House Rules

Well, this was the House episode I'd been waiting for: the episode when the legal chickens came home to roost. I've been anxious to see this in action in a show that practically begged for a disciplinary proceeding. Alas, there isn't a lot to sink my teeth into. Disciplinary proceedings vary from licensing board to licensing board within a state, let alone between states, so I have no idea if the process we observe in the show comports with what would really happen. We only see the dramtically important bits. The inevitable paperwork (such as a notice stating the allegations against Dr. Chase, the written response to those allegations) is not exciting stuff. And the meeting between Chase and the members of the disciplinary committee would not be very exciting even if we were allowed to listen in on it. So there isn't enough data upon which to comment with the same level of analysis as Dr. Scott provides us in his excellent blog.

However, I wonder about the way the disciplinary sanctions were imposed upon House and Chase. Under most circumstances, a disciplinary committee doesn't have final say on the sanctions it imposes. Rather, the committee makes a recommendation to a board consisting of fellow members of the profession and a few "public" members (people not in the profession). The board can then impose the sanction or not. Settlement agreements between the committee and the respondent are not uncommon but they too have to be ratified by the board before they have any effect. There is plenty of room for legal wrangling along the way and there is a process to appeal the final board action. In the episode, the sanctions were imposed upon the doctors immediately. Granted, the sanctions were not onerous. In fact, the sanctions imposed upon House were pretty weak: having a doctor in the same hospital supervise him is not unlike having the fox guard the hen house. Too much self-interest involved in such an arrangement. But it is fraught with dramatic possibilities, as we will learn in the next episode.

I am also curious about the doctors' legal representation too. Is it common practice for a hospital's general counsel to represent individual doctors in disciplinary proceedings? I wouldn't think so but we see it happening here. Also, I think it is a potential conflict of interest (all soap opera stuff aside) when a lawyer represents two different people with potentially opposing interests in the same proceeding. Yet Stacy Warner advises both Chase and House. If the outcome had been different, either Chase or House could have reported her to the state's Bar Association. But this wasn't an episode of Warner.