Selfish (House)

"Selfish" is the second episode of the seventh season of the American medical drama House. It aired on September 27, 2010. House (Hugh Laurie) treats a patient with sickle cell trait, while dealing with the effects of his burgeoning relationship with Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) on his work.

The patient of the week is Della Carr, an active and seemingly healthy teenager, who suddenly collapses with heart arrhythmia at a charity function for congenital muscular dystrophy, which her brother Hugo also has. At the hospital, she develops further symptoms of kidney failure and bleeding lung, which requires her to have a lung transplant. The donor lung also fails. After a chance conversation with Hugo, and subsequent questioning of Della, House arrives at the diagnosis of sickle cell trait.

This episode marks the first time Cuddy and House go to work after getting together. When House announces to his team and Wilson that he is dating Cuddy, Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) is disbelieving, Chase (Jesse Spencer) is indifferent, Foreman (Omar Epps) is in favor, whereas Taub (Peter Jacobson) is rightly apprehensive about how the relationship will affect the team's working.

Cuddy and House begin give in to each other's decisions to avoid unpleasant confrontations. When House realizes this, he avoids Cuddy in the workplace, rather than speak to her about it. Cuddy tries unsuccessfully to appoint someone else as his supervisor, but no one is willing to take up the job.

Things reach a head when House, unable to further back down and risk his patient's life, goes against Cuddy and informs Della's father that she can be saved by her brother's lung and marrow. When the parents decide against the transplant, unwilling to risk Hugo's life, House and Cuddy get into a full blown argument about the correct way to proceed ahead. Ultimately Hugo takes away the decision from them by convincing Della to agree to the transplant. House and Cuddy realize that the argument was the first honest conversation they've had at work, and resolve to be brutally honest with each other henceforth.