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Dr. Lisa Cuddy

Lisa Cuddy, M.D., 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 is the only character for whom the show has never given any family information. It is unclear whether she has siblings or whether her parents are still alive. However, a reference is made indicating she is Jewish in season 2 when House comments about her not having "luck with jdate", a popular online Jewish dating service.

Cuddy attended University of Michigan where she was an undergraduate. During this time, she met Gregory House who was already a legend on campus. Her dream of being a doctor began when she was twelve, and she graduated medical school at age twenty-five as second best in her class, and became the first woman and second youngest Dean of Medicine ever at age thirty-two.

Cuddy knew House before the show takes place. She met him at the University of Michigan after he had transferred from another school, Johns Hopkins University. Later on, when House got an infarction in his right leg, he was treated at Princeton Plainsboro where Cuddy was not yet Dean of Medicine (specified in the unaired version of "Honeymoon"). His doctors could not figure out what was wrong with his leg, so Cuddy became his attending doctor. Despite the danger the dead muscle posed (generating clots that could block key blood vessels), House refused to amputate, saying he liked his leg and was willing to risk his life to keep it, while his girlfriend, Stacy Warner, told him he should cut it off to survive. It was Cuddy who told Stacy that there was a middle ground between amputating and keeping the leg: to cut out the dead muscle, which would have a 50/50 percent chance of failing (resulting in him limping for the rest of his life and being in pain) or succeeding (resulting in the muscle growing back allowing him being able to walk properly). House requested being put into a chemically-induced coma to sleep through the worst of the pain in his leg. However, once he was unconscious, Stacy, as his medical proxy, consented to the middle-ground surgery for him.

After the Tritter Arc, Cuddy's relationship with House begins to develop more. House openly flirts with her more often, and seems to view her in different light, mainly thanks to her risking her entire career to save him.

In "Insensitive", House notices that Cuddy hadn't worn her hat to work even though there was a huge snow storm outside and he quickly figures out she has a blind date that evening. He interrupts Cuddy when she is in the middle of her date in a nearby coffee shop, claiming he needs a consult for his CIPA patient. He purposely embarrasses her in front of her date, telling her loudly that Don (her date) is much better than her previous one. That same evening, House goes to her home, asking for a second consult. He figures out that despite his previous attempts at shooing Don off, Don was currently in Cuddy's house. When House continually questions her and making remarks about her, she confronts him about his motives, asking him challengingly: "Do you like me, House?" to which he quickly looks away and doesn't answer.

As Season 3 progresses, there is more focus on the tension between House and Cuddy, especially in "Fetal Position" where House's patient has a fetus that is killing her. The patient, Emma, had finally gotten pregnant through in vitro fertilization after 3 failed attempts. When House finally comes to the conclusion that it was actually Emma's fetus that was killing her, his recommendation was to abort the fetus, but Emma does not consent (because if she were to abort, this would be her 4th, and maybe final, attempt at pregnancy). Cuddy supports and sympathizes with Emma, and House later confronts her about whether or not her judgments are being clouded. He tells her that she is identifying with the patient too much (because Cuddy was a "woman in her forties" and had also tried to get pregnant through in-vitro). In the end, Cuddy (although with help from House), manages to save both Emma and her baby.

In "Act Your Age" and "House Training", James Wilson asked Cuddy on two separate dates. In the first one, he took her to see a play and House immediately questioned Wilson's motives. Just before Wilson took Cuddy to a play, House had told him that "the only reason a man takes a woman to a play is if he wants to see her naked." Wilson tells House that sleeping with Cuddy wasn't what he wanted and that it was just a casual outing between friends. At the end of "Act Your Age", House asks Cuddy to see a play with him on Thursday, but she refuses. It isn't until the next episode, "House Training", before it is revealed that Cuddy had said that she would be busy on Thursday. When House tells Wilson this information, suspecting Cuddy was lying, Wilson responds that she was telling the truth; he'd already asked her on another "non-date" on Thursday. Shocked, House contacts Wilson's ex-wife in an attempt to stop Cuddy from becoming the fourth "ex-Mrs.Wilson".

In Season 4, at least as early as the episode "Mirror Mirror", Cuddy is taking birth control pills, of which House is aware. He further suggests that he switches the pills as a prank. During a conversation with Foreman, he quips that if Foreman stays: "No one's going to be happy here... and Cuddy's going to end up pregnant."