What is Dr. House’s medical specialty in the series House?

Dr. House’s medical specialty in House is diagnostic medicine.

House heads the Department of Diagnostic Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. His work focuses on identifying illnesses that remain unexplained after more routine examinations and treatments. The department’s cases form the narrative engine of most episodes.

Diagnostic medicine is not presented like a single procedure-based specialty such as surgery or cardiology. Instead, it draws on knowledge from many areas of medicine and emphasizes differential diagnosis: comparing possible explanations for a patient’s symptoms and testing them against evidence.

House is supported by teams of fellows and specialists, so he is not the only doctor involved in each case. However, the department and its diagnostic mission distinguish his role from the hospital’s other services. The series’ title and weekly mysteries both center on this specialty.