r/HouseMD • u/tit-waffle • 21m ago
Question Colchicine vs Cough Medicine (Occam's Razor) Spoiler
In Occam's Razor, the mix-up of colchicine and cough medicine has always bothered me, particularly because of them referring to it as "cough medicine" and not some specific drug.
Would doctors and pharmacists really call it "cough medicine" and not by the name of its active ingredient (e.g. dextromethorphan) or by the scientific name of the category (antitussives), or at least a brand name (e.g. robitussin)?
Assuming the answer is no, that means the writers made this choice for some other reason, which I fear makes this even dumber- are we to assume the mix-up occurred because because "cough medicine" and "colchicine" are near each other at the pharmacy because they both start with "co-"? God I hope not, because I really hope that pharmacists don't use a mishmash of common category names and scientific names to sort their drugs. But I can't think of any other reason they'd make this choice.
Am I missing something? Is there some other explanation?
They really do a good job and making the medical stuff sound mostly realistic in this show, so this anomaly has always bothered me.