Lisa Cuddy

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Dr. Lisa Cuddy

First appearance	"Pilot"
Information
Occupation	Dean of Medicine
Portrayed by	Lisa Edelstein

Dr. Lisa Cuddy is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein.

Cuddy is the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She often has to handle House's outlandish requests, and is usually left to deal with the consequences of his erratic behavior. Cuddy also has to force House to complete his required weekly duty at the out-patient clinic. Her position often requires her to make extremely difficult moral and ethical decisions regarding patient care (particularly in situations where House insists that highly dangerous and often illegal procedures are a patient's only chance of survival).

There is a degree of sexual tension inherent in Cuddy's relationship with House. While it may have been implied that the two have had a sexual relationship, nothing was confirmed until the episode "Top Secret", which revealed that she and House did indeed have a romantic relationship. Cuddy tells House to "get over me".

Little else is known about Cuddy's personal history. The episode "Three Stories" reveals that she treated House when he suffered the infarction in his leg. Cuddy is presumably Jewish (as is Dr. James Wilson): a menorah can be seen on her desk as well as on the bookshelf in her living room, also House has wisecracked about her using JDate.

Much of what is known about Cuddy was revealed in the episode "Humpty Dumpty." She attended the University of Michigan around the same time as House. Cuddy was an undergraduate there and she described House as "already a legend." During a conversation with Stacy Warner in the same episode, she mentioned wanting to be a doctor since she was 12, graduating medical school at age 25 and being second in her class, and becoming the first woman and second youngest chief of medicine ever at age 32.

Dr. Cuddy's specialty field is endocrinology.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details about (Ep 2:22, Forever, and later episodes) follow.

Towards the end of the second season, in the episode "Forever," Cuddy asked Dr. James Wilson out on a date. Believing that Cuddy might be concerned that she had cancer, but was afraid to be tested, Wilson swiped her spoon to test her saliva for cancer markers, but the result came back clean. The result also revealed that her hormone levels were extremely high, piquing House's curiosity. When House questioned, Cuddy admitted that she wants a child and was deciding if she wanted to ask Wilson "for a donation." House agreed to keep her secret, and assisted her with fertility injections, as well as helping her screen potential sperm donors (all of whom House subsequently rejected).

In Season Three, House continuously makes observations ending with wisecrack conclusions that Cuddy is pregnant. As of "Fools for Love," Cuddy is still not pregnant, as evidenced by a negative pregnancy test she is shown throwing away. In the episode "Finding Judas," she is given temporary medical proxy of a young patient, but has a great deal of difficulty treating the young girl and inadvertently makes a medical decision that only causes the girl's condition to worsen. Cuddy acknowledges that her artificial insemination attempts have failed after House tells her that "It's a good thing she failed to become a mother" because she "sucks at it." She seems like she has lost most of her hope for being a mother, citing that she doesn't have the "mothering handbook encoded in her genes" and was not meant to bear children. Cuddy tearfully confesses to Wilson that she has had a total of three attempts at impregnation, one of which was miscarried, and adds that House's comment to her was "the first time [she'd] seen him be mean just because he can." House's malicious comments coming after confiding her insemination attempts with him is seen as a betrayal, although the viewer is led to believe House did not make the comment purely out of malice, but also due to his withdrawal symptoms as Cuddy had put a "tight leash" on House's Vicodin intake due to Michael Tritter's investigation into House's addiction.

During House's court hearing in the episode "Words and Deeds," Cuddy commits perjury by falsifying documents and lying to the court, claiming to have thwarted House's attempt at stealing oxycodone by replacing it with placebos at the hospital pharmacy. After the trial while House is being held in contempt, she tells him the only good thing is now she owns him. Cuddy then implies that in subsequent episodes, viewers will see more House in the clinic, giving seminars, doing paperwork, etc.