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"Don't start with me! We're backed up!"
―Brenda's reaction to House setting up his team in her space.

Brenda Previn is the Head Nurse at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She was often snarky to House and his team. Her first name is revealed in Kids and her last name is revealed in The Mistake. She's often seen in the background and has very few speaking roles. Nurse Brenda Previn is last seen in the episode Que Será Será.

In Kids, there was a meningitis epidemic at the hospital. House and his team had a patient named Mary Carroll who required a lumbar puncture. Cuddy only gave them an hour to prove that something was wrong with her. Foreman went to ask Brenda for a bed, but she refused to give him one because of the epidemic. Foreman told her that they only had and hour and she made him go to the back of the line. After they did the LP, Brenda moved the gurney and put Mary on the sofa, causing her to be disoriented because they needed the gurney.

In Love Hurts, Harvey Park came to the hospital for unknown reasons. He had been waiting for House (who was watching football with Wilson and a patient who had to go back to work when he was done at the clinic) for a long time. He asked Brenda when he would get to see House and she told him to wait a little longer. A few seconds later, House came out and Harvey spilled apple juice on him, but House mistook it for urine and got mad at him, causing him to have a stroke.

In Three Stories, House was leaving Cuddy's office after she allowed him to have a few hours off clinic if he could teach a class of medical students for one day because their teacher Dr. Riley was sick. Brenda told him that he had a patient, but House told her that he was off clinic for the day because he had to replace Dr. Riley. The patient turned out to be House's ex-girlfriend, Stacy Warner, who gave him the case of her husband Mark Warner who was suffering from abdominal cramps and fainting spells.

In Autopsy, House tried to get out of clinic duty by saying that he should have been out of there twenty minutes ago. However, Brenda was paying attention and she told House that she knew he had only been there for twenty minutes. House mentioned that he couldn't slip anything by her. Brenda gave him the case of a patient in Exam Room One who had tried to circumcise himself. House wanted to take a sick day because of the cold that he had been suffering from. Cuddy told House to take some Claritin. Brenda told House that the patient in exam room one had requested a male doctor.

In The Mistake, Chase quickly performed an allergy test on the patient which came out positive. Chase told her to go see Nurse Previn to get an appointment with Dr. Brustin in Rheumatology. This is when Brenda's last name is revealed. She also appears in the background in this episode multiple times, including the beginning of the episode.

In Distractions, Brenda goes to Cuddy's office and tells her that they need an audio-visual setup for the lecture, Cuddy doesn't know what lecture she is talking about and Brenda tells her that it's Dr. Weber's lecture, Cuddy doesn't know what she means and Brenda says that the memo was from her. Cuddy asked where her assistant was, Brenda told her that he or she left. Cuddy asked if someone had sent a replacement. Brenda told her that they did send one, but she got lost.

In Skin Deep, House left the hospital claiming that he was: "in too much pain to work" because his leg was hurting more than usual due to Stacy's departure. Cuddy, wondering why he was not doing clinic duty, asked Brenda where he was. Brenda told her why House left, forcing Cuddy to cover for him.

In Cane & Able, Cameron had been working in the clinic a lot more than usual. Brenda told her that she couldn't blame her for spending more time there because she had heard that House was back to work after recovering from a gun shot wound. Cameron picked the case of Richard McNeil. Brenda told her that Cuddy wanted that case (due to the fact that she withheld information about Richard's recovery from House and his team). Cameron knew that Cuddy was busy at the time to she took it.

In Informed Consent, Ezra Powell had tried to kill himself by wrapping a nasal cannula around his neck and falling out of his bed. Brenda found him and helped him back into his bed. She figured that he had somehow gotten the tube wrapped around his neck and fell out bed by accident. As Powell was telling House and his team that he wouldn't consent to any more tests, House rudely sent her out of the room. Later on, she watched Foreman and Chase performing a procedure on Powell. However, as their progress wasn't so good, they would rather that Cuddy not know because they thought she would disapprove.

In Lines in the Sand, when Cuddy replaces the bloodstained carpet in Houses office caused by being shot, House refuses to enter his office, so he decides to go to into other people's offices. He uses Cuddy's office, Wilson's office, and finally, Brenda's office. Brenda isn't very happy about House and his team being in her office. But, they needed a place to diagnose their current patient.

In Que Será Será, the patient, George, needed a MRI. However, the weight limit on the MRI machine was 450 and George weighed around 600. Cameron thought that this was unfair and was worried that he could sue because morbid obesity is a registered disability. She, Chase and Foreman tried to lift him on to the machine, but they failed. So they got Brenda Previn and a bunch of other nurses. Brenda questioned how much he weighed, Cameron lied to her and said that he only weighed 450 so that they would agree to get him on the machine. When Brenda said that he looked like he weighed a lot more than that, Cameron said that it was because he was just because he was lying down. They lifted him up and onto the MRI machine and put him down. The machine started creaking. Later on, when House was forcing George to drink some sugar water to see if he was diabetic, but he wasn't cooperating, Brenda came in and asked what was going on. This was her last appearance on the show.

Relationship With House's Team[]

Brenda is usually rude to House's team, refusing to give them what they want and making them go to the back of the line.

Appearances[]

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