Whatever It Takes (House)

Whatever It Takes is the sixth episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-sixth episode overall, which aired on November 6, 2007.

A champion drag racer collapses after a race and Foreman is sure it is only heat stroke. However, when a CIA agent comes to take House to a special case, Foreman is left alone with the rest of the applicants. The drag racer takes a turn for the worse, and Foreman finds his authority with the applicants crumbling and the confidence of the patient disappearing. With House out of contact, Brennan comes up with a crazy idea and fights with Foreman on both the diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, House treats a spy with life-threatening symptoms while trying to impress his attractive attending physician and undercut one of the world's leading doctors at the same time.

Drag racer Casey Alfonso experiences blurred vision and distorted hearing after she develops a seizure following a race. Sent to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, House takes the case, hoping that by solving it, he will be able to test drive a dragster, but Foreman does not believe her symptoms are life-threatening, suggesting she is simply suffering from heatstroke. When an agent from the CIA recruits House to help diagnose a mortally ill agent named "John", House puts Foreman in charge of the fellowship candidates and the case. Foreman reiterates his heatstroke diagnosis to Casey, until she suffers a second seizure and a vertical nystagmus. The case becomes more frustrating and impatient for Casey when she develops a high fever, following the team's suggestion of Miller Fisher syndrome.

At a CIA hospital, House meets Dr. Samira Terzi, who is spearheading John's case, and immunologist Sidney Curtis from the Mayo Clinic as a secondary consult. The only information Terzi gives to both doctors is that John was stationed in Bolivia during most of the year and liked to eat chestnuts. When House and Curtis meet him, he is cachectic, has peeling skin and deformed fingernails. Curtis initially suggests horse-chestnut poisoning, but House dismisses this as horse-chestnuts are foul-tasting and impossible to confuse with edible chestnuts. Other diagnoses include alcohol-induced pancreatitis and radiation poisoning, resulting in them treating for the latter. However, House secretly stops treatment for radiation and switches to that for pancreatitis. When John becomes unresponsive and almost comatose, House suspects Waldenström's and John is treated with plasmapheresis and chemotherapy. Unfortunately, his hair falls out too quickly to be a side effect of the chemotherapy, and House believes John was the target of an assassination attempt.