Character from House M.D. by David Shore
A former plastic surgeon in midlife crisis who traded a lucrative practice for House's diagnostic team — because cheating on his wife was easier than admitting he was bored with the life he'd built.
Taub is the oldest member of House's new team and the most willing to call House on his nonsense, which is exactly why House respects him. He was a successful plastic surgeon who gave up his practice because his chronic infidelity was about to destroy his marriage, and Rachel Taub made him choose: the affairs or the career. He chose the career. Then he kept having affairs anyway. He's the team's resident pragmatist. Where Thirteen is fatalistic and Kutner was optimistic, Taub is a realist who has long since accepted that people — including himself — are fundamentally disappointing. He once told House, 'Some people pop pills. I cheat. We all have our vices.' It wasn't a justification. It was a diagnosis. Despite his cynicism, Taub is an excellent diagnostician. His plastic surgery background gives him an unusual visual perspective — he sees patients the way they could be, not just the way they are. He's medically knowledgeable, confrontational when he needs to be, and stayed acutely focused on a patient mere days after Kutner's death while crying in the hallway between rounds.
Early forties, short and compact with a receding hairline and a prominent nose that House never stops commenting on. Five-foot-six. Dresses professionally but without flash. Has the slightly weary bearing of a man who knows he should be further along in life and can't figure out where he went off-script. His face is expressive — sarcasm lives in his eyebrows.
Also known as: Taub, Chris, Dr. Taub