The House of God

Roy notices a change in the Fat Man’s demeanor, as the other man begins to make more of an effort for the patients, sitting up with the woman with terminal cancer from Chapter 13. One of Roy’s former patients, Saul, who had cancer and then went into remission, is admitted again with a resurgence of the cancer. Saul asks Roy to help him die quickly rather than waiting until he dies naturally. Roy is tempted by the thought of ending Saul’s suffering but knows that legally that he can’t help him commit suicide. 

Roy plays an embarrassing practical joke on a minor bureaucratic worker in the hospital, and afterwards the Fat Man chides him for antagonizing the higher-ups. The Fat Man says that’s it’s better to use the higher-ups for one’s own gain than to try and fight them directly. As he’s leaving the hospital, Roy sees one of the other interns, Hooper, who seems strangely titillated by doing autopsies, reading about how to do a chest tap. Roy thinks that’s strange, because a chest tap is a straightforward procedure that all the interns do regularly, but goes ahead and leaves. Roy discusses the change in the Fat Man with Berry, who thinks the change is positive, but Roy feels abandoned in his anger toward the hospital system.

Hooper’s chest-tap patient from the previous chapter dies, allowing him to perform an autopsy. Roy becomes increasingly bitter and crazed by the suffering he sees and the pressure that’s on him. The patient who asked Roy to help him die lingers on, and Roy feels guilty every time he thinks about the man. He and Molly have a falling out because he forgets about Valentine’s Day, and their relationship is distant, especially now that Roy is working in a different ward. 

Berry comes to visit the hospital and meet the Fat Man. She’s appalled by the way Roy treats the patients, and she and the Fat Man discuss Roy’s psychological issues. The Fat Man tells Roy to treat Berry better. All the interns are suffering at this point—Chuck is isolated during his off-time and drinking too much, Potts is depressed after the death of his father, and the Runt explodes at his parents over the phone, the result of long-term resentment toward them.   

Several interns take leaves of absences due to the stress they’re undergoing at the House of God, making extra work for those who are left. Molly tells Roy that she’s sleeping with the intern who’s currently assigned to her ward, confirming the end of their relationship. After a disruptive and disrespectful incident with the hospital’s para-professional staff members, in which Roy and Hooper act up, Leggo questions the Fat Man and the Fish—as the instigators’ supervisors—about the interns’ bad behavior. The Fat Man says that what really bothers Leggo is that Roy and Hooper don’t like him. The Fat Man is uncharacteristically discouraged about his chances of getting his fellowship and about holding on to dreams outside of the drudgery and misery of the hospital. 

The liver disease patient whom Potts felt especially guilty about, first seen in Chapter 6, dies. Immediately after telling Roy, Potts goes up to the top story of the hospital and kills himself by jumping off the building. The staff is traumatized. 

The Fat Man tells Roy about a technique for killing a patient that doesn’t show up on an autopsy, and Roy uses it on the patient who asked him to die. Gilheeny and Quick get drunk in the emergency room on St. Patrick’s Day, and Roy breaks down during the admission of a gomer, lying on the floor and laughing hysterically. He goes home, and Berry tries to talk to him, but he's so insensible that he doesn’t hear what she’s saying, and she eventually leaves.