Best Classic American TV Doctor ShowsBy Raymond Lockley
"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."
From doc-drama mysteries featuring a brilliant-but-maverick doctor like
"House"
to ensemble medical shows like
"Grey's Anatomy"
to the quirky doctor sit-coms like
"Scrubs"
(or, lest we forget,
"Doctor, Doctor"),
the doctor shows remain a staple of prime-time television in America.
But in the beginning, there were the classic shows that laid the
groundwork, where the doctor was never the anti-hero and always knew
best. Here's my list of the best classic (i.e. from my younger days)
American TV shows about doctors:
Honorable mentionIs it a military show or a doctor show? Is it really from the classic era, or a perfect illustration of what I think of as the modern era? One of the greatest shows in the history of television transcends arbitrary boundaries; and although I chose to categorize it as a military show (a commentary on the Vietnam War set during the Korean War) with doctors as protagonists, I certainly cannot fail to at least mention it on this page:
Dishonorable mentionI hate to bring up soap operas in any of my lists. For one thing, they're such a different form of television that Emmy people had to set up a whole separate daytime awards show. And for another, their doctor-protagonists are often anti-heroes with ridiculous moral learning disorders. But if one is to create a list of shows that helped establish the doctor as archtypal television character, one must throw in a reference to these shows--some of which started in the early days of radio. Here are a few of the more memorable classic daytime soaps about doctors:
About the background symbolsSome of you may have noted there is only one snake on the background image, but thought there were two snakes and wings on the famous medical symbol. This is a common mistake. The Caduceus is actually a symbol for divine messengers. The proper medical symbol is the Rod of Asclepius. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up. :-)
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