In British English, a houseman is a very junior doctor: someone who has just finished medical school, or is in that first hospital year, and is working on the wards. The hours are long and a lot of the learning is on the job. American English usually says intern for this stage. British hospitals have mostly dropped houseman on official papers and say foundation doctor instead, but older doctors and older books still use it. Though actually, people who do not know the medical sense may hear house + man and think of a man who looks after a house, or of the hotel job also called houseman in some American hotels — that is not this sense.