Do you think surgery suits chase as a character? More so than diagnostics?
First of all, it's always been interesting that even before Chase became a surgeon through the power of retcons, he was an intensivist. He's an ICU doctor, right? His job is to keep people alive while they're actively trying not to be. That's a pretty hand's on specialty, especially compared to the rest of the group: Neurology, Immunology, Nephrology, and Infectious Diseases all have a certain amount of diagnostics built in: Cameron, Foreman, and House are all specialized in understanding and figuring out what's wrong with specific systems, right? Not so much Chase. If you're in the ICU, I'm sure there's some diagnosing going on, but... also, you actively can't breathe or have been shot or are having a heart attack: you need pretty obvious action to be taken, not a whiteboard of mysterious symptoms.
Surgery is different, but it's sort of the same genre of medical care, right? A surgeon isn't really diagnosing a problem: he already knows what's going on and is actively fixing it. These two specialties point towards Chase being a specific "kind" of person -- he prefers hand's on fixing to diagnosing -- which is also backed up surprisingly often in the show.
CHASE: Stay on the team. You were always more into it than I was, more interested in diagnostics. (teamwork)
Chase actually is never that invested in Diagnostics! Unlike Cameron, Foreman, and House, there are no examples of him getting completely caught up in a mystery and needing to find an answer no matter what; there are no examples of him getting completely caught up in a case or diagnosis in that way. In fact, Chase can get frustrated with the mystery box style of medicine, and does on a number of occasions:
HOUSE: My head’s hurting. Please, someone give me a plausible, terrestrial explanation for this kid’s alien DNA.
FOREMAN: We could search his home for toxins, fungals, and radiation.
CHASE: Who cares what caused it? A kid comes in with strep, we don’t conduct a search to see which classmate he got it from; we cure it. We know he’s got this stuff inside of him; let’s get a scalpel and cut it out. (cane and able)
Chase wants to fix things, not sit around debating a mystery disease. We see, too, that while Foreman and Cameron have subplots in S4 about missing Diagnostics and wanting the rush (Cameron) or admitting they're glad to be back (Foreman), Chase... doesn't. It never comes up. Foreman spends a good portion of Mirror Mirror admitting he enjoys this job; Cameron being unable to help herself jumping into cases because she misses it is a running theme. Chase never has any interest in coming back: he even removes himself from opportunities to dip his toes back in the department waters (Living the Dream; Last Resort). House, also, doesn't try to recruit him or tease him about coming back, as he does Cameron.
(It's worth mentioning here that unlike every other employee House has has ever had -- Foreman, Cameron, Thirteen, Amber, Taub, Kutner -- Chase didn't apply or fight for the job. He was a nepotism hire. We don't even know if he wanted it.)
Put together, it really seems like Chase... isn't that invested. He's happy in surgery. He prefers "active" medicine, fixing direct problems, to diagnostics and tracking down mystery diseases. He doesn't particularly miss it when he's gone, and only comes back when he feels like he has no choice.
And of course that's fascinating with the other fact of the matter, which is: Chase is really fucking good at this. It's actually even more striking when you remember he's not that invested. He solves cases left and right! He comes up with creative solutions on a regular basis! He's naturally talented at this, and it's even more when you realize he's not even trying that hard. Imagine how good he'd be if he was invested. Chase has great instincts, is incredibly observant, and is an outside the box thinker. He's perfect for the job! But it isn't particularly what he wants. (Which is, of course, a big theme in Chase's life generally.)
In S1's Detox there's a little subplot that I think sums this all up perfectly. The patient, while being treated for his Mystery Disease, suddenly loses sight in his left eye. Chase takes the new issue to the team:
FOREMAN: It’s a retinal clot in the left eye.
CAMERON: Coumadin would dissolve the clot, fix his eyesight.
CHASE: You can’t use bloodthinners, he’s got internal bleeding. Fix the eye, you kill everything else.
FOREMAN: Surgery’s out for the same reason.
CHASE: We have two hours to figure this out. Either we restore the blood flow or he loses the eye.
HOUSE: Forget the eye. Tell him to use the other one to look on the bright side.
House dismisses the eye and Chase's deadline; what matters is that the clot is a new symptom of the Mystery Disease. Chase doesn't argue, but a little later:
CHASE: Also, I have an idea for his eye.
HOUSE: Nothing we can do about his eye.
CHASE: He’s got a clot in his retinal –
HOUSE: Read the memo.
CHASE: If we remove some of the liquid from the eye itself, the Vitreous humor, it might make some extra room around the retinal artery.
HOUSE: If the artery expands, the clot might move out on its own. That’s very creative. Why didn’t you mention this before?
CHASE: Well, I didn’t think of it before.
HOUSE: You should have.
House doesn't care about the eye! But Chase, conversely, doesn't care about the mystery disease. He wants to fix the problem in front of him, even if House doesn't think it matters.
(And here, too, we can talk about how Chase was parentified, watched his mother die slowly and painfully, and was unable to fix her. He knew all along what was wrong, but could do nothing. Of course Chase prefers to fix damage than to diagnose.)
So yes: I think surgery does suit Chase. Much more than diagnostics. And I think he probably would agree, too. No matter how good Chase is at diagnostics -- and he is fantastic at it -- he simply isn't all that interested in mysteries or puzzles. What he wants to do is fix people.
