History Main / AfraidOfDoctors

* ''Series/{{Martin}}'' has this: Martin hurts himself after playing basketball and when his wife Gina suggests they hit the hospital, he shudders and protests his Mother's remedies will fix him up.

* Many medical professionals, surprisingly (or not so surprisingly). Most (if not all) of them, when they [[TherapistInTherapy get ill]] ''themselves'' - all are to one degree or another (usually another) nerve-wracked hypochondriacs and big babies; and many also have this trope. The reason is part knowing just how much [[BodyHorror can break]] in a human being and how easily [[NightmareFuel that happens]] - and part the usual [[HumansAreFlawed human]] reaction to learning about disease: everything you know exists, [[ParanoiaFuel you think]] you have it. There is even [[HypocriticalHumor a medical condition]] called "medical student syndrome": when someone starts studying medicine, they are a ''really'' bad hypochondriac for a while (though luckily most of it doesn't last). So if you are afraid of doctors - talk to your doctor: the chances are very good your doctor can relate because they are in the same boat (or at the very least, they were once).
* Some dogs are like this for veterinary visits, which leads [[Creator/BillyConnolly their owners]] to CensorshipBySpelling, but it's much more common for their owners to be afraid, and the dog picks up on this. Some vets will call an assistant to hold the pet, or even ask you to leave the room, during particularly [[AbuseMistake scary-looking]] procedures so you don't extend this fear to your pet (and also because trained staff can hold a pet safely in ways that won't scare or hurt them, which most owners don't know how to do). Mostly averted, as most dogs come in happy and wagging. If a dog is afraid to come to the vet, making regular visits to the animal hospital for petting and treats ''without'' an actual doctor visit can help get them used to the experience.
* Cats are often just as scared of going to the vet as dogs are, and many come to associate their carriers with going there, leading them to hide whenever the carrier comes out of the closet. (Solution: Just leave the carrier out and toss treats in every so often so they don't only associate bad things with it.) Also zig-zagged as it's usually actually the ''car ride there'' that freaks cats out: unlike dogs who are proto-car-ride-addicts from puppies, cats are near-universally scared by them. Once they ''are'' at the vet's, there are numerous techniques to make them feel comfortable and safe.
* Horses, being naturally flighty animals, are prone to it. And it can be dangerous given how large they are. Sedatives may be needed to calm the animal enough to do an exam in some cases. Another method of calming horses is a twitch, a pole with a loop on the end that's looped around a part of the upper mouth skin. It doesn't hurt the horse and it focuses the horse's attention on what's happening there, rather than what the vet's doing.
* The mouth has a lot of nerves close to the surface and the tissue is softer than skin. This makes dental procedures surprisingly painful which is why they use numbing chemicals for major procedures. That doesn't stop the needle itself hurting, although modern topical anesthetics and giving injections slowly can eliminate most of the pain.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension White coat syndrome]] is a real condition where a person's blood pressure is elevated in a clinical setting (but not in a more relaxed setting), presumably because of doctor-related anxiety.
* Some people feel humiliated in seeking help (even if from a licensed professional), or they may feel they know their condition better than the doctor. This fear is unexpectedly common, so don't be surprised if you come across someone like this.

* This is not uncommon in many communities of color due to a history of doctors experimenting on slaves and unsuspecting patients (the Tuskegee experiments, for one) and even many women of color being sterilized against their own will and without their knowledge. Also high poverty rates in marginalized communities can also contribute to the lack of access to adequate health care.

->'''Jadzia Dax''': I've never told you this before, Julian, but I've always been afraid of doctors.\\
'''Dr. Bashir''': Most people are. When I was younger I was terrified of them.\\
'''Dax''': ''Really?''\\
'''Bashir''': They seemed to know everything. It was as if they held the power of life and death in their hands. I used to think that if I didn't behave, they'd make sure I got sick.
-->-- ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', "Equilibrium"

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* ''Series/FortyFourHundred'': Noah is nervous about letting Doc inspect him, with his fear implied to be a result of negative past experiences due to being transgender. Doc helps him sympathetically though, and it turns out is a trans man too.

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', both Jadzia and Bashir were afraid of doctors as children. Bashir was afraid of them because he thought they knew everything and could make him sick, so he became one to find out how they worked. [[spoiler:Although his unwilling genetic augmentation may have also played a role.]]

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* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': Turns out, [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Wrex]] is afraid of doctors. He's ''very'' unhappy about having to be experimented on for finding the genophage cure. [[GroinAttack And not without reason]].
--->'''Wrex''': Mordin... He got his tissue sample, alright. Let's just say scalpels were never meant to cut where he cut.

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* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Mad Love", Gordon expresses his dislike of going to the dentist; [[LuredIntoATrap what]] [[ComicBook/TheJoker happens in]] [[DepravedDentist the next scene]] clearly doesn't change that opinion.

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/KaBlam Life With Loopy]]'' short "The Fang Fairy", it's revealed that Larry is afraid of dentists.

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* [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] causes his pediatrician no end of grief because of this. Poor guy almost recanted the Hippocratic Oath. One plotline had Calvin really getting sick, and him not putting up a fuss about having to see the doctor [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness is enough to make Mom race to the phone]].

* [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] causes his pediatrician no end of grief because of this. Poor guy almost recanted the Hippocratic Oath. Once plotline had Calvin really getting sick, and him not putting up a fuss about having to see the doctor [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness is enough to make Mom race to the phone]].

* [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] causes his pediatrician no end of grief because of this. Poor guy almost recanted the Hippocratic Oath.

* Creator/CSLewis was afraid of dentists, specifically (having inherited [[BritishTeeth bad teeth]] nescessitating loads of long and often ardulous dental work); which he mentions or at least alludes to in some sheer toothache-inducing dentist metaphor at least [[OncePerEpisode once a]] non-fiction book, and occasionally in the ficton ones as well.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'', "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist," Monk reveals that dentists are among the many things he fears. The dentist in question, Dr. Oliver Bloom, becomes the main suspect in the episode's murder investigation, but Monk is afraid of the dentist's office even before he suspects Dr. Bloom. Which makes sense, since of all the various kinds of doctors, the dentist is objectively the scariest for most people in real life.

* Horses, being naturally flighty animals, are prone to it. And it can be dangerous given now large they are. Sedatives may be needed to calm the animal enough to do an exam in some cases. Another method of calming horses is a twitch, a pole with a loop on the end that’s looped around a part of the upper mouth skin. It doesn’t hurt the horse and it focuses the horse’s attention on what’s happening there, rather than what the vet’s doing.

[[caption-width-right:349:"WHAT'S THIS? WILL IT HURT?"\\

Can result in a case of ThePatientHasLeftTheBuilding. This trope makes for decent CharacterDevelopment. Compare and contrast DepravedDentist, MadDoctor, and MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: those are the kind of doctors you ''should'' fear. Also compare AfraidOfBlood and CATTrap. This is the super trope of AfraidOfNeedles. This is also a sub-Trope of WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes.

Can result in a case of ThePatientHasLeftTheBuilding. This trope makes for decent CharacterDevelopment. Compare and contrast DepravedDentist, MadDoctor, and MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: those are the kind of doctors you should fear. Also compare AfraidOfBlood and CATTrap. This is the super trope of AfraidOfNeedles. This is also a sub-Trope of WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes.

* The trope is named by Natsu Tanimoto from ''Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple''. In his past, his father married a female doctor who promised to tend to his sister's sickness. After the doctor murdered his father, Natsu discovered that she [the doctor] never bothered tending to her, sprouting a seed for distrust in the boy.
* In ''Manga/LuckyStar'', Miyuki is afraid of going to the dentist, and often tries avoiding this even when she knows she should go.

* Makoto/Cure Sword of ''Anime/DokiDokiPrecure'' is terrified of dentists, to the point where she nopes out of a group pose once she realizes the MonsterOfTheWeek is based off of dentists.

* The 1950's ''Doctor...'' series about a group of students, later young doctors, at London teaching hospital "St Swithins". In ''Doctor at Large'', young doctor Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) encounters this reaction in a patient terrified of going in for an operation and has to persuade her the surgeon conducting the OP (who trained Sparrow) is the very best out there. This is based on the books by Richard Gordon, so this is also a Literature trope.

* In his Yorkshire Vet stories, Creator/JamesHerriot notes that older country folk in rural Yorkshire could be wary and apprehensive about visiting the doctor. Part of this could be due to the fact that socialized medicine in Britain only began with the NHS in 1945: in the 1930's, going to the doctor involved paying him for his services, and poor people tried to avoid this until it was really necessary. Herriot also noted many instances of vet-phobia among animals and their owners.

* Austin, the protagonist of ''Literature/HollowPlaces,'' has an aversion for hospitals and the medical profession as a whole due to the agonizing months he once spent in an infirmary while recovering from being indirectly hit by a missile blast. Later in life, he is forced to rent out an unused hospital room since it's cheaper than living in an apartment. Waking up there makes him vividly recall bad memories of a doctor telling him that both his arm and his sister are gone.

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}}, veteran postman Tulliver Groat has a lifelong fear of doctors - understandable, given what prior to Dr Mossy Lawn was their general quality and outlook. He therefore self-medicates and has done for seventy years. Which causes consternation when he is injured in a fire and a really good doctor has to tend to his injuries. To get to the wounds, they have to fight through seventy years' accretions of goose-grease, newspaper, saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal. These latter three healing ingredients are a ''real'' problem.

* ''Series/CallTheMidwife'': It’s a repeated problem for the midwives and Dr Turner—as you might expect in a relatively conservative working class area like the mid-century East End:

** Strangely for someone who was at the cutting edge of modern obstetrics in her day, Sister Monica Joan is suspicious and afraid of the modern medicine of the 1950s-60s. On separate occasions she has resisted penicillin, chest x-rays, and cataract surgery. However, she always gives in in the end.

* In the ''WebVideo/{{Fred}}'' video "Fred Goes to the Doctor", Fred reveals he's scared of doctors. After getting back from the physical, he rants about how they pricked his finger ''right when they got there'', they made him urinate in a cup, and that they gave him a chickenpox shot, which there had to be poison in. Then he learns out that maybe it wasn't ''that'' bad.

* Jof the cat in Creator/BrunoBozzetto's 1995 cartoon "Help!" goes to a hospital for a pricked finger. There, he encounters doctors who are evil or insane or both. The next time he pricks his finger, Jof stays home.

* Quack Quack from ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'' seems to be afraid of doctors, possibly because he was experimented on scientists as a duckling.

-->'''Kowalski:''' The point is, fear of medical professionals is completely unwarranted. Yes, the benefits to one's health and personal well being are much too important...\\

* Many medical professionals, surprisingly (or not so surprisingly). Most (if not all) of them, when they [[TherapistInTherapy get ill]] ''themselves'' - all are to one degree or another (usually another) nerve-wracked hypochondriacs and big babies; and many also have this trope. The reason is part knowing just how much [[BodyHorror can break]] in a human being and how easily [[NightmareFuel that happens]] - and part the usual [[HumansAreFlawed human]] reaction to learning about disease: everything you know exists, [[ParanoiaFuel you think]] you have it. There is even [[HypocriticalHumor a medical condition]] called "medical student syndrome": when someone starts studying medicine, they are a ''really'' bad hypochondriac for awhile (though luckily most of it doesn't last). So if you are afraid of doctors - talk to your doctor: the chances are very good your doctor can relate, because they are in the same boat (or at the very least, they were once).
* Some dogs are like this for veterinary visits, which leads [[Creator/BillyConnolly their owners]] to CensorshipBySpelling, but it's much more common for their owners to be afraid, and the dog picks up in this. Some vets will call an assistant to hold the pet, or even ask you to leave the room, during particularly [[AbuseMistake scary-looking]] procedures so you don't extend this fear to your pet (and also because trained staff can hold a pet safely in ways that won't scare or hurt them, which most owners don't know how to do). Mostly averted, as most dogs come in happy and wagging. If a dog is afraid to come to the vet, making regular visits to the animal hospital for petting and treats ''without'' an actual doctor visit can help get them used to the experience.