Gregory House, M.D., is a misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Like all of the hospital's doctors, he is required to treat patients in the facility's walk-in clinic. His grudging fulfillment of this duty, or his creative methods of avoiding it, constitute a recurring subplot, which often serves as the series' comic relief.

　　In House M.D.'s pilot of the House M.D. DVD Box Set, Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine, comes looking for House to berate him for not working hard enough, including being six years behind in clinic duty. He says he is going home - he cannot be fired because he has tenure and is always at the hospital during his assigned work hours. Cuddy agrees that he still has a good reputation but it will go to hell if he does not do his job. She will not just let him go.

　　Cameron and Foreman, diagnosticians on House's team, start to do a test as is arranged by House, but it is canceled on Cuddy's orders - she has taken away all of House's hospital privileges, the only thing she has the power to do to House without board approval. An enraged House confronts her but Cuddy is unconcerned with his threats. She tells him to go and do his job. He tells the team to do the MRI, then goes to do clinic duty. Then comes house's first clinic patient.

　　Cuddy gives him an interesting case - a patient with bright orange skin. He tells the patient his wife is having an affair because she has not noticed the color change and that it was caused by the fact he has been eating too many carrots and taking too much niacin.

　　During clinic duty, House confounds patients with unwelcome observations into their personal lives, eccentric prescriptions, and unorthodox treatments. However, after seeming to be inattentive to their complaints, he regularly impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses. The insights that occur as he deals with some of the simple cases in the clinic often inspire him to solve the main case.