In House M.D., Lisa Cuddy created the diagnostic medicine department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. As the hospital’s administrator, she established the department and recruited Gregory House to lead it.
Cuddy is introduced as the hospital’s dean of medicine and later becomes its chief administrator. Her professional relationship with House is central to the series because she must balance his exceptional diagnostic results against his rule-breaking behavior and disregard for hospital procedures.
The department provides the narrative framework for the show’s unusual medical cases. House and his rotating teams examine symptoms, test competing diagnoses, and revise their conclusions as new evidence appears.
A common mix-up is attributing the department’s creation to House himself. House directs its medical work, but the series identifies Cuddy as the administrator who established it. Cuddy is played by Lisa Edelstein.