Doctor Index

5 Following

An index of medical professionals. See also Indexitis and Healing and Curing Tropes for other tropes related to diseases and medicine.

Not to be confused with tropes regarding a certain Time Lord.

Tropes:

• Afraid of Doctors: A character has an intense fear of doctors.
• Auto-Doc: Instead of a human treating you, it's a machine.
• Back-Alley Doctor: Illegitimate doctors who work in seedy conditions.
• Battleaxe Nurse: The nurse is cruel, cold, and overall not very nurselike.
• Candy Striper: Hospital volunteers who wear an iconic striped uniform while performing their duties.
• Caretaking Is Feminine: Certain healthcare professions are thought to be the job of women.
• Closest Thing We Got: When a vet, dentist, medical student, etc. has to stand in for an actual doctor in an emergency.
• The Colored Cross: Doctors, nurses, and medical staff in media are given green or blue cross logos as shorthand.
• Combat Medic: Just because they're stuck behind the front lines healing people, it doesn't mean they can't fight.
• Court Physician: A private doctor assigned to a head of state.
• Creepy Physical: A physical examination gets a little too physical.
• Deadly Doctor: A capable fighter who has a medical motif.
• Depraved Dentist: A dentist who takes advantage of the "appointment" to do some unsavory things to their poor, poor patient.
• Determined Doctor: Medical care must be rendered no matter what.
• Doctor's Disgraceful Demotion: A Mad Scientist lost their medical license for performing some horrible experiment.
• Doctor's Orders: The doctor has the last word on everything.
• Doctors Teasing Patients: Doctors get their mirth by teasing those in their care.
• Doctor von Turncoat: A doctor or scientist switches sides in a conflict and avoids punishment because their expertise is considered too valuable.
• Dressed to Heal: The best way to tell if a character is a medical professional is to look at their clothes.
• Dr. Feelgood: The doctor is giving out drugs to those who don't need them. Maybe because they don't care. Or maybe there's some money involved.
• Dr. Jerk: Man, the doctor is so good at their job! If only they weren't a total Jerkass.
• Frontier Doctor: Caring for the sick and needy in the The Wild West.
• Healer God: The divine version of a healing specialist often with medicine as a domain.
• Hospital Hottie: The medical personnel are as helpful as they are attractive.
• Ignoring the Doctor: A character ignores a medical expert's or warnings, usually to their detriment.
• The Intern: Not quite a doctor yet; this character is still in training.
• Kidnapped Doctor: If you can't bring the person to the hospital, just bring the hospital to the person!
• Kindly Vet: A character who is a veterinarian is also as kind as can be.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: If the character is a worker in Science and/or Medicine, they must be wearing the white labcoat.
• Like a Surgeon: Characters who aren't surgeons act like they are, performing something that is not surgery.
• Mad Doctor: The doctor just so happens to also be certifiably, Ax-Crazy insane.
• Martial Medic: A medic who is just as skilled in healing bones as they are in breaking them.
• M.D. Envy: If you're not a physician, you're not a real doctor.
• The Medic: In a team, this character is the one whose main skill is tending to the injured.
• Medicine Show: There's no better way to sell your amazing new medicinal creation than to show it off!
• Necromedic: A Necromancer who uses their powers to heal others.
• Obscene OB-GYN: A gynecologist or urologist who behaves unethically.
• One Dose Fits All: Any varying factors don't matter—anyone administered with a dose of the same medicine will get the same effect at the same time.
• Open Heart Dentistry: Sometimes, characters just make do with whatever medical professional they have, whether the situation is in their field or not.
• Orderlies are Creeps: An orderly takes advantage of their position to do whatever they please, however immoral it is.
• Plague Doctor: This doctor has a creepy birdlike mask, dark clothes, and a focus on treating the bubonic plague.
• Playing Doctor: Children are naturally curious about everything. To satiate this curiosity, they "play doctor."
• Post-Treatment Lollipop: Doctors reward good patients with candy.
• Psycho Psychologist: They put the "psycho" in "psychology".
• Quack Doctor: A "doctor" whose medical legitimacy is quite questionable.
• Quirky Doctor: They are weird, but in a funny way.
• Roadside Surgery: A proper hospital room isn't always available, so surgery must be done wherever is available.
• School Nurse: A school's resident medical professional. Is usually a Hospital Hottie or a Battleaxe Nurse with no middle ground.
• Self-Surgery: There's no one to do your surgery except yourself.
• Shoot the Medic First: The medics are the ones who heal the enemies back to strength. Ergo, they're primary targets.
• Shot to the Heart: To keep the heart beating, it's stabbed with a syringe full of adrenaline.
• The Shrink: The psychologist can only be three things: good, bad, or "well-meaning".
• Super Doc: This doctor has godlike skills.
• Surgeons Can Do Autopsies If They Want: Medical practitioners carrying out procedures outside their area of expertise with no complications.
• Triage Tyrant: How bad the injury is doesn't matter to them as much as if they like or value the injured.
• Trojan Ambulance: Usually involves characters being disguised as paramedics.
• Turn Your Head and Cough: The stock method to see if a male patient has a hernia.
• Vampire Doctor: A vampire or other monster who works in a profession their own dietary needs and compulsions make extremely difficult and unexpected.
• Witch Doctor: These guys are often practitioners of pre-modern traditional medicine.

Tropes that have little to do with medical professionals, but still have them in the title:

• Dr. Fakenstein: An Expy of Dr. Frankenstein with a name that isn't exact, but very, very similar.
• Dr. Frankenstein: The titular public domain character of Frankenstein who is often a Doctor.
• Dr. Genericius: Names that end with "ius" are popular for doctor characters.
• Herr Doktor: The doctor also just so happens to be German/Austrian.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: A stock phrase for people who are asked to do something outside their field and are offended by it.
• I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One on TV: Just because someone portrays a profession on television, it doesn't mean they're actually knowledgeable in that profession.
• Is There a Doctor in the House?: A stock phrase for when someone is injured in a public place full of other people.
• Like a Surgeon: Any situation other than a real surgery is treated like one.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: When the doctor chooses to use their medical skills to pursue their evil endeavors.
• Naughty Nurse Outfit: The short, tight, Fanservice-packed costume that no real nurse wears.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: If you have the title of "doctor", you must be of the medical sort.
• Trust Me, I'm an X: A stock phrase used by one character to another to assure that they can trust what they're saying.