As Seen on TV, a Medical Mystery Involving Hip Implants Is Solved

, a physician who teaches at the University of Marburg in Germany found the clues in Season 7, Episode 11, of the Fox television show “House.”
It turned out that Dr. Gregory House, the cantankerous, fictional diagnostician modeled on Sherlock Holmes, had used his powers of deduction to diagnose the very same ailment in a woman played by the actress Candice Bergen on an episode that first aired in 2011.
In this case of life imitating art — or at least television — a paper in The Lancet, a London-based medical publication, described how an ailing man in Germany had gone from doctor to doctor, seeking a diagnosis as his condition worsened.

NY Times source

So not just fans of the series play to be doctors, doctors also play to be doctors too , I find this a little bit disturbing if I were a doctor i wouldn't be publishing around that my best knowledge comes from TV fiction, oh well that's just me and perhaps i say that because I'm not a doctor. here is the find in question.

Finally, in May 2012, the man, then 55, arrived at a University of Marburg clinic run by Dr. Juergen R. Schaefer, who specializes in puzzling cases and happens to be a major fan of “House.” In fact, Dr. Schaefer uses “House” in teaching medicine, and he realized his patient’s symptoms were eerily similar to those of Ms. Bergen’s character on the show. In that episode, she, too, had heart failure. Dr. House’s diagnosis: cobalt poisoning from her artificial metal hip.

I'm pretty sure there are books thicker than the bible just concerning heavy metals poisoning, on medical good-practice?

reply to post by Indigent


Oh great, I am waiting for a hip replacement as I have osteoarthritis. Now instead of looking forward to getting rid of the constant pain I can worry about cobalt poisoning. I hope its only fiction as I fully intend getting mobile and back to normal after this is done, although I suspect new knee caps and the other hip are also well in need of replacement.

reply to post by Shiloh7


Best of luck in your upcoming procedure, i guess this is something like the faulty Breast Implants of some time ago, not all prosthetic can have the cobalt or otherwise there must be more cases of this, don't think too much about it

reply to post by Shiloh7


My friend just went through (a left side) hip replacement and he told me that it was a synthetic replacement, not metal. You might want to ask your doc about it.