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Scrubs Does House
Who is the most ornery doc on television? It's a toss-up: House's maverick medical genius Dr. Gregory House or Scrubs's hot-headed Resident Director Dr. Perry Cox. You tell me.
Thanks to their similar bedside manner, it was only natural (and quite funny) that Scrubs would skewer House with Dr. Cox paying an homage to the man who can solve any medical mystery. He even adopted a cane and House's trademark limp by the end of the episode. To pit the two curmudgeonly docs in a head-to-head match, Dr. Cox faced a trio of medical mysteries, each one worthy of an episode of House. So how'd Dr. Cox do? Let's grade him to find out.
1) For Dr. Cox's first medical mystery, he must determine why a man's skin has turned orange. Like House, he gathers the interns into a conference room for a brainstorm. Is it jaundice? Nope, that turns skin yellow. Could it be tanning cream? No foreign soils were found on his skin.
Thanks to a mishap with two paint colors and a trip to the cafeteria, he uncovers the culprit. The patient gorges himself on carrots and tomato juice. Carotene is a substance found in carrots that can turn one's skin yellow. The condition is called carotenemia. One well-known case involves actress Susan Dey who developed an eating disorder and only ate carrots. Tomatoes, on the other hand, contain the substance lycopene, which turn skin red if eaten in abundance. It's called lycopenemia. Thus combined, they'd turn his skin orange. Seriously?
In fact, there is a documented medical case of a plumber who turned orange from overeating carrots and tomatoes. It is detailed in a chapter titled "The Orange Man" of the book The Medical Detectives by journalist Berton Roueche, who wrote the "Annals of Medicine" feature in the New Yorker magazine from the 1940s until the 1980s. It is the first recorded case of carotenemia-lycopenemia, and there have been other victims since. Grade: B
2) Behind curtain #2, a young woman with no coronary issues has a failing heart. What's wrong with her? Reviewing her chart, Dr. Cox sees that she is single, but he also notices that she's wearing a wedding ring. Taking her further history, he learns that her husband recently died. So he quickly diagnoses her with stress cardiomyopathy, AKA broken heart syndrome.
How'd he do on this one? Pretty good. Broken heart syndrome is an actual phenomenon observed at several Hopkins hospitals. Researchers found that extreme emotional stress can release large doses of stress hormones and other chemicals into the bloodstream, which can stun the heart muscle, producing symptoms similar to a heart attack. Grade: A
3) The final medical mystery hits close to home: Why is new mom Carla refusing to leave the hospital? Although Dr. Cox doesn't know that she's crying at night, he should have realized that by remaining at the hospital she's expressing an inability to care for herself and the baby. These are actual symptoms of a postpartum depression. Other symptoms include sleep problems, mood swings, weight change, and in severe cases thoughts of death and suicide. Unfortunately, Dr. Cox doesn't make the diagnosis. Grade: F
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
Related Topics:The Heart Speaks (Are You Listening?) Out of the Blue: Brooke Shields' Struggle with Postpartum Depression
Technorati Tags: Scrubs, House, TV Doctors, Postpartum Depression, Broken Heart Syndrome
Thanks to their similar bedside manner, it was only natural (and quite funny) that Scrubs would skewer House with Dr. Cox paying an homage to the man who can solve any medical mystery. He even adopted a cane and House's trademark limp by the end of the episode. To pit the two curmudgeonly docs in a head-to-head match, Dr. Cox faced a trio of medical mysteries, each one worthy of an episode of House. So how'd Dr. Cox do? Let's grade him to find out.
1) For Dr. Cox's first medical mystery, he must determine why a man's skin has turned orange. Like House, he gathers the interns into a conference room for a brainstorm. Is it jaundice? Nope, that turns skin yellow. Could it be tanning cream? No foreign soils were found on his skin.
Thanks to a mishap with two paint colors and a trip to the cafeteria, he uncovers the culprit. The patient gorges himself on carrots and tomato juice. Carotene is a substance found in carrots that can turn one's skin yellow. The condition is called carotenemia. One well-known case involves actress Susan Dey who developed an eating disorder and only ate carrots. Tomatoes, on the other hand, contain the substance lycopene, which turn skin red if eaten in abundance. It's called lycopenemia. Thus combined, they'd turn his skin orange. Seriously?
In fact, there is a documented medical case of a plumber who turned orange from overeating carrots and tomatoes. It is detailed in a chapter titled "The Orange Man" of the book The Medical Detectives by journalist Berton Roueche, who wrote the "Annals of Medicine" feature in the New Yorker magazine from the 1940s until the 1980s. It is the first recorded case of carotenemia-lycopenemia, and there have been other victims since. Grade: B
2) Behind curtain #2, a young woman with no coronary issues has a failing heart. What's wrong with her? Reviewing her chart, Dr. Cox sees that she is single, but he also notices that she's wearing a wedding ring. Taking her further history, he learns that her husband recently died. So he quickly diagnoses her with stress cardiomyopathy, AKA broken heart syndrome.
How'd he do on this one? Pretty good. Broken heart syndrome is an actual phenomenon observed at several Hopkins hospitals. Researchers found that extreme emotional stress can release large doses of stress hormones and other chemicals into the bloodstream, which can stun the heart muscle, producing symptoms similar to a heart attack. Grade: A
3) The final medical mystery hits close to home: Why is new mom Carla refusing to leave the hospital? Although Dr. Cox doesn't know that she's crying at night, he should have realized that by remaining at the hospital she's expressing an inability to care for herself and the baby. These are actual symptoms of a postpartum depression. Other symptoms include sleep problems, mood swings, weight change, and in severe cases thoughts of death and suicide. Unfortunately, Dr. Cox doesn't make the diagnosis. Grade: F
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
Related Topics:
Technorati Tags: Scrubs, House, TV Doctors, Postpartum Depression, Broken Heart Syndrome
