As House goes, this is a fairly typical episode, with lots of soapy melodrama, overacting, one-dimensional characters, and an overly simplistic view of medicine combined with lots of dramatic license. However -- it's a GREAT academic tool. I teach "Medical Law and Ethics" to budding health care professionals (it's one of the first three classes in their curriculum), and have now used this episode in about ten classes over the last five years on the last day of the course. It does a nice job of incorporating half a dozen basic principles into a package, from informed consent for research to informed consent for treatment; from active euthanasia to passive euthanasia to "let nature take its course." It is a gripping tale despite its unrealism, and a powerful educational tool as a springboard to class discussion about the general and theoretical principles they have been studying for many weeks. It's been a great way to wrap up the class on the final day. Class member feedback has been that it's very moving, very thought-provoking, and there's JUST enough ambiguity so that the viewer has strong suspicions but is ... not ... quite ... completely certain exactly who might have been in the hospital room at 2:30 a.m. It's an episode worth watching, especially for medical newbies as an academic exercise.
Review of Informed Consent
