House, M.D. s02e08 Episode Script
HOU-208 - The Mistake
Welcome to the world of illusion! What is real and what is magic? This is what you will wonder as I perform feats that will astound you! As you see, there is nothing up my sleeve.
And this hat, it's just an ordinary old hat.
Watch, as I wave three times above the hat, and whisper the magic words.
And now Mom, it's not working! It's ripped! It's okay, baby, it's just a little tear.
Hurry up, Mom! What are you so worried about? Sally's gonna make fun of us.
Sally Ayerson? She said her mom bought her dress at Bloomingdale's and you had to make ours.
We're gonna look stupid.
Do you girls remember that music we were listening to yesterday? That lady who sang about respect? Reetha? Aretha, that's right.
Do you think she had lots of money growing up in Detroit? What's Detroit? It's a city.
The point is, is that she's one of the best singers ever.
If Sally's mean to you again, I'm just gonna have to key her daddy's new convertible.
Great.
And thank you! Do you know what that means? Good.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa LittLe-bitty, pretty one Come on and taLk to me Lovey-dovey, dovey one Come on sit down on my knee Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Hey.
Hey.
You speak to Chase and House yet? The disciplinary hearing.
The McGinley case, that's not for two weeks.
Tomorrow.
Scheduling disaster, you don't wanna hear it.
You gotta get the boys' okay to move the hearing up, and you gotta do that whole legal advice thing.
Can you ask someone else? I'm asking you.
Let me work with Chase.
House should have separate counsel.
Stop looking for whatever you're looking for.
For the last month, House has been crowing that you can't work with him because you're just swooning in love.
There is nothing approaching love in what I feel about him right now.
Well, if you can't work with him, it amounts to the same thing.
We had a fight.
It's awkward.
Why not use another lawyer? Because 40% of our lawsuits last year were about House.
If you can't work with him, you can't work here.
She's overreacting.
You snuck into her shrink's office and read her private file.
When Nixon did that, he got impeached.
So you're saying I'm not allowed to have oral sex with an intern, either? Yes! And yes.
That file got me on the floor of her attic with her pouring out her soul.
The only thing I did wrong was get caught.
Where's Chase? He's too busy to service you until after work.
I got a couple minutes, though.
Feel free to say something like, "What'll we do with the time left over?" Or you could just stew, that works as well.
She stews before she gets violent.
This one says you're okay with moving the disciplinary hearing to tomorrow.
This one says I've advised you of your legal rights.
Any legal rights I should know about? Nope.
Great.
And you thought this was gonna be awkward.
You shouldn't sign it.
Postponing is almost always the smart thing to do.
Tempers cool, memories fade.
They rule on me, it's done, right? Yeah, but Then let's get it over with.
Have you ever done a peer review before? No.
Good.
Peer's a misnomer.
These are your bosses.
This could cost you some money, some privileges or it could cost you your career.
All I can tell them is what happened.
There is an objective reality to what happened, and that committee is never gonna know it.
All they're gonna know is what they picture happened, which depends a little on what you tell them and a whole lot on how you tell them.
May 11.
The patient presented to the clinic.
What's her name? It's in the file.
Do you know it? Then use it.
Kayla presented to the clinic with multiple joint and stomach pain.
Dr.
Foreman was caLLed in for a neuroLogicaL consuLt.
What's the point of this, man? Checking your sister's cerebral coordination.
The thing is in her leg and her stomach.
Wait in the clinic for six hours so she can play patty cake? You could have gone to the ER last night.
You gonna come over and baby-sit her kids? Okay.
Patient comes from a family of jerks, I get it.
Can you stick to the medicine? Something wrong? There was some uveitis.
Meaning? Her iris, the colored part of her eye, was inflamed.
Meaning? Worst case, blindness.
But there was an upside.
It was weird enough to get House interested.
Young woman, joint pain, gonorrhea's a possibility.
It's polyarticular.
Maybe rheumatoid.
That's typically small joints, this hit her knee.
Takayasu's arteritis.
Get a sed rate and serologies.
"Childproof.
" How many kids are hopped up on Vicodin? Give me.
Right.
Like I'd ever get it back.
Chase? Don't care about the Vicodin.
Might not just be her arteries, could be all her blood vessels.
Vasculitis, with stomach pains, so Behcet's.
No, she'd have oral sores.
Or genital.
Go find them.
I thought she was Foreman's patient.
Why did you do the exam? She'd have oral sores.
Or genital.
Go find them.
Whoa, whoa, Foreman.
Chase can handle the pelvic.
Any pain? Is it bad? This would go a lot easier if you talked to me.
I'm sorry.
I, um I just really hate hospitals.
When I was 12, I had my tonsils out.
Got to skip school, lots of ice cream, made me wanna be a doctor.
My mom died when I was eight, so I spent months at Princeton General.
She died of DTs, your mom? Bottles stashed around the house? Mood swings? That whole deal? You've been there? My mom.
Dad left, Mom crawled inside a bottle.
Made for a great year 12 of high school.
You okay with your dad now? No.
Does your dad have anything to do with this story? No, it's just Okay, I get it, the two of you bonded, which is probably why you haven't been sued.
Patients never sue doctors they like.
But keep it brief, okay? The panel doesn't like to think they're being manipulated when they're being manipulated.
She had some ulceration.
Confirming Behcet's.
I gave her some prednisone, an antacid, and I ran a pathergy test on her arm.
Takes 24 hours to confirm.
Told her any doctor could check it out.
You didn't make an appointment.
Nope.
She just showed up.
Dr.
Chase? Hi.
All right, let's take a look.
Okay, those little pustules mean it's positive.
Talk to Nurse Preven, get an appointment with Dr.
Brustin in Rheumatology.
Behcet's is very treatable, you're gonna be fine.
Okay.
Thanks.
And you were just chatting on the phone with someone and she happened to run into you.
That's what happened.
No appointment, no real examination? Just gave her the test results.
So, lower standard of care, you really couldn't be expected to notice there was anything else wrong.
We didn't even go into an exam room.
As your lawyer, I can't stop you from lying, I can't even be in the room.
But I would be remiss if I didn't prep you to lie better.
You wrote her a prescription, which means there was an examination.
What really happened? I was on the phone.
Dr.
Chase? Hi.
Hi.
Kayla.
I'm here for the test.
My arm.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
It's positive.
Talk to Nurse Preven, get an appointment with Dr.
Brustin in Rheumatology.
I took that medicine you gave me, but my stomach still hurts.
Behcet's could be stronger than we thought, or it could be reflux from the prednisone.
Here's a stronger antacid.
Doctor? Yes? Nothing.
You didn't ask her anything about the stomach pain? I made one little mistake.
As little mistakes go, that was a biggie.
She's only advising Chase? Not you? Well, what's the committee gonna do to me? I never even met this patient.
Your disdain for human interaction doesn't exculpate you, it inculpates you.
You signed the charts, you're responsible for everything Chase does.
Which is why this doesn't matter.
She protects Chase, she protects me.
Unless her advice to Chase is to make a deal and give you up.
"I'm so sorry, if only Dr.
House had paid attention.
"He never even met her, he never does.
" Chase loves me.
And isn't Turkish.
Cameron loves you, Chase loves his job.
You really think Stacy hates me that much? I think right now she hates you more than enough.
You think emotion only affects doctors' judgments? Everything stemmed from that one interaction.
They're gonna slam you on it.
Were you distracted? Your problem.
Overworked? That's their problem.
Forgetful, yours, lazy I just figured the stomach pain was the Behcet's.
Any doctor would have thought the same.
Then why did you call her an hour after she left the clinic? Nurse Preven said you asked her to have Kayla come back in.
The way she hesitated, I thought she might have had a doorknob question.
Patient comes in, says he's got a sniffly nose, you examine him for 10 minutes, right? Then you're leaving, hand on the doorknob, and he says, "Oh, yeah, and my penis has turned green.
" Embarrassing question, the only important one, patient saves it for last.
So you knew she was about to ask the most important question and you left.
No, I didn't.
I figured it out later.
What changed? Nothing.
Bad answer.
I wasn't thinking clearly at first.
Worse answer.
So what was her doorknob question? I figured it might be blood in her stool, which could indicate a bleeding ulcer.
Talk to me.
Thirty-five year old female, vomiting massive amounts of blood, LOC at work, BP 80 over 20, heart rate 140.
You push fluids? Three liters in the field, and we're bolusing another one right now.
It's gotta be a bleeding ulcer, Doc.
Her coworkers said she's been eating ibuprofens like candy.
I thought she had Behcet's! One, two, three.
I'm in the stomach.
There's too much blood, I can't see.
Did she burst an artery? No.
There.
Bubbling.
Just a bad ulcer.
Cauterizing.
I can't see, use some more saline.
Hold on.
Okay.
Looks good.
Bleeding ulcer.
We got it.
She was fine two hours ago.
Systolic BP 70.
Where's the ulcer? It's brown, I cauterized it.
There must be something else.
There.
A second ulcer? Not anymore.
It perforated.
Get her to an OR! The surgeons were able to suture the perforation.
But the contents of the patient's, Kayla's, stomach had spilled into her body.
She got septic.
Then the infection lowers her blood pressure Fifty over palp at one point.
It damaged her liver and kidneys.
Listen, I know this looks bad.
I obviously got the diagnosis wrong, but I did everything by the book.
I couldn't have known what was gonna happen.
If I skip my coffee, I get cranky.
Do you want anything? Why did Chase screw up? He forgot to ask a question, does there need to be a reason? It might help him.
As far as I'm concerned, he made a little mistake.
It happens.
How far are you concerned? You think I'm biased? You're colleagues.
You worked together for over a year.
And everyone says you slept together.
Who says? The correct answer is, "We're not involved and I'm not biased.
" We're not involved, and I don't know why he messed up.
House has worked with him longer than I have.
You should talk to House.
Yeah.
Why did Chase screw up? Because he doesn't give a crap about patients.
Well, he always gets positive patient reviews.
Yeah.
He smiles all 84 of his teeth, tells them his tonsil story It's a nice story.
He still has his tonsils! As soon as he's out of the room, which is as soon as he can be out of the room, he starts in on the trash talking.
He thinks not giving a crap makes him like House.
Like it's something to aspire to.
Am I gonna have to testify? I won't be encouraging them to call you.
What did House say? Two months like this.
Let me guess, no insurance.
You've just heard about the free clinic.
It's a good move.
You don't wanna skimp on the essentials like wristwatches, MP3 players.
I need to talk to you.
From the doorway? It's confidential.
Cool.
I love gossip.
You hear that crackling sound? Like crumpling up paper? Keep listening, let me know if it changes.
Two questions.
Why did Chase screw up, and how bad was it? Wow.
Talk about efficient, I only need one answer.
Chase didn't screw up.
He said he did.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like a sucky legal strategy.
They're gonna wanna know what you think a reasonable doctor would have done in Chase's position.
If I thought he was a reasonable doctor, I wouldn't have hired him.
God, you two are a couple of geniuses.
Deny everything, completely fool the lawyer who's trying to help you.
Too bad the review committee members are actually doctors.
Stacy.
I'm in the stomach.
There's too much blood, I can't see.
Did she burst an artery? No.
There.
Bubbling.
Just a bad ulcer.
Okay.
Cauterizing.
Looks good.
Bleeding ulcer.
We got it.
She was fine two hours ago.
If by "fine," you mean she had fountains of blood spurting out of every orifice, then yeah, I believe you.
I'm guessing those are celebratory bells.
Systolic BP 70.
Show me the ulcer.
It's brown, I cauterized it.
Sweep back.
Show me the whole stomach.
Stop.
A second ulcer? Not anymore.
It perforated.
Get her to an OR! Let's go.
She was not "fine" two hours ago.
Did she mention stomach pain? Yeah, so I gave her a stronger You didn't do an exam.
She just came in for a follow-up.
The results of the pathergy test Did you listen to her stomach? Check her vitals? Maybe if she'd said something about taking ibuprofen, mentioned the rectal bleeding Yeah! Why didn't she go to med school like you did? Diarrhea, blood in the stool, these are routine questions! That doctors skip all the time! It was a minor mistake, I couldn't have known this was gonna happen Mistakes are as serious as the results they cause! This woman could die because you were too lazy to ask one simple question! No, she might die because I had the bad luck to spill your damn Vicodin pills! I responded with a number of trenchant remarks which made Chase cry, none of which I'm gonna testify about.
Unless you convince Chase to roll on me.
Excuse me.
Testify about what? Chuck.
I'm gonna break from the parable of the wicked doctor and tell a little story about a patient, let's call him Buck.
Who has low O2 sats and crackling lung sounds.
Like I have.
Buck has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
His lung tissue's turning to rock.
There's no known cause, no treatment.
He is slowly suffocating.
You're talking about me? Lung transplant's about $500,000, but this poor sucker's got no insurance.
If he tried to sign up now, he'd be excluded, preexisting condition.
But let me confirm with my lawyer.
She confirms.
If only Buck hadn't been diagnosed with fibrosis before he got insurance.
So, back to the exam.
That's how you tell this guy he's dying? Oh, relax.
He's got a cold.
And soon, health insurance.
Such a hero, always righting wrongs.
Who cares who you have to manipulate? I'm sorry.
I didn't realize you and Buck were so close.
It's a point of principle.
Right.
It's got nothing to do with what I did to you.
There's nothing for us to talk about.
That's why you're following me.
I read some notes.
If Chase screwed up I was wrong! I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
If Chase screwed up so badly, why didn't you fire him? He has great hair.
What are you hiding? I'm gay.
Oh, that's not what you meant.
It does explain a lot, though.
No girlfriend, always with Wilson.
Obsession with sneakers.
Diarrhea, blood in the stool.
Two simple questions you could have asked her six months ago and averted this whole thing.
You didn't ask either, why? Judging from your question and your demeanor, I assume you were visiting with House.
We've been over this.
I don't know.
Good doctors don't make mistakes like that.
Good doctors never forget to ask questions? Then you've got your answer, apparently, I'm not a good doctor.
FYl, self-pity generally is not a good strategy in these hearings.
What happened after the operation? The kidney damage isn't so bad.
The liver damage is more worrisome.
There's no dialysis for livers.
I know.
But if she loses a liver, she can get a transplant, right? We can put her on a list.
I could do it.
I could give her part of my liver.
Surgeons won't operate unless the donor's had a long time to weigh the decision.
There's black markets.
For organs? That's just Oh, my stomach! The pain constant? Yeah! Sharp or dull? I don't know! It's ferric.
It's a little cold.
She's got ascites.
No.
It's a clot.
Nurse! Call the OR.
We gotta prep her for an embolectomy.
Run CBC, PT, and a liver panel.
Sepsis had lowered her BP so much, she got clots in her liver.
They blocked the hepatic artery, cut off the blood flow.
Her liver was shocked.
And Cuddy listed her? With all the other problems? Forget it! We can't give a liver to a woman this sick.
Do you listen to what you're saying? There is no point in giving a new liver to somebody who also has vasculitis.
Treatable.
And kidney damage.
It's healing.
You know what's really killing her? Chase forgot to ask a standard question about stomach pain.
So he missed the diagnosis, so she perforated, so she got sepsis, so her BP tanked, so she got blood clots, so she lost her liver.
Livers are important, Cuddy.
You can't live without them, hence the name.
Here's the big issue.
Chase is a hospital employee, and Kayla is a sympathetic mother of those two jury-friendly moppets, Caleb and Cody.
Dory and Nikki.
Your point, beyond just trying to make Chase wet himself, seems to be that the hospital faces liability here.
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
I still need a medical reason to list her.
That is the medical reason.
If the family wins this hospital in a lawsuit, they'll turn it into condos.
And people will die waiting outside a condo for medical care.
Start praying for a 12-car pileup on the turnpike, 'cause we're not exactly swimming in livers over here.
When you're testifying, skip the details on how House convinced Cuddy.
I don't think the people who got bumped down the transplant list need to know why.
It didn't matter anyway.
She next on the list? Yes.
But she's AB negative, very rare.
How long can she go on like this? Probably another day or two.
I'm donating my liver.
Sam, we talked about this.
I'm a perfect match, six out of six HLA proteins.
How'd you get checked out so fast? I know a guy in medical testing, and I paid him to rush it.
Sam bribed someone to rush his tests? Wouldn't you? Someone's going to get the blame for what happened, so the more we spread it around, we might as well You said no surgeon would do a live donor transplant on such short notice.
House took care of that, too.
Your patient's hardly clotting.
Sub-Q vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma pre-op.
Pretty risky.
Well, that's why I came to the best transplant surgeon in the hospital.
She's dead without you.
Get her in this afternoon.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
And this was right before you ran the marathon, I suppose? Was it the part where he warmly clasped my hands in thanks, was that too much? What did you do to him? The hospital lawyer asks me if I did something unethical? If I did, the last person I'd tell is the hospital lawyer, especially since she's gone all Old Testament on me.
You'll tell me.
Oh.
Okay then.
One caveat, I've moved past threesomes, I'm now into foursomes.
If someone backs out, then, you've still got a threesome.
And if two people back out, you're still having sex.
You'd be amazed, even if three people Anything you say is attorney-client.
So you can get advice about the bad, bad thing you did, knowing I'll be tortured because I can't tell a soul.
Actually, it is kind of cool.
Are you completely out of your mind? She's dying on her own, why would I volunteer to be her executioner? And I'd just be inviting a lawsuit from the brother no matter what.
And that's just ante money.
After the surgery, you get another 15.
Though I warn you, that includes the tip.
I make 600 grand a year.
You think I'm gonna risk tanking my percentages for $20,000? It's tax-free.
For the record, I hope the Department takes you and Chase and drop-kicks both your asses out the back door.
Great! That means I don't have to bother welshing on the 15 grand I would have owed you.
If you don't do the surgery, I'm gonna tell your wife that you've been sleeping with a series of nurses.
Currently Nurse Cutler in Radiology.
Now, what's 600 grand divided by two? Last Christmas party, Nurse Cutler handed you one of those little hot dogs.
And you didn't thank her.
Well, that only happens when you're very, very intimate.
That, and the fact that you've been practically dancing around with your zipper open, and a used condom stuck on your shoe.
Your wife is apparently the only one who doesn't know.
There's no way you'll tell her.
Of course I won't.
I'm much too cowardly.
No, I'll just send an anonymous letter.
Now, I've got an OR booked for 4:00 this afternoon.
Are you free? Oh, and "for the record," you are the worst transplant surgeon in this hospital.
But unfortunately, you're the only one who's currently cheating on his wife.
You bribed him and then you blackmailed him? She'd have been dead in two days if I hadn't made Ayersman do the surgery.
Leave the blackmail out of the story you tell the committee.
I tried to leave it out of the story I told you.
And then there was that incident in the parking lot.
Don't do that! Hey, what, are you nuts? No, please, I didn't do it! I didn't do anything! Please! No! Apparently, someone sent an anonymous letter to his wife.
You blackmailed Ayersman, he performed the surgery, and you ratted him out anyway? Doesn't seem fair, does it? You just can't control yourself, can you? No matter how stupid, how self-destructive To make this conversation easier, can we discard the fiction that we're talking about anything other than what I did to you? You're not mad because I broke into your psychiatrist's office.
Yeah, I was thrilled about that.
Okay, it was a lousy thing to do.
But if what I had found was that everything was all kittens and moonbeams in Markville, you'd be over it.
No, I wouldn't! You're mad at me for letting you know what I did.
Because you liked where things were going.
And for that, I actually am sorry.
It was stupid.
Let me tell you a story about a patient.
A patient we'll call Fusan.
Because Sam had rushed his tests, we were abLe to get them into surgery that afternoon.
Dr.
Ayersman performed the Live-donor transpLant.
He resected the right Lobe, hepatic vein, and hepatic artery of Sam's Liver, and transpLanted it into KayLa.
The operation was a success.
KayLa and Sam continued to receive routine care.
Two months later, she came by for an exam.
July 24, be precise.
You did the exam? Honestly, I just wanted "Honestly"? So you've been lying up until now? Let's make a deal.
I won't use the word "honestly," and you'll quit stopping by to see House so you don't take it out on me afterwards.
How about that? I wanted to be as far away from Kayla as possible.
And House was rubbing my nose in it.
How are the girls? They're great.
Dory had her first crush, which was cute.
Oh, yeah? And then her first sort of breakup, which was not so cute.
You're hot.
99.
3.
Have you been coughing? No.
Pain in urinating? No.
Immunosuppressants block fevers, you shouldn't have one at all.
I'm sending a nurse in here to draw cultures.
And I'm ordering a chest x-ray.
I wasn't making any more mistakes.
Another phrase to avoid in front of the committee.
She spiked a fever an hour later.
Her AST and ALT are up.
She's rejecting the liver.
No, it's just an infection.
One of her cultures is growing out strep.
Just one? Probably a contaminant.
She's dehydrated, her hematocrit's way up.
It's strep.
Her transaminases are up, too.
That's just stress from the strep.
Jeez, Chase.
You and this strep.
Get a room already.
She's not rejecting the liver.
It's just an infection, she'll be fine.
Worst case, we could re-list her.
You House? Well, that depends.
Are you gonna hit Dr.
House? You haven't even seen my sister, and you're being cute with me? Sam, we're talking about her right now.
Her fever might Could be hep B, hep C, right? This is treatable.
You give her interferon, she's okay, right? You know a lot about hepatitis.
He just donated his liver.
You're flushed.
You sick? I'm tired.
You're hiding the fact that you're sick.
Now, why would you do that? Hey, what are you Now, either you specifically asked for a tattoo of a heart that's been left out in the sun too long, or that is a really bad home job.
It's a very common way of getting hep C.
Which you have.
And you've had it a long time.
It was gonna keep me from giving my liver.
You paid off that lab tech to say you were clean? It hasn't been active in years, she was gonna die if I didn't.
You paid someone off? That is totally unethical! Get an MRl for him and his sister, right now.
She got hep from me, didn't she? No! No, no, no, no.
God, no.
I think she got cancer from you.
House was right? The brother had an undiagnosed hepatoma that was transplanted with his liver.
It grew a lot faster in Kayla because she was immunosuppressed.
How could House have known? Hepatitis can cause liver cancer.
Plus, her hematocrit, red blood cell count, was high.
Usually means dehydration.
Rare cases, cancer.
It probably saved Sam's life.
We were abLe to operate on him earLy enough, before it metastasized.
O2 sats 94.
Kayla had already started rejecting the liver.
And you couldn't re-list her because of the cancer.
Nothing we could do.
This is good.
The brother lying about his hep, it's an intervening act.
The proximate cause of her cancer, not your mistake.
She would have died six months ago if he hadn't given up his liver.
Maybe.
Can't prove it.
You need to come with me.
Just been served with papers.
Actually, paper.
One page.
"Defendants Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital "and Dr.
Robert Chase.
Blah, blah, blah.
"Medical malpractice, negligence.
Blah, blah.
" You're surprised they're suing? You think people love Chase so much they're gonna just forgo Punitive damages in the amount of $10 million.
Punitives? That means they're alleging gross negligence.
Their lawyer's obviously out of his mind.
Larry Ruseckas, he's not crazy.
Oh, no.
I've been sued by him.
You have been hiding things and lying to me all day.
I haven't lied about anything.
Except for the parts that I admitted I was lying about.
And I'm not the one being sued.
I feel funny.
Well, what haven't you told us? Before she checked out, Sam found her a second liver.
She had cancer, how could she Black market.
There's a doctor in Mexico City who was gonna do the surgery.
She's leaving from JFK at 5:00.
To meet some Mexican guy in the back of a van with a pig's liver and a hacksaw? This is nuts! You wanna rat me out to House? He'll say if there's a chance in a billion then go for it.
This is not what she wants.
She's being manipulated by a morally guilty brother and a legally guiltier doctor.
You think she wants to die? She's dying either way.
Chase! How many people you know walking around with a black market organ from a Third World surgeon, huh? This isn't gonna be your salvation.
It's just one more thing they'll pin on you.
Go in there, be the good guy.
We need to talk.
No, there's no time.
Two minutes.
Kayla.
I made a mistake.
I wasn't as blunt as I should have been about your odds.
I probably didn't want to face them myself.
Dr.
Chase, please don't do this.
The stress of the travel, the operation and even then the cancer Kayla, we're going! My dad died.
Lung cancer.
I saw him a couple of months before it happened.
We never talked about it.
I'm sorry your father died, but it has nothing He never even told me he was sick.
I wish he had.
It would You're gonna die.
Alone.
Thousands of miles from your children.
You don't wanna do that to them.
Kayla I'm sorry, Sam.
Kayla, you can't give up.
If you do this, if you go home, I killed you.
No.
You gave me three months.
You gave Dory and Nikki three more months with me.
And when they found my cancer, they found yours.
And I got to save my baby brother.
A week Later, KayLa died at home.
Sam was furious.
Gotta be why the big lawsuit.
Are you buying this? Of course not! There was no illegal transplant, there's no causation.
He was ready to kill me.
Maybe he's lying to his lawyers.
Or you're lying to us.
Last Thursday he saw you for post-op care.
If you hate your doctor, you find another doctor before you find a lawyer.
This guy didn't sue Cameron or Foreman, he didn't even sue House! There's something personal here, something you don't want us to know before your hearing.
The guy didn't hate you before that meeting, he hated you after.
So, how's everything else? The girls? Oh, you know.
A lot of crying, some nightmares.
We'll be okay, though.
Good.
Girls are not gonna be happy about leaving town, though.
They love that house, the yard, their friends.
You're moving? Yeah.
Ever since the operation, I've been on disability, and the mortgage So, we're moving out of state, somewhere cheaper.
Anyways, thanks.
I killed your sister.
I misdiagnosed her ulcer.
It killed her.
Shut up, man.
She liked you, just I was hung over when she came back to see me.
I'd been up half the night drinking, had a headache, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
I couldn't care less what your sister was saying about her stomach pain.
May I speak to my future former employee? Great story.
You think I'm lying? That's exactly what I told him.
I'm sure it is.
But you lied to him.
You want him to sue you.
I killed his sister.
I ordered black coffee this morning and got cream.
Everybody screws up.
They didn't put poison in your coffee.
I've seen you hung over.
You weren't the day you blew his sister's diagnosis.
What does it matter why? Is she less dead if I have a good excuse? If I thought you'd screwed up because you were drunk, I would have fired you.
You knew? You were depressed and distracted.
I assumed you'd gotten a phone call from your stepmom.
This is Robert.
What did he die of? That's impossible.
I saw him two months ago.
If he had lung cancer, he would have Dr.
Chase? Good news is, both your parents are dead now.
So no reason to screw up this bad again.
How'd you know? There's this interconnected network of computers, or "Interweb," where you can How did you know to look? When he visited, he told me he only had two months left.
When you screwed up, I did the math.
Why didn't you tell me he was dying? He asked me not to.
So you just hung me out there to be blindsided? Yeah, Chase, it was all my fault.
Look, you've got a choice.
You can either tell the truth, the hospital settles, the family gets some money.
They get to keep their house.
Or you can keep up this lie.
The family gets punitive damages, they buy a jet, and they move to Park Avenue, and you have to find another career.
You're not gonna say anything? I'm gonna keep my mouth shut.
Legally, it's better for me if you go down in flames.
Is Chase telling the committee about his dad? I don't know.
I thought you were gonna get him to sell me out.
I wouldn't do that.
Why not? You're my client, too.
Yeah.
And that's not gonna change unless you leave this job, or I do.
So how do you deal with a coworker that you have feelings for? Positive or negative.
I don't wanna end up like Chase.
I don't wanna get emotionally caught up and kill you.
It's not all negative.
Maybe you were right, maybe Maybe that is the problem.
So what do we do? I don't know.
Dr.
House? After considering the testimonial and documentary evidence, this ad-hoc committee in the matter of Kayla McGinley has reached a decision.
Dr.
Chase, your error resulted in a patient's death.
You also lied, both to your superiors and the patient's brother.
But, taking into account the mitigating factor of your father's death, we've decided not to revoke your privileges.
You'll receive one week's suspension, and a letter in your permanent file.
Now, as for Dr.
House.
There is no evidence of a failure to supervise that would lead to disciplinary action.
And yet, there is enough in the record to be very troubled by your conduct, including certain allegations of blackmail from members of the transplant team, and by your general refusal to meet with your patients.
It should be noted that your patient's cancer was diagnosed as a result of a direct physical examination Not of the patient.
I met the brother, never met her.
Do you want me to go to a family reunion every time I take on a patient? The committee has determined that for no less than one month, Dr.
House will have his practice supervised by another doctor, to be designated by Dr.
Cuddy.
This proceeding is adjourned.
Did you know this was coming? They contacted me about an hour ago.
What's happening to Chase? Now you're fired! No.
He's not.
Dr.
House, meet your new boss.
Guess I'm his best friend now.
And this hat, it's just an ordinary old hat.
Watch, as I wave three times above the hat, and whisper the magic words.
And now Mom, it's not working! It's ripped! It's okay, baby, it's just a little tear.
Hurry up, Mom! What are you so worried about? Sally's gonna make fun of us.
Sally Ayerson? She said her mom bought her dress at Bloomingdale's and you had to make ours.
We're gonna look stupid.
Do you girls remember that music we were listening to yesterday? That lady who sang about respect? Reetha? Aretha, that's right.
Do you think she had lots of money growing up in Detroit? What's Detroit? It's a city.
The point is, is that she's one of the best singers ever.
If Sally's mean to you again, I'm just gonna have to key her daddy's new convertible.
Great.
And thank you! Do you know what that means? Good.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa LittLe-bitty, pretty one Come on and taLk to me Lovey-dovey, dovey one Come on sit down on my knee Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Hey.
Hey.
You speak to Chase and House yet? The disciplinary hearing.
The McGinley case, that's not for two weeks.
Tomorrow.
Scheduling disaster, you don't wanna hear it.
You gotta get the boys' okay to move the hearing up, and you gotta do that whole legal advice thing.
Can you ask someone else? I'm asking you.
Let me work with Chase.
House should have separate counsel.
Stop looking for whatever you're looking for.
For the last month, House has been crowing that you can't work with him because you're just swooning in love.
There is nothing approaching love in what I feel about him right now.
Well, if you can't work with him, it amounts to the same thing.
We had a fight.
It's awkward.
Why not use another lawyer? Because 40% of our lawsuits last year were about House.
If you can't work with him, you can't work here.
She's overreacting.
You snuck into her shrink's office and read her private file.
When Nixon did that, he got impeached.
So you're saying I'm not allowed to have oral sex with an intern, either? Yes! And yes.
That file got me on the floor of her attic with her pouring out her soul.
The only thing I did wrong was get caught.
Where's Chase? He's too busy to service you until after work.
I got a couple minutes, though.
Feel free to say something like, "What'll we do with the time left over?" Or you could just stew, that works as well.
She stews before she gets violent.
This one says you're okay with moving the disciplinary hearing to tomorrow.
This one says I've advised you of your legal rights.
Any legal rights I should know about? Nope.
Great.
And you thought this was gonna be awkward.
You shouldn't sign it.
Postponing is almost always the smart thing to do.
Tempers cool, memories fade.
They rule on me, it's done, right? Yeah, but Then let's get it over with.
Have you ever done a peer review before? No.
Good.
Peer's a misnomer.
These are your bosses.
This could cost you some money, some privileges or it could cost you your career.
All I can tell them is what happened.
There is an objective reality to what happened, and that committee is never gonna know it.
All they're gonna know is what they picture happened, which depends a little on what you tell them and a whole lot on how you tell them.
May 11.
The patient presented to the clinic.
What's her name? It's in the file.
Do you know it? Then use it.
Kayla presented to the clinic with multiple joint and stomach pain.
Dr.
Foreman was caLLed in for a neuroLogicaL consuLt.
What's the point of this, man? Checking your sister's cerebral coordination.
The thing is in her leg and her stomach.
Wait in the clinic for six hours so she can play patty cake? You could have gone to the ER last night.
You gonna come over and baby-sit her kids? Okay.
Patient comes from a family of jerks, I get it.
Can you stick to the medicine? Something wrong? There was some uveitis.
Meaning? Her iris, the colored part of her eye, was inflamed.
Meaning? Worst case, blindness.
But there was an upside.
It was weird enough to get House interested.
Young woman, joint pain, gonorrhea's a possibility.
It's polyarticular.
Maybe rheumatoid.
That's typically small joints, this hit her knee.
Takayasu's arteritis.
Get a sed rate and serologies.
"Childproof.
" How many kids are hopped up on Vicodin? Give me.
Right.
Like I'd ever get it back.
Chase? Don't care about the Vicodin.
Might not just be her arteries, could be all her blood vessels.
Vasculitis, with stomach pains, so Behcet's.
No, she'd have oral sores.
Or genital.
Go find them.
I thought she was Foreman's patient.
Why did you do the exam? She'd have oral sores.
Or genital.
Go find them.
Whoa, whoa, Foreman.
Chase can handle the pelvic.
Any pain? Is it bad? This would go a lot easier if you talked to me.
I'm sorry.
I, um I just really hate hospitals.
When I was 12, I had my tonsils out.
Got to skip school, lots of ice cream, made me wanna be a doctor.
My mom died when I was eight, so I spent months at Princeton General.
She died of DTs, your mom? Bottles stashed around the house? Mood swings? That whole deal? You've been there? My mom.
Dad left, Mom crawled inside a bottle.
Made for a great year 12 of high school.
You okay with your dad now? No.
Does your dad have anything to do with this story? No, it's just Okay, I get it, the two of you bonded, which is probably why you haven't been sued.
Patients never sue doctors they like.
But keep it brief, okay? The panel doesn't like to think they're being manipulated when they're being manipulated.
She had some ulceration.
Confirming Behcet's.
I gave her some prednisone, an antacid, and I ran a pathergy test on her arm.
Takes 24 hours to confirm.
Told her any doctor could check it out.
You didn't make an appointment.
Nope.
She just showed up.
Dr.
Chase? Hi.
All right, let's take a look.
Okay, those little pustules mean it's positive.
Talk to Nurse Preven, get an appointment with Dr.
Brustin in Rheumatology.
Behcet's is very treatable, you're gonna be fine.
Okay.
Thanks.
And you were just chatting on the phone with someone and she happened to run into you.
That's what happened.
No appointment, no real examination? Just gave her the test results.
So, lower standard of care, you really couldn't be expected to notice there was anything else wrong.
We didn't even go into an exam room.
As your lawyer, I can't stop you from lying, I can't even be in the room.
But I would be remiss if I didn't prep you to lie better.
You wrote her a prescription, which means there was an examination.
What really happened? I was on the phone.
Dr.
Chase? Hi.
Hi.
Kayla.
I'm here for the test.
My arm.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
It's positive.
Talk to Nurse Preven, get an appointment with Dr.
Brustin in Rheumatology.
I took that medicine you gave me, but my stomach still hurts.
Behcet's could be stronger than we thought, or it could be reflux from the prednisone.
Here's a stronger antacid.
Doctor? Yes? Nothing.
You didn't ask her anything about the stomach pain? I made one little mistake.
As little mistakes go, that was a biggie.
She's only advising Chase? Not you? Well, what's the committee gonna do to me? I never even met this patient.
Your disdain for human interaction doesn't exculpate you, it inculpates you.
You signed the charts, you're responsible for everything Chase does.
Which is why this doesn't matter.
She protects Chase, she protects me.
Unless her advice to Chase is to make a deal and give you up.
"I'm so sorry, if only Dr.
House had paid attention.
"He never even met her, he never does.
" Chase loves me.
And isn't Turkish.
Cameron loves you, Chase loves his job.
You really think Stacy hates me that much? I think right now she hates you more than enough.
You think emotion only affects doctors' judgments? Everything stemmed from that one interaction.
They're gonna slam you on it.
Were you distracted? Your problem.
Overworked? That's their problem.
Forgetful, yours, lazy I just figured the stomach pain was the Behcet's.
Any doctor would have thought the same.
Then why did you call her an hour after she left the clinic? Nurse Preven said you asked her to have Kayla come back in.
The way she hesitated, I thought she might have had a doorknob question.
Patient comes in, says he's got a sniffly nose, you examine him for 10 minutes, right? Then you're leaving, hand on the doorknob, and he says, "Oh, yeah, and my penis has turned green.
" Embarrassing question, the only important one, patient saves it for last.
So you knew she was about to ask the most important question and you left.
No, I didn't.
I figured it out later.
What changed? Nothing.
Bad answer.
I wasn't thinking clearly at first.
Worse answer.
So what was her doorknob question? I figured it might be blood in her stool, which could indicate a bleeding ulcer.
Talk to me.
Thirty-five year old female, vomiting massive amounts of blood, LOC at work, BP 80 over 20, heart rate 140.
You push fluids? Three liters in the field, and we're bolusing another one right now.
It's gotta be a bleeding ulcer, Doc.
Her coworkers said she's been eating ibuprofens like candy.
I thought she had Behcet's! One, two, three.
I'm in the stomach.
There's too much blood, I can't see.
Did she burst an artery? No.
There.
Bubbling.
Just a bad ulcer.
Cauterizing.
I can't see, use some more saline.
Hold on.
Okay.
Looks good.
Bleeding ulcer.
We got it.
She was fine two hours ago.
Systolic BP 70.
Where's the ulcer? It's brown, I cauterized it.
There must be something else.
There.
A second ulcer? Not anymore.
It perforated.
Get her to an OR! The surgeons were able to suture the perforation.
But the contents of the patient's, Kayla's, stomach had spilled into her body.
She got septic.
Then the infection lowers her blood pressure Fifty over palp at one point.
It damaged her liver and kidneys.
Listen, I know this looks bad.
I obviously got the diagnosis wrong, but I did everything by the book.
I couldn't have known what was gonna happen.
If I skip my coffee, I get cranky.
Do you want anything? Why did Chase screw up? He forgot to ask a question, does there need to be a reason? It might help him.
As far as I'm concerned, he made a little mistake.
It happens.
How far are you concerned? You think I'm biased? You're colleagues.
You worked together for over a year.
And everyone says you slept together.
Who says? The correct answer is, "We're not involved and I'm not biased.
" We're not involved, and I don't know why he messed up.
House has worked with him longer than I have.
You should talk to House.
Yeah.
Why did Chase screw up? Because he doesn't give a crap about patients.
Well, he always gets positive patient reviews.
Yeah.
He smiles all 84 of his teeth, tells them his tonsil story It's a nice story.
He still has his tonsils! As soon as he's out of the room, which is as soon as he can be out of the room, he starts in on the trash talking.
He thinks not giving a crap makes him like House.
Like it's something to aspire to.
Am I gonna have to testify? I won't be encouraging them to call you.
What did House say? Two months like this.
Let me guess, no insurance.
You've just heard about the free clinic.
It's a good move.
You don't wanna skimp on the essentials like wristwatches, MP3 players.
I need to talk to you.
From the doorway? It's confidential.
Cool.
I love gossip.
You hear that crackling sound? Like crumpling up paper? Keep listening, let me know if it changes.
Two questions.
Why did Chase screw up, and how bad was it? Wow.
Talk about efficient, I only need one answer.
Chase didn't screw up.
He said he did.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like a sucky legal strategy.
They're gonna wanna know what you think a reasonable doctor would have done in Chase's position.
If I thought he was a reasonable doctor, I wouldn't have hired him.
God, you two are a couple of geniuses.
Deny everything, completely fool the lawyer who's trying to help you.
Too bad the review committee members are actually doctors.
Stacy.
I'm in the stomach.
There's too much blood, I can't see.
Did she burst an artery? No.
There.
Bubbling.
Just a bad ulcer.
Okay.
Cauterizing.
Looks good.
Bleeding ulcer.
We got it.
She was fine two hours ago.
If by "fine," you mean she had fountains of blood spurting out of every orifice, then yeah, I believe you.
I'm guessing those are celebratory bells.
Systolic BP 70.
Show me the ulcer.
It's brown, I cauterized it.
Sweep back.
Show me the whole stomach.
Stop.
A second ulcer? Not anymore.
It perforated.
Get her to an OR! Let's go.
She was not "fine" two hours ago.
Did she mention stomach pain? Yeah, so I gave her a stronger You didn't do an exam.
She just came in for a follow-up.
The results of the pathergy test Did you listen to her stomach? Check her vitals? Maybe if she'd said something about taking ibuprofen, mentioned the rectal bleeding Yeah! Why didn't she go to med school like you did? Diarrhea, blood in the stool, these are routine questions! That doctors skip all the time! It was a minor mistake, I couldn't have known this was gonna happen Mistakes are as serious as the results they cause! This woman could die because you were too lazy to ask one simple question! No, she might die because I had the bad luck to spill your damn Vicodin pills! I responded with a number of trenchant remarks which made Chase cry, none of which I'm gonna testify about.
Unless you convince Chase to roll on me.
Excuse me.
Testify about what? Chuck.
I'm gonna break from the parable of the wicked doctor and tell a little story about a patient, let's call him Buck.
Who has low O2 sats and crackling lung sounds.
Like I have.
Buck has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
His lung tissue's turning to rock.
There's no known cause, no treatment.
He is slowly suffocating.
You're talking about me? Lung transplant's about $500,000, but this poor sucker's got no insurance.
If he tried to sign up now, he'd be excluded, preexisting condition.
But let me confirm with my lawyer.
She confirms.
If only Buck hadn't been diagnosed with fibrosis before he got insurance.
So, back to the exam.
That's how you tell this guy he's dying? Oh, relax.
He's got a cold.
And soon, health insurance.
Such a hero, always righting wrongs.
Who cares who you have to manipulate? I'm sorry.
I didn't realize you and Buck were so close.
It's a point of principle.
Right.
It's got nothing to do with what I did to you.
There's nothing for us to talk about.
That's why you're following me.
I read some notes.
If Chase screwed up I was wrong! I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
If Chase screwed up so badly, why didn't you fire him? He has great hair.
What are you hiding? I'm gay.
Oh, that's not what you meant.
It does explain a lot, though.
No girlfriend, always with Wilson.
Obsession with sneakers.
Diarrhea, blood in the stool.
Two simple questions you could have asked her six months ago and averted this whole thing.
You didn't ask either, why? Judging from your question and your demeanor, I assume you were visiting with House.
We've been over this.
I don't know.
Good doctors don't make mistakes like that.
Good doctors never forget to ask questions? Then you've got your answer, apparently, I'm not a good doctor.
FYl, self-pity generally is not a good strategy in these hearings.
What happened after the operation? The kidney damage isn't so bad.
The liver damage is more worrisome.
There's no dialysis for livers.
I know.
But if she loses a liver, she can get a transplant, right? We can put her on a list.
I could do it.
I could give her part of my liver.
Surgeons won't operate unless the donor's had a long time to weigh the decision.
There's black markets.
For organs? That's just Oh, my stomach! The pain constant? Yeah! Sharp or dull? I don't know! It's ferric.
It's a little cold.
She's got ascites.
No.
It's a clot.
Nurse! Call the OR.
We gotta prep her for an embolectomy.
Run CBC, PT, and a liver panel.
Sepsis had lowered her BP so much, she got clots in her liver.
They blocked the hepatic artery, cut off the blood flow.
Her liver was shocked.
And Cuddy listed her? With all the other problems? Forget it! We can't give a liver to a woman this sick.
Do you listen to what you're saying? There is no point in giving a new liver to somebody who also has vasculitis.
Treatable.
And kidney damage.
It's healing.
You know what's really killing her? Chase forgot to ask a standard question about stomach pain.
So he missed the diagnosis, so she perforated, so she got sepsis, so her BP tanked, so she got blood clots, so she lost her liver.
Livers are important, Cuddy.
You can't live without them, hence the name.
Here's the big issue.
Chase is a hospital employee, and Kayla is a sympathetic mother of those two jury-friendly moppets, Caleb and Cody.
Dory and Nikki.
Your point, beyond just trying to make Chase wet himself, seems to be that the hospital faces liability here.
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
I still need a medical reason to list her.
That is the medical reason.
If the family wins this hospital in a lawsuit, they'll turn it into condos.
And people will die waiting outside a condo for medical care.
Start praying for a 12-car pileup on the turnpike, 'cause we're not exactly swimming in livers over here.
When you're testifying, skip the details on how House convinced Cuddy.
I don't think the people who got bumped down the transplant list need to know why.
It didn't matter anyway.
She next on the list? Yes.
But she's AB negative, very rare.
How long can she go on like this? Probably another day or two.
I'm donating my liver.
Sam, we talked about this.
I'm a perfect match, six out of six HLA proteins.
How'd you get checked out so fast? I know a guy in medical testing, and I paid him to rush it.
Sam bribed someone to rush his tests? Wouldn't you? Someone's going to get the blame for what happened, so the more we spread it around, we might as well You said no surgeon would do a live donor transplant on such short notice.
House took care of that, too.
Your patient's hardly clotting.
Sub-Q vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma pre-op.
Pretty risky.
Well, that's why I came to the best transplant surgeon in the hospital.
She's dead without you.
Get her in this afternoon.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
And this was right before you ran the marathon, I suppose? Was it the part where he warmly clasped my hands in thanks, was that too much? What did you do to him? The hospital lawyer asks me if I did something unethical? If I did, the last person I'd tell is the hospital lawyer, especially since she's gone all Old Testament on me.
You'll tell me.
Oh.
Okay then.
One caveat, I've moved past threesomes, I'm now into foursomes.
If someone backs out, then, you've still got a threesome.
And if two people back out, you're still having sex.
You'd be amazed, even if three people Anything you say is attorney-client.
So you can get advice about the bad, bad thing you did, knowing I'll be tortured because I can't tell a soul.
Actually, it is kind of cool.
Are you completely out of your mind? She's dying on her own, why would I volunteer to be her executioner? And I'd just be inviting a lawsuit from the brother no matter what.
And that's just ante money.
After the surgery, you get another 15.
Though I warn you, that includes the tip.
I make 600 grand a year.
You think I'm gonna risk tanking my percentages for $20,000? It's tax-free.
For the record, I hope the Department takes you and Chase and drop-kicks both your asses out the back door.
Great! That means I don't have to bother welshing on the 15 grand I would have owed you.
If you don't do the surgery, I'm gonna tell your wife that you've been sleeping with a series of nurses.
Currently Nurse Cutler in Radiology.
Now, what's 600 grand divided by two? Last Christmas party, Nurse Cutler handed you one of those little hot dogs.
And you didn't thank her.
Well, that only happens when you're very, very intimate.
That, and the fact that you've been practically dancing around with your zipper open, and a used condom stuck on your shoe.
Your wife is apparently the only one who doesn't know.
There's no way you'll tell her.
Of course I won't.
I'm much too cowardly.
No, I'll just send an anonymous letter.
Now, I've got an OR booked for 4:00 this afternoon.
Are you free? Oh, and "for the record," you are the worst transplant surgeon in this hospital.
But unfortunately, you're the only one who's currently cheating on his wife.
You bribed him and then you blackmailed him? She'd have been dead in two days if I hadn't made Ayersman do the surgery.
Leave the blackmail out of the story you tell the committee.
I tried to leave it out of the story I told you.
And then there was that incident in the parking lot.
Don't do that! Hey, what, are you nuts? No, please, I didn't do it! I didn't do anything! Please! No! Apparently, someone sent an anonymous letter to his wife.
You blackmailed Ayersman, he performed the surgery, and you ratted him out anyway? Doesn't seem fair, does it? You just can't control yourself, can you? No matter how stupid, how self-destructive To make this conversation easier, can we discard the fiction that we're talking about anything other than what I did to you? You're not mad because I broke into your psychiatrist's office.
Yeah, I was thrilled about that.
Okay, it was a lousy thing to do.
But if what I had found was that everything was all kittens and moonbeams in Markville, you'd be over it.
No, I wouldn't! You're mad at me for letting you know what I did.
Because you liked where things were going.
And for that, I actually am sorry.
It was stupid.
Let me tell you a story about a patient.
A patient we'll call Fusan.
Because Sam had rushed his tests, we were abLe to get them into surgery that afternoon.
Dr.
Ayersman performed the Live-donor transpLant.
He resected the right Lobe, hepatic vein, and hepatic artery of Sam's Liver, and transpLanted it into KayLa.
The operation was a success.
KayLa and Sam continued to receive routine care.
Two months later, she came by for an exam.
July 24, be precise.
You did the exam? Honestly, I just wanted "Honestly"? So you've been lying up until now? Let's make a deal.
I won't use the word "honestly," and you'll quit stopping by to see House so you don't take it out on me afterwards.
How about that? I wanted to be as far away from Kayla as possible.
And House was rubbing my nose in it.
How are the girls? They're great.
Dory had her first crush, which was cute.
Oh, yeah? And then her first sort of breakup, which was not so cute.
You're hot.
99.
3.
Have you been coughing? No.
Pain in urinating? No.
Immunosuppressants block fevers, you shouldn't have one at all.
I'm sending a nurse in here to draw cultures.
And I'm ordering a chest x-ray.
I wasn't making any more mistakes.
Another phrase to avoid in front of the committee.
She spiked a fever an hour later.
Her AST and ALT are up.
She's rejecting the liver.
No, it's just an infection.
One of her cultures is growing out strep.
Just one? Probably a contaminant.
She's dehydrated, her hematocrit's way up.
It's strep.
Her transaminases are up, too.
That's just stress from the strep.
Jeez, Chase.
You and this strep.
Get a room already.
She's not rejecting the liver.
It's just an infection, she'll be fine.
Worst case, we could re-list her.
You House? Well, that depends.
Are you gonna hit Dr.
House? You haven't even seen my sister, and you're being cute with me? Sam, we're talking about her right now.
Her fever might Could be hep B, hep C, right? This is treatable.
You give her interferon, she's okay, right? You know a lot about hepatitis.
He just donated his liver.
You're flushed.
You sick? I'm tired.
You're hiding the fact that you're sick.
Now, why would you do that? Hey, what are you Now, either you specifically asked for a tattoo of a heart that's been left out in the sun too long, or that is a really bad home job.
It's a very common way of getting hep C.
Which you have.
And you've had it a long time.
It was gonna keep me from giving my liver.
You paid off that lab tech to say you were clean? It hasn't been active in years, she was gonna die if I didn't.
You paid someone off? That is totally unethical! Get an MRl for him and his sister, right now.
She got hep from me, didn't she? No! No, no, no, no.
God, no.
I think she got cancer from you.
House was right? The brother had an undiagnosed hepatoma that was transplanted with his liver.
It grew a lot faster in Kayla because she was immunosuppressed.
How could House have known? Hepatitis can cause liver cancer.
Plus, her hematocrit, red blood cell count, was high.
Usually means dehydration.
Rare cases, cancer.
It probably saved Sam's life.
We were abLe to operate on him earLy enough, before it metastasized.
O2 sats 94.
Kayla had already started rejecting the liver.
And you couldn't re-list her because of the cancer.
Nothing we could do.
This is good.
The brother lying about his hep, it's an intervening act.
The proximate cause of her cancer, not your mistake.
She would have died six months ago if he hadn't given up his liver.
Maybe.
Can't prove it.
You need to come with me.
Just been served with papers.
Actually, paper.
One page.
"Defendants Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital "and Dr.
Robert Chase.
Blah, blah, blah.
"Medical malpractice, negligence.
Blah, blah.
" You're surprised they're suing? You think people love Chase so much they're gonna just forgo Punitive damages in the amount of $10 million.
Punitives? That means they're alleging gross negligence.
Their lawyer's obviously out of his mind.
Larry Ruseckas, he's not crazy.
Oh, no.
I've been sued by him.
You have been hiding things and lying to me all day.
I haven't lied about anything.
Except for the parts that I admitted I was lying about.
And I'm not the one being sued.
I feel funny.
Well, what haven't you told us? Before she checked out, Sam found her a second liver.
She had cancer, how could she Black market.
There's a doctor in Mexico City who was gonna do the surgery.
She's leaving from JFK at 5:00.
To meet some Mexican guy in the back of a van with a pig's liver and a hacksaw? This is nuts! You wanna rat me out to House? He'll say if there's a chance in a billion then go for it.
This is not what she wants.
She's being manipulated by a morally guilty brother and a legally guiltier doctor.
You think she wants to die? She's dying either way.
Chase! How many people you know walking around with a black market organ from a Third World surgeon, huh? This isn't gonna be your salvation.
It's just one more thing they'll pin on you.
Go in there, be the good guy.
We need to talk.
No, there's no time.
Two minutes.
Kayla.
I made a mistake.
I wasn't as blunt as I should have been about your odds.
I probably didn't want to face them myself.
Dr.
Chase, please don't do this.
The stress of the travel, the operation and even then the cancer Kayla, we're going! My dad died.
Lung cancer.
I saw him a couple of months before it happened.
We never talked about it.
I'm sorry your father died, but it has nothing He never even told me he was sick.
I wish he had.
It would You're gonna die.
Alone.
Thousands of miles from your children.
You don't wanna do that to them.
Kayla I'm sorry, Sam.
Kayla, you can't give up.
If you do this, if you go home, I killed you.
No.
You gave me three months.
You gave Dory and Nikki three more months with me.
And when they found my cancer, they found yours.
And I got to save my baby brother.
A week Later, KayLa died at home.
Sam was furious.
Gotta be why the big lawsuit.
Are you buying this? Of course not! There was no illegal transplant, there's no causation.
He was ready to kill me.
Maybe he's lying to his lawyers.
Or you're lying to us.
Last Thursday he saw you for post-op care.
If you hate your doctor, you find another doctor before you find a lawyer.
This guy didn't sue Cameron or Foreman, he didn't even sue House! There's something personal here, something you don't want us to know before your hearing.
The guy didn't hate you before that meeting, he hated you after.
So, how's everything else? The girls? Oh, you know.
A lot of crying, some nightmares.
We'll be okay, though.
Good.
Girls are not gonna be happy about leaving town, though.
They love that house, the yard, their friends.
You're moving? Yeah.
Ever since the operation, I've been on disability, and the mortgage So, we're moving out of state, somewhere cheaper.
Anyways, thanks.
I killed your sister.
I misdiagnosed her ulcer.
It killed her.
Shut up, man.
She liked you, just I was hung over when she came back to see me.
I'd been up half the night drinking, had a headache, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
I couldn't care less what your sister was saying about her stomach pain.
May I speak to my future former employee? Great story.
You think I'm lying? That's exactly what I told him.
I'm sure it is.
But you lied to him.
You want him to sue you.
I killed his sister.
I ordered black coffee this morning and got cream.
Everybody screws up.
They didn't put poison in your coffee.
I've seen you hung over.
You weren't the day you blew his sister's diagnosis.
What does it matter why? Is she less dead if I have a good excuse? If I thought you'd screwed up because you were drunk, I would have fired you.
You knew? You were depressed and distracted.
I assumed you'd gotten a phone call from your stepmom.
This is Robert.
What did he die of? That's impossible.
I saw him two months ago.
If he had lung cancer, he would have Dr.
Chase? Good news is, both your parents are dead now.
So no reason to screw up this bad again.
How'd you know? There's this interconnected network of computers, or "Interweb," where you can How did you know to look? When he visited, he told me he only had two months left.
When you screwed up, I did the math.
Why didn't you tell me he was dying? He asked me not to.
So you just hung me out there to be blindsided? Yeah, Chase, it was all my fault.
Look, you've got a choice.
You can either tell the truth, the hospital settles, the family gets some money.
They get to keep their house.
Or you can keep up this lie.
The family gets punitive damages, they buy a jet, and they move to Park Avenue, and you have to find another career.
You're not gonna say anything? I'm gonna keep my mouth shut.
Legally, it's better for me if you go down in flames.
Is Chase telling the committee about his dad? I don't know.
I thought you were gonna get him to sell me out.
I wouldn't do that.
Why not? You're my client, too.
Yeah.
And that's not gonna change unless you leave this job, or I do.
So how do you deal with a coworker that you have feelings for? Positive or negative.
I don't wanna end up like Chase.
I don't wanna get emotionally caught up and kill you.
It's not all negative.
Maybe you were right, maybe Maybe that is the problem.
So what do we do? I don't know.
Dr.
House? After considering the testimonial and documentary evidence, this ad-hoc committee in the matter of Kayla McGinley has reached a decision.
Dr.
Chase, your error resulted in a patient's death.
You also lied, both to your superiors and the patient's brother.
But, taking into account the mitigating factor of your father's death, we've decided not to revoke your privileges.
You'll receive one week's suspension, and a letter in your permanent file.
Now, as for Dr.
House.
There is no evidence of a failure to supervise that would lead to disciplinary action.
And yet, there is enough in the record to be very troubled by your conduct, including certain allegations of blackmail from members of the transplant team, and by your general refusal to meet with your patients.
It should be noted that your patient's cancer was diagnosed as a result of a direct physical examination Not of the patient.
I met the brother, never met her.
Do you want me to go to a family reunion every time I take on a patient? The committee has determined that for no less than one month, Dr.
House will have his practice supervised by another doctor, to be designated by Dr.
Cuddy.
This proceeding is adjourned.
Did you know this was coming? They contacted me about an hour ago.
What's happening to Chase? Now you're fired! No.
He's not.
Dr.
House, meet your new boss.
Guess I'm his best friend now.