History Main / QuackDoctor

* ''Film/{{Deadpool}}'': In the film's first act Wade Wilson, who is suffering from cancer, finally reaches his personal DespairEventHorizon when he goes to Mexico to a "psychic healer" and figures out how the doctor does his scam a couple of minutes after being attended. This is what makes him decide to accept the invitation of "Agent Smith" to become part of a SuperSoldier creation program where he will eventually become Deadpool.

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[[caption-width-right:250:[[VisualPun Some medical advice truly comes from Mickey Mouse operations]].]]

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[[quoteright:250:[[WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/quack_doctor.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[VisualPun Some medical advice truly comes from Mickey Mouse operations]].]]

Indices: DoctorIndex, MedicalHorror, SurgeryIndex, NoRealLife/TropesPToS

* ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'': The resident Doctor at the Assassins' Guild in the Literature/{{Discworld}} is presented as a quick-thinking bluffer who appears to have scammed his way into the job with very little actual knowledge of medicine. He does have an ability to think on his feet and, presented with a comatose patient, invents the theory that's all caused by tiny little organisms which are too small to see... "''Walruses.'' Yea, that's right. Walruses. Walrus-borne infection, see?"
** Later ''Discworld'' novels show this is true of pretty much ''any'' Ankh-Morpork doctor, since like any true Ankh-Morporkian their main goal is simply keeping the patient alive long enough to get paid. The patient actually pulling through is just a detail, and deaths are dismissed as the will of the Gods, to the extent that when the Patrician gets poisoned Captain Vimes ''refuses'' to let an actual doctor treat him, and gets the city's best ''horse'' doctor to make a house call (since horses are a lot more monetarily valuable, especially to easily upset mob bosses).

-->'''Homestar:''' Bubs, [[LampshadeHanging are you an unethical quack]]?
-->'''Bubs:''' The most quackinest!

* ''Literature/TheGraceOfKings'': The ImmortalitySeeker Emperor Mapidere ([[NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed based on Emperor Qin Shi Huang]]) drew a crowd of fraudulent and delusional healers who promised various {{Longevity Treatment}}s for exorbitant sums. The [[HarmfulHealing quack medicine]] left him looking thirty years older than his age.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': Dr. Migleemo is a literal example of this as much as he is a figurative one. Besides being a bird-like species of alien, he has no actual knowledge of science or psychological practices, instead providing his services in the form of constant food puns. The ''Cerritos'' isn't exactly the ''Enterprise'', but his level of incompetency is so bad that ''no one'' on the ship trusts him, and Season 4 reveals that Mariner's [[spoiler:problems stemming from her PTSD of losing her friend Ensign Sito and fighting in the Dominion War]] only became compounded because she doesn't trust the only therapist she has access to. Really, it's a miracle that Migleemo hasn't been fired yet.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[VisualPun Some medical advice truly come from Mickey Mouse operations]].]]

* ''Film/CatchMeIfYouCan'' has Frank Abagnale, a teenage con artist who poses as having several professions throughout the film including a doctor. He gets away with it for a while by working as a supervisor who spends most of time behind a desk and letting the residents make the real diagnoses. However, being confronted with genuine medical emergencies causes him to realize that he can't continue the scam without potentially ''killing'' someone, so he hastily jumps into a less dangerous line of work.

* ''Film/CatchMeIfYouCan'' has Frank Abagnale, a teenage con artist who poses as having several professions throughout the film including a doctor. He gets away with it for a while by working as a supervisor who spends most of time behind a desk and letting the residents make the real diagnoses. However, being confronted with genuine medical emergencies quickly causes him to realize that he can't continue the scam without potentially ''killing'' someone, so he jumps into a less dangerous line of work.

* ''Film/CatchMeIfYouCan'' has Frank Abagnale, a teenage con artist who poses as having several professions throughout the film including a doctor.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Played with. One recurring segment is "Veterinarian's Hospital", described by the announcer as "the continuing stoooooooory of a quack who's gone to the dogs". ([[{{Pun}} The doctor is played by Rowlf]].) It's not clear if he really is a quack, but he's a terrible doctor regardless—he swaps jokes with the nurses (played by Janice and Miss Piggy) instead of making any real effort to heal his patients.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Played with. One recurring segment is "Veterinarian's Hospital", described by the announcer as "the continuing story of a quack who's gone to the dogs". ([[{{Pun}} The doctor is played by Rowlf]].) It's not clear if he really is a quack, but he's a terrible doctor regardless—he swaps jokes with the nurses (played by Janice and Miss Piggy) instead of making any real effort to heal his patients.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Chiropractors were considered quacks until late in the 20th century. Until the 1970s, it was illegal for them to practice. However, as of the 21st century, they're mostly recognized as a legitimate form of medicine, but many people still hold onto the idea that they are quacks.
[[/folder]]

* Dr. Nick Riviera from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' is the doctor to go to if you are OK with having an unskilled practitioner in exchange for nominally lower costs. In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer King Size Homer]]" Doctor Hibbert (who is competent most of the time) recommends him to Homer, on the grounds that he will help [[ItMakesSenseInContext someone become morbidly obese]] while Hubert can't in good conscience do it.

* Chiropractors were until late in the 20th century considered quacks. Until the 1970s, it was illegal for them to practice. However, as of the 21st century, they're mostly recognized as a legitimate form of medicine, but many people still hold onto the idea that they are quacks.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Played with. One recurring segment is "Veterinarian's Hospital", described by the announcer as "the continuing story of a quack who's gone to the dogs". ([[{{Pun}} The doctor is played by Rowlf]].) It's not clear if he really is a quack, but he's a terrible doctor regardless—he swaps jokes with the nurses (played Janice and Miss Piggy) instead of making any real effort to heal his patients.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Played with. One recurring segment is "Veterinarian's Hospital", described as "the continuing story of a quack who's gone to the dogs". ([[{{Pun}} The doctor is played by Rowlf]].) It's not clear if he really is a quack, but he's a terrible doctor regardless—he swaps jokes with the nurses (played Janice and Miss Piggy) instead of making any real effort to heal his patients.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': One segment is "Veterinarian's Hospital", described as the story of a quack who's gone to the dogs ( [[{{pun}} the doctor is Rolf]]). It's not clear if he really is a quack, but he's a terrible doctor regardless.

Due to modern controversies, [[Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease no RealLife entries from the last 50 years]] please unless convictions or at least press recognition was made to the alleged doctor's quackery.

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': The Episode "Seed" has a distraught woman shoot at her husband in a bank, for which a security drops her. The woman had been seeing a fertility doctor in hopes of achieving motherhood but was told she'd miscarried. After subpoenaing the doctor's records, detectives discover multiple patients receiving sperm from one particular donor, "AX-23," who is a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene. Doc Delbert also has this gene, and a medical license, but not the ethics.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "Wasted," a woman posing as a doctor uses unverified folk remedies to milk her patients of their life savings, and when all their money is gone, she accepts jewelry as payment. The wife of a man with a rare blood disease is finally driven over the edge after the leech treatments the "doctor" uses on the husband repeatedly fail to work, and shoots her in an alley.

[[caption-width-right:250:Some medical advice truly come from Mickey Mouse operations.]]

* ''Franchise/OnePiece'': In the past, Dr. Hiruluk is often called a wandering quack doctor who made the life of his patients worse. He's not doing it for conning people, though; he's just really inept at medicine but has a desire to help sick people since he was cured from a heavy illness in the past.

* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': Doctor Doxey is a fake doctor who travel from town to town [[SnakeOilSalesman selling a miracle elixir]] that allegedly cure illness and restore strength and vigor.

* ''Film/TheMiracleWoman'' : Florence Fallon is a "healer" who apparently heals people with disabilities and severe health issues. However, its all a sham to con people out of their money: the supposedly "healed" patients are planted to make people believe these "miracles".

* ''Literature/TheGodfather'': Dr. Taza spends more time in brothels than reading medical books and received his medical degree from the university of Palerma only because the local [[TheMafia Mafia]] leader said so. Michael Corleone is understandably hesiting to have him operahe his jaw [[PoliceBrutality broken by]] [[DirtyCop NYPD Captain Mark McCluskey]].

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': The Episode "Seed" has a distraught woman shoot at her husband in a bank, for which a security drops her. The woman had been seeing a fertility doctor in hopes of achieving motherhood, but was told she'd miscarried. After subpoena-ing the doctor's records, detectives discover multiple patients receiving sperm from one particular donor, "AX-23," who is a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene. Doc Delbert also has this gene, and a medical license, but not the ethics.

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic: The song "Like a Surgeon" is from the point of view of a self-admitted quack surgeon who who engages in various forms of medical malpractice. However, the main reason the A.M.A. considers him a disgrace isn't because all his patients end up dying, but because they're dying ''before they can pay''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Webkinz}}'': Subverted. Dr. Quack is an anthropomorphic duck doctor who is named after the phrase "quack doctor." Ironically, though, he seems to be perfectly legitimate, and is shown to be very kind and caring.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the toon "Bug in Mouth Disease", Homestar swallows a bug and goes into a panic over it. He eventually asks Bubs if he is a doctor, which Bubs says yes upon finding a card that says Dr. Bubs [[note]]really a card for vcr repair/fashion consultant[[/note]]. After examining Homestar, he tells him he doesn?t having a pancreas before offering to sell him one. Homestar is not amused.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'': In the episode "The Medicine Man" from the 60's animated series, Bluto/Brutus plays the role of Doctor Quack. He deliberately sabotages Popeye's spinach medicines to get rid of a potential competitor and messes up his health with questionable treatments (scare therapy, sneezing powder, sleeping pills and, finally, a high-speed trip downhill on a wheelchair) ForTheEvulz. Eventually, Popeye lets him give a taste of his own medicine by applying Quack's scare therapy on the doctor himself: after accidentally drinking genuine spinach medicine, he immediately recovers from Quack's medicines, throws the latter onto an operating room table and shows him a dozen surgical tools ready to be used. Quack freaks out and bursts out from his office at full speed with the whole operation table.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'': In "[[Recap/TheRealGhostbustersS5E2SomethingsGoingAround Something's Going Around]]", a ghost pretends to be a living doctor named Dr. [=McAtheter=] and sells the Ghostbusters potato chips that he claims are a health food. However, they actually give the Ghostbusters bizarre symptoms (such as random size changes, strange-coloured lesions, and levitation) whenever they're around ghosts, so that the ghosts can cause chaos without being caught.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': The episode "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS4E1FearOfAKrabbyPattyShellOfAMan Fear of a Krabby Patty]]" is about [=SpongeBob=] being forced to make Krabby Patties for non-stop for days on end without any sleep. Eventually, due to being sleep-depraved, he starts hallucinating and develops a [[TitleDrop fear of a Krabby Patty]]. Plankton tries to take advantage of this by disguising himself as a psychologist named [[PaperThinDisguise Dr. Peter Lankton]] in order to try to get [=SpongeBob=] to tell him the Krabby Patty ingredients. After using hypnosis, [=SpongeBob=] falls asleep, which cures his fears. However, still trying to get the ingredients, Plankton claims otherwise.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': Dr. Migleemo is a literal example of this as much as he is a figurative one. Besides being a bird-like species of alien, he has no actual knowledge of science or psychological practices, instead providing his services in the form of constant food puns. The ''Cerritos'' isn't exactly the ''Enterprise'', but his level of incompetency is so bad that ''no one'' on the ship trust him, and Season 4 reveals that Mariner's [[spoiler:problems stemming from her PTSD of losing her friend Ensign Sito and fighting in the Dominion War]] only became compounded because she doesn't trust the only therapist she has access to. Really, it's a miracle that Migleemo hasn't been fired yet.

* Chiropractors were until late in the 20th century considered quacks. Until the 1970s it was illegal for them to practice. However, as of the 21st century they're mostly recognized as a legitimate form of medicine, but many people still hold onto the idea that they are quacks.