Actor Hugh Laurie made a career out of his excellent comic timing, and this was carried into his titular character in the hit medical drama, House M.D.– a role that won him numerous accolades. Greg Germann, too, has had an extensive career, especially on television, and played Tom Koracick in the long-running ABC medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy.
Both characters are rough on the surface bordering almost on the unkind, but both have much deeper personalities built and shaped through difficulties and tragedies in their respective pasts. While the Grey’s writers didn’t dig deep enough and underused Germann’s talent, House M.D. explored the lead character’s many eccentricities to its fullest extent.
10 The Dry Sarcasm
The first thing that anybody would notice about House and Koracick is their sardonic personalities. They are both deeply sarcastic in nature and their dry wit, while it can sting, also makes them incredibly funny at times.
The humor is inseparable from the characters, and often becomes a point of contention with other characters who don’t always take the sarcasm lying down.
9 Inflated Ego & Bitterness
Both Koracick and House are full of themselves. They are the epitome of obnoxious, narcissistic personalities with inflated egos that don’t win them any prizes with colleagues or underlings. Both believe, unfailingly, that they are always right–which, at least House is most of the time.
Dr. House is infamous for his embittered nature and Tom, too, is bitter and egotistical and constantly winding people up the wrong way. Neither goes out of their way to be liked. In fact, they seem to enjoy not being liked, or playing the Devil’s advocate so to speak, and let their jobs do the work for them.
8 Both Come From Tragedy
Speaking of embittered, both Koracick and House have terrible tragedies in their past and both live with pain. In House’s case, the pain is both physical and psychological–the infarction in his leg is a perpetual thorn in his side which leaves him in tremendous agony and is possibly the root cause for his bitterness.
For Tom, the pain of losing his young son to a fluke accident is something he has to live with forever. Not everyone is aware of his past and Tom does not go out of his way to gain sympathy for it. But it is a tragedy that defines him and once again, is possibly one of the things that makes him more bitter than he normally might be.
7 Both Are Brilliant Doctors
Both House and Koracick are brilliant doctors although their fields differ. Koracick is a neurosurgeon while House is a differential diagnostician with specialties in nephrology and infectious diseases.
Of course, the series House M.D. draws its inspiration from Conan Doyle’s legendary literary sleuth Sherlock Holmes, so the medical genius of Dr. Gregory House can hardly be matched. However, in his own way, he is quite brilliant as a surgeon and gets called in to consult on high-profile cases like Catherine Fox’s brain tumor.
6 Both Are Very Intelligent
Dr. House is one of the most intelligent characters on popular television. His razor-sharp wit brims with intelligence and there are very few things his sharp eyes miss. Each of his cases is like a mystery for him to solve and he loves to puzzle them over and find the solution, all of which further add to his Holmesian aura.
Tom, despite being widely hated by his colleagues, is probably one of the most intelligent doctors in the hospital. He might not care much for polite behavior but he is smart and his quick wit has clearly helped him professionally over the years.
5 Both Have Understated Emotions
Dr. House as well as Tom Koracick might come across as hard-hearted, the former even appears heartless at times, but both have an understated conscience that shines through now and then. Underneath their tough, sardonic exteriors, both the characters have a softer side to their personalities. House’s feelings come to the fore when it really matters, and he is clearly attached, however unwillingly, to his ex-wife Stacy, Cuddy, and Dr. Wilson.
As for Tom, he can be kind and emotional when he realizes that letting his own guard down could help others. For instance, he was the only one who could get through to April Kepner when she was facing a crisis of faith, and that was the first time he was shown opening up about his past to someone he barely knew. Tom obviously loved his late son and still seems to have feelings for his ex-wife. He also very clearly fell in love with Teddy Altman, although that ended in disaster.
4 Both Were In Trouble With The Authorities/Colleagues
Koracick and House both have issues with authority and are forever in a state of dissent with colleagues, although House’s problems in his workplace far surpass those of Tom’s.
House gets into trouble all the time with his superiors, even though Cuddy is shown to be exceptionally lenient with him, approving surgeries and tests that she wouldn’t normally approve for any other doctor. Now, while Tom definitely plays the game better–he has himself been in positions of authority–yet, he too has run-ins with his colleagues and with administration.
3 Both Have Female Bosses
House’s boss was the lovely Lisa Cuddy, with whom he had more than just a professional relationship. Fraught with tension, he had to nonetheless bow to her superiority from time to time.
Similarly, Tom had to contend with powerful female bosses. While he was working under Catherine Fox when he was appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Catherine Fox Foundation, he later had Miranda Bailey as his superior when he was fired from his role in the Foundation and accepted an attending position at Grey Sloan.
2 Both Have A Connection To Johns Hopkins
Dr. House had a very important connection to Johns Hopkins University. This is where he completed his pre-med and was trained for med school. This was also where he was one of the contenders for an internship at Mayo Clinic, and the university obviously played a crucial role in shaping his medical knowledge.
Tom too had been the Head of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins when the character was first called into Grey Sloan Memorial to consult for Amelia Shepherd’s massive brain tumor.
1 Both Can Be Dubious
If there is one consistent thing about Dr. House, it is that he is a rebel and a rule-breaker. From getting his subordinates to break into his patients’ houses, to forging prescriptions and being the chief cause for all the many legal cases Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital finds itself involved in, House is morally grey, to say the least.
Tom Koracick has also been shown to be dubious. He was offered a vast amount of money by a billionaire called Griffin Ford whose mistake had caused an explosion leading to several seriously injured people. He offered Tom a bribe in return for a medical diagnosis that he could use to explain away his mistake. Tom, after thinking it over, decided to go with it and accept the cheque in exchange for diagnosing Ford with a fake aneurysm.
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