Eric Foreman

Dr. Eric Foreman was a major character on House ever since the first season. He is the current Dean of Medicine at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and former member of Dr. House's diagnostic team. Overall, Foreman's personality is the closest to House's, although he is often loathe to admit the fact. Though Foreman is far more outgoing than House, he shares House's introverted nature and is the least concerned about how he is perceived by others. His original role on the team was to serve as the team’s “break-in” man for environmental scans, but he soon developed into the only member of the team who was willing to stand up to House. By Season 4, he was the obvious choice to act as House’s stand-in when House was otherwise occupied. He considers himself the senior supervising fellow on the team, but Robert Chase is always ready to challenge his standing, and House does everything he can to undermine any authority Foreman may have. However, the rest of the team realizes that apart from House himself, Foreman probably has the best diagnostic method.

It has been speculated that Foreman's name is derived from the word "Foramen", which is used typically in medicine to refer to the holes in bones which nerves pass through. This is appropriate as Foreman is a neurologist.

Early Life
Eric Foreman was born into a poor but honest and hard-working family, somewhere in the general vicinity of New York City. His father is Rodney Foreman and his mother, now deceased, was Alicia Foreman. He is two years younger than his only sibling, his brother Marcus Foreman. Foreman‘s parents were very religious (and his father remains so), and raised Eric and Marcus in their faith. It seems Foreman‘s parents, although honest, attentive, loving, moral, and capable of providing for their children’s material needs, often did not have the ability to properly supervise their children as they were growing up. It is clear that the Foremans lived in a neighborhood that had more than its fair share of crime, gang behavior, homelessness, mental illness, poverty and addiction. As a result, both Eric and Marcus fell into criminal behavior in adolescence, which at one point resulted in Eric’s imprisonment as a juvenile. He still carries a gang tattoo from this time and he was so skilled that Marcus commented that Eric could break into a vehicle faster than most people could get into their own vehicle with a key.

Foreman revealed that he was very heavy when he was young, but as he entered adolescence, he grew very quickly and his weight was no longer a problem once he became a teenager.

During the Season 6 Episode, "Moving the Chains", It is revealed that Eric once wet the bed while spending the night over at a friend named Bobby Sampson. House uses this fact to embarrass Eric in front of the rest of the team.

At the age of 14, Eric, with the help of Marcus, stole a car and was quickly pulled over by the police. They were released into their mother’s custody. After driving home in silence, as they arrived Alicia simply said to her sons “I'll pray for you” without even turning around before going inside. Luckily, this experience convinced Eric he was wasting his life and intellect. His criminal behavior ended and, always a good student, he redoubled his efforts and became the best student in his high school and one of the best in the city. Unfortunately, Marcus did not learn the same lesson. He descended into addiction and more criminal behavior, which resulted in several stints in prison.

Higher Learning
Foreman was admitted into Columbia University on a full scholarship. He studied biochemistry and maintained a perfect grade point average. However, many of the people he met after this point in his life often assumed he was there simply because he was black and was given advantages. This merely drove Foreman to work harder, but the down side of this was that Foreman came to the point where he felt that to prove his worth he had to finish at the top all the time. He did not get along well with his peers, who were generally from wealthier families. In addition, the pressure often made him feel he was an impostor who, if he didn’t excel, would be revealed as a fraud and be forced to return to the life he left. In addition, he developed another failing - he often looked down at those who did not excel as he had done, including other African-Americans and even other doctors.

At this point in his life, Foreman started to drift away from the rest of his family. His religious faith started to wane and he soon found himself an atheist, which disappointed his father. His mother started to show the signs of early onset Alzheimer’s disease and as her dementia grew worse, she often didn’t recognize Eric. Marcus was frequently in jail and, when he was out, he often deceived his family in order to get money for drugs. As a result, Eric stopped going home, although he did frequently speak to everyone in his family, even Marcus, on the phone.

Due to his excellent grades and high MCAT score, Foreman was admitted to one of the best medical schools in the country, Johns Hopkins Medical School. Once again, he maintained a perfect grade point average despite the one black mark on his academic record. In an attempt to “show up” the “rich kid” students, Foreman was rushing to finish an assignment and falsified a lab result. He was caught and was put on academic probation for a short time. However, he soon recovered and finished near the top of his class.