“Three Stories” is the House M.D. episode built around House’s lecture about diagnosis.
In the episode, House gives medical students a lecture involving three patients with leg pain. The stories initially appear to concern separate cases, but the structure gradually reveals important information about House’s own medical history and the injury that shaped his life. The episode uses flashbacks and shifting perspectives to connect diagnostic reasoning with personal memory.
“Three Stories” is the 21st episode of the first season. It was written by David Shore and directed by Paris Barclay. The episode received widespread critical praise and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for Shore.
The title is sometimes confused with “Three Stories,” a generic description of the show’s case format. In House M.D., it is a specific episode title and one of the clearest examples of the program using a medical puzzle to reveal character history.