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Stock Phrases saved for characters looking to bill themselves as experts or experienced authorities in dealing with a given situation or problem that has arisen, where X is usually a type of occupation ("Doctor" being the most popular one to use, by far).
Sometimes, a person noting his own occupation is a legitimate argument to get people to take him seriously. When a problem arises in which one's occupational skills and talents can be put to practice, such as after a D.I.Y. Disaster, a character noting himself to be a licensed plumber or architect can become pretty useful to have around. In this respect, the cocky hero protagonist who is confident in his abilities and is very skilled at a certain task gets another stock quip or pithy one-liner he can deliver whenever anyone has doubts in him.
However, in many situations, characters may call attention to their occupations in normal discussions, and usually the discussion has absolutely nothing to do with their occupational field, nor does their expertise in said field cast a better light on the subject at hand. Taken to this extreme, the person may not even have the occupation he claims to or even have work in a similar profession.
Very likely to be uttered by the Back Alley Doctor or the Mad Doctor.
In almost every example, this is, to one extent or another, a type of Appeal To Authority.
Also Known As: Trust Me, I'm A Doctor. This will likely to be the first of his Doctor's Orders in a medical emergency.
See Also: Logical Fallacies; I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder, I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One on TV, and Not That Kind of Doctor.
Examples
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Anime And Manga
- Trafalgar Law on One Piece tends to announce his profession with such a line. Though, it doesn't help that, in addition to being a doctor, he's a pirate. And, OH YEAH, his moniker is "Surgeon of Death," so you might not want to trust this guy too much.
- Actually his medical skills are legit. Considering how he used them to save save the lives of Luffy and Jimbei from certain death.
Commercials
- Lately, there's been a Dr. Pepper ad campaign where "doctors" like Dr. Dre and Gene Simmons ("Dr. Love") use, "Trust me, I'm a doctor," as a slogan.
They also give this trope and their own commercials a send-up with Michael Strahan and his "Trust me. I've sent people to the doctor!"
- A TV advertisement for the Capital One Venture Card with Alec Baldwin ends with Alec beginning to fiddle with the controls in a plane's cockpit while assuring the pilot, "It's okay, I've played a pilot before."
Comic Books
- The above image comes from the 2000 AD strip "Thirteen." His name is Durant, calling himself a doctor like that doesn't really have much to do with preceding or later events in the story, and he's not really a doctor after all.
- Matter-Eater Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes once said, "Trust me, I'm a politician" (Him being a comedic character and politicians being Acceptable Targets).
- In Omega The Unknown, the doctor who treats James-Michael says, "Trust me, I'm a doctor," only to turn him into an experiment.
- Loki, in the Danish comic Valhalla: "Trust me! I am the god of lies!"
- In one of Alan Moore's Abelard Snazz strips, a man who has doubts about trusting the title character with what little remains of his money for planned ruse at a gambling casino is assured, "Trust me, I'm a genius!" By the end of the story, Abelard loses all of the man's money.
Film
- From Sherlock Holmes:
- Also, when Watson is choking Dredger, he reassuringly tells Dredger, "Relax, I'm a doctor."
- The line, "Trust me, I'm a doctor," is said by Dr. John McCabe in The Beyond.
- In Muppets from Space, when Ed, examining Gonzo, notices that Gonzo has no nostrils, he asks, "How do you smell?" To which Rizzo the Rat responds, "Awful. Trust me, I'm his roommate."
- A non-sequitur example can be found in Slacker, where a woman keeps intoning, "You should quit traumatizing women with sexual intercourse. I should know. I'm a medical doctor. I own a mansion and a yacht."
- From Animal House:
Otter: (Rising in a disciplinary hearing) Point of parliamentary procedure!
Hoover: Don't screw around, they're serious this time!
Otter: (aside) Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon: I thought you were pre-med.
Otter: What's the difference?
- Another variant from Ghostbusters: "Back off, man, I'm a scientist."
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Doctor Piglet and Doctor Winston try to assure Galahad that they are doctors during his stay at Castle Anthrax.
Literature
- In Stephen King's Misery, when Annie is about to cut off Paul's leg to punish him, she says: "Don't worry. I'm a trained nurse." She is, but that doesn't make it much better.
Live Action TV
Music
- "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor" was a hit single for The Blizzards.
Print Media
Video Games
- In Dead Rising, after Larry Chiang sticks Carlito on a meathook, he assures to Frank, "Trust me, I'm a butcher."
Webcomics
Web Original
- Whenever Something Awful cracks jokes about Ron
Paul , the sentence "I'm a doctor," or a close variant, tends to show up as a joke reason for why his political platform should be taken seriously.
- The online blog Trust Me, I'm a Doctor
- Cross-over with Memetic Mutation: Don't worry, I'm/we're from the Internet
- A "Dr. Cairo" made a statement along these lines on Twitter while talking to Noah of Tribe Twelve, despite previously establishing that he's a student.
- In a Ruby Quest spin-off, "Deja vu Ruby Quest", Filbert gets Ruby before she can even react, and keeps telling her not to worry, even if he has a bonesaw in a hand and a scalpel in the other. If it counts as canon, this spin-off was before Ruby Quest's beginning, so Filbert still has his right hand.
Western Animation
- Family Guy gave us "Relax, I be a doctor."
- Futurama:
"Don't worry, I'm a whale biologist."
- Dan Vs.: Hilariously inverted in "Dan Vs. The Animal Shelter".
Doctor: Okay, let's get those pants off.
Dan: Um... I'm here about my face being all scratched.
Doctor: (chuckles) Oh, don't worry. I'm not a doctor.
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