Which fictional hospital department does Gregory House lead at the start of House M.D.?

At the start of House M.D., Gregory House leads the Diagnostic Medicine department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

The department specializes in investigating complex cases that remain unexplained after routine evaluation or treatment. House assembles a small team of physicians to generate hypotheses, order tests, and revise diagnoses as new evidence appears.

Diagnostic medicine is a real area of medical practice, but the show dramatizes it through unusually rare cases and rapid diagnostic breakthroughs. In ordinary hospitals, diagnosis is usually distributed across primary-care doctors, hospitalists, laboratory specialists, and consultants rather than concentrated in one celebrity-like department.

The department’s membership changes repeatedly across the series. The original team includes Robert Chase, Allison Cameron, and Eric Foreman, while later seasons introduce other doctors and different supervisory arrangements. House’s leadership remains the department’s defining feature.