Success According to… House

First it was Heroes and last week it was Grey’s Anatomy. Today, I take on the success strategies taught by my other favorite medical experts on FOX’s Emmy Award-winning series House. With his medical genius, mean-spirited sarcasm, distrust in mankind and addiction to painkillers, Dr. Gregory House is one of my favorite TV characters of all time. Each week, he and his team of doctors wrack their brains to diagnose their patients’ life-threatening medical conditions.

1. Question everything. Dr. House basic belief in life and in medicine is that everybody — and every body — lies. He’s usually right… and he’s also a big fat liar, himself.

2. Don’t leave important documents lying around because they might be misused. House used Dr. Wilson’s (his coworker and only real friend) pad to forge a prescription for painkillers, which threatens Dr. Wilson’s career.

3. Again, don’t sleep with your co-workers (what’s with these medical dramas?!). Off-screen, co-stars Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison recently called off their engagement… stay tuned this seasons for how their real-life split plays out in their characters’ on-screen romance. I sound like a tabloid.

4. Having expertise is a great way to guarantee your future with a company (and makes up for your personal shortcomings). House is a painfully honest jerk — especially to patients — who also happens to be a medical genius who saves lives when most other doctors are left scratching their heads. They can’t fire him or replace him because as the chief administrator Dr. Cuddy said, “he’s the best doctor we have.”

5. If you don’t like your boss as a person and yet you notice yourself becoming just like him or her, it’s probably time to find a new gig. Dr. Foreman respects House’s medical expertise but despises the way he views patients as cases to solve and not really as human beings. When Foreman realizes that he is starting to disregard his patients’ lives similar to the way House does, he tenders his resignation.