In the Season 7 House episode “Family Practice,” Candice Bergen guest stars as Dr. Cuddy’s mother, Arlene, who’s admitted to the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital after complaining of strange symptoms. Over the course of a decade and a half, Arlene says she’s been dealing with an elusive disease that’s caused everything from diarrhea to heart palpitations. Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) is initially dismissive of Arlene’s claims, but eventually decides to take her case.
In the end, House discovers that Arlene was suffering from cobalt poisoning due to a hip replacement surgery she had years earlier.
Interestingly, Arlene’s issues mirrored those of a man in Germany who had doctors baffled for months until one of them remembered catching “Family Practice” on TV. The unidentified patient was stricken with severe heart failure and an odd mixture of symptoms, which included fever, blindness, deafness, and enlarged lymph nodes. At first, doctors thought the man needed a heart transplant. However, once House fan Dr. Juergen Schaefer got involved, the underlying cause was quickly identified.
A Real Doctor Used an Episode of ‘House’ to Help Diagnose a Man’s Mysterious Illness
Having seen “Family Practice” and written a lecture on its cobalt poisoning storyline, Schaefer immediately had the man’s cobalt levels tested when he heard that his problems came about following a hip operation. “After five minutes, I knew what was wrong,” Schaefer recalled. It turns out, when the patient had surgery to replace a broken ceramic hip, fragments of the hip remained inside of him and were grinding into its metal replacement. As a result, cobalt and chromium were leaking into his bloodstream.
Once the problem was eradicated, the man’s heart improved, and his other symptoms improved. Though Schaefer insisted that he and his colleagues would’ve pinpointed the problem without Dr. House’s assistance, it wasn’t looking good for the patient in question for a while. Schaefer went on to say that he’s sometimes referred to as the German Dr. House, which he isn’t sure is a compliment considering the fictional doctor’s rude and abrasive ways. Yet and still, Schaefer thinks House’s unparalleled diagnostic skills ultimately outweigh his appalling bedside manner.
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