analysis, and treatment in morally questionable ways.
To get the truth from patients, House encourages his team to break into patients’ homes and frequently put their medical licenses on the line with near-impossible choices. However, these things come up in almost every episode, so when things get even more complex for the team, the choices are much more difficult to navigate. Despite the challenges, the team has to make choices in order to save lives and give patients and each other their best shot.
8 Which Baby Survives
House Season 1, Episode 4, “Maternity”
When a disease begins to spread in the maternity unit at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, House and his team must act decisively to save the lives of the babies in their care. As the team tests the babies, they narrow down the illness to two possible sources, which each require different treatments. With six babies already affected and potentially more that may become ill, House chooses to run a test by treating two of the babies with differing medications, essentially gambling on which treatment may work.
The team struggles to come to terms with a decision that will mean certain death for one of the babies. However, it will result in the team being able to accurately treat the remaining babies. The decision makes its way up the ladder to Cuddy and a legal counsel, but ultimately, the choice is left for House to make, and the team administers two different treatments. As a result, one baby dies, and the others are eventually properly diagnosed and treated.
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7 Robert Chase Is Fired From The Team
House Season 3, Episode 24, “Human Error”
House struggles to open up with his emotions, and that can be seen when he decides to fire Chase in the season 3 finale. After team House had remained mostly consistent for the first three seasons, Chase confronts House about his fear of change. House is stubborn and proud, and while he has genuinely grown fond of his team, Chase bluntly addressing his feelings rattles him. As a result, House decides to fire Chase, and while he makes it look like a callous move done with little thought, House proves in later seasons that he had regrets.
6 Shut Off Amber’s Life Supports
House Season 4, Episode, “Wilson’s Heart”
Wilson’s girlfriend Amber, becomes fatally ill following a bus crash while she was on board. Her organs begin to fail, and the team works desperately to save her, however, it becomes clear that she will not recover. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), takes her off the anesthesia to spend her last moments together, and her life support machines are turned off, allowing her to pass on. Everyone on team House tries their best to keep patients alive, so when they can’t, it’s heartbreaking, which is multiplied by the fact that Amber was a part of the group for a brief time.
5 The Woman Or The Crane Driver
House Season 6, Episode 22, “Help Me”
House and the team are called out to an emergency where a crane crashed into a building and trapped several people in extremely precarious positions. House rushes in to help people wherever he can and finds a woman trapped beneath the wreckage who is in danger of losing her legs. House is forced to divide his attention between her and the crane operator, and despite his best efforts to save everyone, the woman dies. Choosing to focus on the woman could have saved her, but House was forced to divide his attention and save who he could.
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4 Lying To The Committee
House Season 1, Episode 14, “Control”
When a successful businesswoman is admitted as a patient into House’s care, the team works hard to diagnose her. As House familiarizes himself with the case and the patient, he uncovers her history with an eating disorder, which could massively reduce her odds of being selected for a transplant. However, House recognizes the value in her life and attempts to help her recognize it too. As long as she believes her life is worth something, Gregory House feels comfortable choosing to lie to the board for her and hide the disorder to give her a better shot at getting the transplant.
3 Giving A Daughter A Future By Cutting Her Brother’s Life In Half
House Season 7, Episode 2, “Selfish”
One of the most challenging cases to appear on the show is when a young girl who is extremely athletic falls ill unexpectedly, her family rushes her to the hospital to be seen by House. Her parents and her ill brother, who has several preexisting conditions and a shorter life expectancy, wait anxiously to learn what is wrong with her and if she can be helped. When House determines that the only way to save her life would be by transplanting part of her ill brother’s lung to save her, everyone is conflicted as it will further shorten his life expectancy.
House is logical as always and works to persuade others that the choice is simple. Saving a girl’s life over a boy who has a reduced quality of life appears like the only option. House and Cuddy, along with the parents, argue about the choice and what is morally correct, but ultimately, the choice is removed from all of their hands when the boy hears everyone arguing. He decides for himself that he wants to give his sister part of his lung to save her life, and thus resolves another incredibly tough choice for the team.
2 Treat A Patient And Get More Time In Lockup
House Season 8, Episode 7, “Twenty Vicodin”
In the final season of House, House is locked up in prison and nearing the end of his sentence. However, House finds himself gravitating towards the prison clinic and learning about the ailments of other inmates. Despite no longer having the right to practice medicine, and almost being free, House risks it all to save another prisoner when he diagnoses them and chooses to give them treatment against everyone’s advice. House is certain to face repercussions for his actions, but as he so often does, he puts others’ lives before his own and tries to solve the case.
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1 Thirteen Refuses To Lie
House Season 5, Episode 16, “The Softer Side”
Being comfortable lying is almost a prerequisite to being a part of House’s team, but even this has its limits. One such situation arises when Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) is treating a young boy whose parents are holding back a major secret about his identity from him. Thirteen is uncomfortable lying to the child about themselves and reveals that the parents had been lying to them. This desire to be more honest with children appears to be present with others on the team, including House, who often chooses to be more honest with kids than adults in House, M.D.
