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Watch and Learn
Hollywood has long offered a range of medical role models. From which screen doctors should you take your cues?

The Luddite

Dr. Evil
Austin Powers
Specialty: Global havoc
Bedside manner: Outmoded, conniving, cheerfully malevolent
Teachable moment: After being cryogenically preserved for three decades, he threatens to hold the world hostage for one million dollars, sparking a round of stifled laughter among his criminal cohorts.
Lesson drawn: Aim high.
Quote: “It’s Dr. Evil. I didn’t spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called mister!”

The Curmudgeon

Gregory House
House, MD
Specialties: Infectious disease and nephrology
Bedside manner: Misanthropic, juvenile, ardently offensive
Teachable moment: Convinced that the star of his favorite soap opera has a medical condition, he kidnaps the actor, runs clinical tests, and eventually, while watching the actor grimace through a fake gin and tonic on the set, diagnoses him with quinine allergy.
Lesson drawn: The devil is in the details.
Quote: “Treating illnesses is why we became doctors. Treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable.”

The Narcissist

Meredith Grey
Grey’s Anatomy
Specialty: Surgery
Bedside Manner: Self-absorbed, distracted, perennially gloomy
Teachable moment: She almost drowns while treating the victims of a ferry crash, and her near-death experience spurs her to enter psychotherapy to confront her “dark and twisty” nature.
Lesson drawn: Physician, heal thyself.
Quote: “I’ve heard that it’s possible to grow up; I’ve just never met anyone who’s actually done it.”

The Civilizer

Michaela Quinn
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Specialty: Frontier medicine
Bedside manner: Nurturing, pacifying, disarmingly plucky
Teachable moment: When her new employer, who was expecting a male doctor, tries to return her to Boston, she refuses to leave Colorado Springs and goes on to treat arthritis, diagnose an arrhythmia, deliver a baby, cure an infection, and perform an emergency tracheotomy—all in the pilot episode.
Lesson drawn: Hold your ground.
Quote: “I’ve dedicated my life to repairing the damage that men like you bring on this world and frankly, [General] Custer, I don’t want any more of your business.”

The Moralist

Stephen Franklin
Babylon 5
Specialty: Galactic medicine
Bedside manner: Principled, open minded, refreshingly xenobiophilic
Teachable moment: Despite the threat of arrest, he refuses to release autopsy notes that would enable EarthForce to develop biological weapons against the Minbari, a humanoid alien race.
Lesson drawn: Do the right thing, even if it’s alien to your nature.
Quote: “Take responsibility for your actions, for crying out loud! You go in there and you fight for what matters to you. Don’t just walk away because it’s easier!”

The Elitist

Frasier Crane
Frasier
Specialty: Psychiatry
Bedside manner: Pompous, bombastic, desperately insecure
Teachable moment: It’s Frasier Crane Day and he’s frantic about missing a public rally in his honor until a cab driver’s quiet recitation of real problems distracts him from his insatiable ego.
Lesson drawn: It’s not all about you.
Quote: “As we speak, hordes of viral Visigoths are hurling themselves over the battlements of my immune system, laying waste to my….Oh, dear God, you see how weak I am? I can’t even finish a simple Visigoth metaphor.”

The Cynic

Hawkeye Pierce
M*A*S*H
Specialty: Surgery
Bedside manner: Wisecracking, mocking, endearingly puckish
Teachable moment: He gleefully invents a fictional Army captain to authorize the donation of medical supplies to a local orphanage; when he “realizes” the Army hasn’t paid the captain in over a year, he has that back pay donated to the orphanage as well.
Lesson drawn: Survive by your wit—if not your wits.
Quote: “I’m not here for you to admire. I’m here to pull bodies out of a sausage grinder, if possible without going crazy.”

The Competitor

Cristina Yang
Grey’s Anatomy
Specialty: Surgery
Bedside manner: Aggressive, ambitious, unerringly tactless
Teachable moment: She steals another doctor’s intriguing case—a psychiatric patient whose massively swollen abdomen leads him to insist he’s pregnant—only to be thwarted by a nurse she has treated contemptuously.
Lesson drawn: Be kind to everyone, especially nurses.
Quote: “Colleagues aren’t friends! They’re competitors.”

The Innovator

Frederick Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein
Specialty: Neurosurgery
Bedside manner: Neurotic, risk taking, animatedly pioneering
Teachable moment: In a groundbreaking procedure, he transfers some of his calm and intellect to his oversized monster—and unexpectedly reaps a sizable gain in return.
Lesson drawn: Devotion to science can bring hidden benefits.
Quote: “Hearts and kidneys are Tinkertoys!”

Photos: Melinda Sue Gordon/New Line Productions/Photofest (Dr. Evil); Michael Yarish/Fox/Photofest (Gregory House); ABC/Photofest (Meredith Grey); CBS/Photofest (Michaela Quinn); TNT/Photofest (Stephen Franklin); NBC/Photofest (Frasier Crane); CBS/Photofest (Hawkeye Pierce); Bob D'Amico/ABC/Photofest (Cristina Yang); 20th Century Fox Pictures/Photofest (Frederick Frankenstein)