I have a very personal reason for watching the FOX medical series,"House". It helps to remind me that there are mavericks in the medical profession who don't allow bureaucrats to dictate how they solve patient's problems. They don't allow executives in charge of HMO's, insurance companies and their own hospitals to give up on people with uncommon medical emergencies. My 36-year old daughter has been a Cystic Fibrosis survivor for all of her life. She has survived because of prayers, the work of doctors who would not accept her death sentence in 1969, and the thousands of hours of research dedicated scientists have spent to find ways to improve the survival chances for CF patients while searching for a cure.
You could say that I watch Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) work his miracles because his actions fuel me with hope. All the women in my family and neighborhood watch because they think that the British actor ia a hunk, a teddy bear in need of a hug. I wish they could understand what I see in Laurie's superb portrayal, that they could feel the excitement I feel each time he ignores everyone around him, patients included, so that he can figure out what's wrong with someone and how to fix it. Sure, he's an antisocial misfit...but he never gives up on the folks who need his help.
In the first season, House had to deal with a college student who collapsed after a brisk lovemaking session with his girlfriend, an unknown virus that infected numerous babies, a nun who thought her wounds were stigmata in nature, an auto accident victim with uncrontrolable bleeding, a pregnant woman with brain and kidney disorders that forced her to decide whether to give birth and die or abort her child and survive, and other emergencies that could have gone unresolved if the good physician followed the advice of people who didn't like his methods. Sure, it's fiction. But House is my fictional hero.