Thanks so much for this! You got me thinking on a whole new track, namely -- how cool would it have been if from the beginning they'd done something to show how House had himself in turn been subject to the medical system, had himself been a powerless patient, and how his own relations with patients are shaped by that experience?

I wish now that this had been more explicit in the character's set-up from the start (or that I'd been able to read that into my understanding of the character). I mean, I'm totally on board with the whole wounded-healer damaged-hero dynamic, but I've had a really hard time getting past the fact that House's history (or current status) of woundedness/damage is (in the episodes I've seen) secondary to the actual power he wields now as part of the medical establishment. If we'd seen *why* he wields that power so unfeelingly, it would have made a big difference to me.