History Main / MDEnvy

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* The guys and gals from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' are usually respected for being scientists and having PhD degrees, and Penny only thinks that science is incredibly boring, but at times she becomes fascinated with it. Howard, as an engineer with ''only'' a Master's Degree rather than a Doctorate, sometimes gets snubbed or made the target of snide remarks.

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[[folder: Western Animation]]

* Want to see something hilarious? Go ask a veterinarian/doctor[[note]]with qualified staff; a vet or doctor who doesn't work with licensed nurses will know how to do these things because they have to, as will ER docs because if the nurse is busy, it's do it or lose the patient[[/note]] to draw blood/place an IV catheter/*insert technical nursing skill here* and watch them stammer about how they haven't done that since they were in school. Then watch the exasperated nurse whip the Vacutainer/syringe/whatever out of said doctor/vet's hand and place the thing in two seconds flat.

** Best one is where they are at a hospital
-->''' Ross:''' And I'm Doctor Ross Geller.\\
'''Rachel:''' Ross, please, this is a hospital, okay? That actually means something here.

* In ''Series/{{Coupling}}'' Jane claimed her new boyfriend was a surgeon. He was actually a butcher.

* The series ''Series/{{Providence}}'' refers to this: lead character Sydney is a plastic surgeon and frequently has to deal with other doctors outright scoffing at her when she reveals this. Even one of her classmates seems reluctant to take her on as partner in her practice because of this (granted, this is a family practice, which Sydney, despite her skills and training, really does lack experience in0.

* A patient goes to the doctor's, explaining that his pharmacist didn't know what to prescribe him. The doctor smugly responds that the day ''pharmacists'' know what to do, he'll eat his diploma, then asks what advice the *snrk* ''pharmacist'' gave. "He told me to see a doctor."

The practice of medicine has long been one of the highest status professions around; what could be more admirable than healing the sick?

The practice of medicine has long been one of the highest status professions around - what could be more admirable than healing the sick?

In comedies, the high status attached to physicians is always shown to loom large over those who come close to, but do not attain the sacred mantle... such as other health professionals, doctors in non-medical fields, and sometimes even medical doctors whose specialty is perceived as less challenging or useful than others. Similarly, a nurse has a different set of skills than a doctor and they don't like to be confused for one.

** Another episode features Jerry dating a doctor who constantly talks about how rewarding saving lives is. When he finds out she's a dermatologist, a field he regards as utterly worthless, he is outraged. Next time they are out on a date, he angrily chews her out for daring to call herself a lifesaver... only to be interrupted by a man who thinks her profusely for saving his life. He had skin cancer. OpenMouthInsertFoot

** Elaine dates an intern who's repeatedly failed his medical licensing exam. She insists on calling him "doctor" anyway so she can say she's dating a doctor. Later on, Elaine even helps him study for the exam to make him an actual doctor only for him to pass and dump her immediately afterward, under the rationale that as a doctor, he deserves better.

** Another episode features Jerry dating a dermatologist, with him claiming the whole profession is "just put some aloe on it" and referring to her as "pimple-popper MD". It backfires on him big time when he learns that dermatologists also treat skin cancer. For the record, she ''was'' insufferable about her career and spent a whole dinner date talking about how great it felt to save lives for a living.

** Haldon "Half-Maester" is so-called because he supposedly never completed his maester's chain, so is ''technically'' simply an acolyte of the Citadel, still (think... a university student yet to take their finals). Yet, he performs the role of a maester for the Golden Company in practice. After all, it just wouldn't ''do'' to have a fully recognised maester assigned to outlaws and cadet branches, be they nobles or not. If you smell a fish, you're not the only one: Tyrion notes all this when he bumps into it.

* From ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' In the Seven Kingdoms, you're either an officially acknowledged maester or a nothing. Qyburn ''was'' a maester until he got himself demoted due to ethical malpractice; part of his ForScience motivation is getting his chain (aka his licence) back upon [[TheyCalledMeMad proving himself right]]... by doubling down on what got him canned in the first place.
** Haldon "Half-Maester" is so-called because he supposedly never completed his maester's chain, so is technically an acolyte of the Citadel, still (think... a university student yet to take their finals). Yet, he performs as a maester for the Golden Company, in practice. After all, it wouldn't do to have a fully recognised maester assigned to outlaws and cadet branches, be they nobles or not.

* Subverted by MarvelComics' Night Nurse, who is actually a physician. Comicbook/DoctorStrange (a former surgeon) jokingly suggests she might have a "Florence Nightingale fetish," but she insists it's only because the codename is catchier than "Night General Practitioner."

* Groucho averted this in ''ADayAtTheRaces'' by just [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught practicing on humans anyway]].

* Seen in the AubreyMaturin series, usually from the perspective of the common sailors who are pleased to have an actual learned physician like Stephen Maturin on board. Most naval surgeons are decidedly ''not'' physicians. Some have little more than a steady hand with an amputation saw, and given the high rate of drunkenness among naval surgeons, possibly not even that.
* In SilenceOfTheLambs one of the (many) ways [[SerialKiller Hannibal Lecter]] undermines [[SmugSnake Dr Chilton]], the obnoxious and abusive head of the institution in which Lecter's incarcerated, is by publicly pointing out that Chilton doesn't actually have an MD. However, Lecter's disdain for Chilton is not simply because of this (he holds most "real" doctors, as well as the rest of the world, in total contempt) but more due to Chilton's mistreatment of him and Chilton's mistaken belief that he's as clever as Lecter.

** Bit of a [[Dead Horse Trope]]. These days DO and MD are considered equivalent degrees and the training and philosophy behind them don't differ much anymore.

* ''[[EndersGame Shadow of the Hegemon]]'':

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode [[AllJustADream "Amy's Choice"]], Rory is the village doctor, as he's always dreamed of being more than "just" a nurse.

* The guys and gals from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' are usually respected for being scientists and having PD degrees, and Penny only thinks that science is incredibly boring, but at times she becomes fascinated with it. When Leonard dated Dr Stephanie, she just asked whether she's a "doctor-doctor", or "their kind of doctor", to which Leonard replied that she's a doctor doctor. Interestingly, medical doctor is a career that even arrogant Sheldon Cooper respects and he was satisfied that Leonard dated somebody useful who could treat his hypochondriac complaints.

* This is a frequent occurence on GreysAnatomy. Surgery is considered the best specialty. Cristina even says it's the "marines" of specialties in the first episode. The doctors look down on nurses, and everyone looks down on interns (especially the second batch). The surgeons themselves sometimes divide into their specialties even further, with Cardio and Neural at the top and Orthopedic and General at the bottom.
* This is one of the central conflicts on ''Remedy''. The members of a family all work in the same hospital. The father is the Chief of Medicine and the oldest daughter is also a doctor. The other daughter is a nurse and is dating a doctor. The son could have gone to medical school but is BrilliantButLazy and instead slacked off and developed a substance abuse problem. At the start of the series the father gets the son a job as a porter in hospital in the hopes that he will turn his life around and maybe go back to school and become a doctor. While the father has no real issue with one of his daughters being a nurse, the older sister tends to be a jerk to the nurses. The nurses do not like it when the doctors lord it over the them and give as good as they get. The younger daughter has fights with her boyfriend who as a doctor tends to take the other doctors' side in any doctor-nurse conflict. The porters dislike both the doctors and nurses because they tend to see the porters as unskilled labour rather then the people who keep the hospital going and clean up all the messy stuff generated by the patients.

* Nurses versus doctors, particularly those in critical-care specialties (Intensive Care, Emergency, etc) and those with advanced-practice certifications (nurse practitioner, nurse midwife, nurse anesthetist). If you ever want to get your ass kicked, go ask an RN "If you're so smart, how come you aren't a doctor?" Nurses do 95% of the patient care tasks and handle all the medications in any given care setting, and have to be competent enough to keep track of everything that's going on with any given patient and be able to intervene rapidly when a patient's condition deteriorates.

* In ''{{Coupling}}'' Jane claimed her new boyfriend was a surgeon. He was actually a butcher.
* ''OutOfPractice'' was a short lived sitcom about a family where everyone was a doctor except for the youngest son, Ben, who was a relationship counselor (although he may have had a psychiatric doctorate, I can't recall). He always had a slight complex about this, although his other relatives always stressed that he was doing important work. Of course, his brother Oliver was a plastic surgeon, which, while an important profession, isn't generally thought of as being a "proper" doctor either--ironically, they spend almost as much time in residency/training as ''neurosurgeons'', probably the most revered specialty of all.

* Ben from ''MyFamily'' is a dentist, and is shown to have such a strong inferiority complex around doctors that his children lie about the profession of a friend's parent to avoid his reaction.

* Inverted in the SidneySheldon novel ''Nothing Lasts Forever'', where Honey Taft reveals that she wanted to be a nurse, but that her father wouldn't settle for anything less than her being a doctor (which actually plays this trope straight from his point of view). This results in her being a very mediocre physician (that she slept with numerous professors in order to get good grades doesn't help), frequently lamenting not standing up to her father and going to nursing school as she wished.

* Ross from ''{{Friends}}'' holds a doctorate in paleontology. He uses the title "Doctor" as often as he can, and refers to himself as a doctor when the context implies "medical doctor":

* There are a lot of friction between doctors and the Ambulance crew in ''Series/{{Sirens}}'', there were really quite shocked when a doctor thanked them and said they did a good job. In another episode two of the lads attempt to hit on a medical student that says they're nothing but glorified taxi drivers.

* The series ''{{Providence}}'' refers to this--lead character Sydney is a plastic surgeon and frequently has to deal with other doctors outright scoffing at her when she reveals this. Even one of her classmates seems reluctant to take her on as partner in her practice because of this (granted, this is a family practice, which Sydney, despite her skills and training, really does lack experience in0.