Basic Trope: Lab coats are used to indicate that someone is a medical doctor or a scientist.
- Straight: Two characters on the show often wear lab coats. They are Alice, a biochemist, and Bob, a cardiologist.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob wear the lab coats all the time, even when not at work.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are often seen without them, but when it's time to do awesome science, they put them on.
- Justified: The show is a hospital drama, where Alice's and Bob's work gets a lot of focus.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob are the very best biochemist and cardiologist on the planet... and they work in the nude.
- Everyone wears lab coats except for Alice and Bob, the only two people who would have any excuse to wear them in a professional environment.
- None of the scientists in the setting wear lab coats. Charlie, the sole individual who actually wears a lab coat, is a warrior who knows nothing about science, and he only wears it to look badass.
- Subverted:
- Carlos is wearing a lab coat, but he's got a PhD in comparative literature.
- Carlos is, as the light shade of orange of his lab coat indicates, part of the lab's clean-up crew.
- Dr. Dave wears a labcoat to give himself an air of legitimacy, but he turns out to be a Snake Oil Salesman.
- Double Subverted:
- That's actually Carlos' second PhD; he's also got another one in medical anthropology, and he's collaborating with Alice on a project (hence the coat).
- Dave's snake oil actually works, and he's selling it to help pay for his medical education.
- Parodied:
- Both Alice and Bob were gifted with lab coats as soon as they found out they passed the board/licensure exams.
- Putting on a lab coat automatically gives Carlos the skills needed to become a doctor or a scientist.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice, Bob, and Carlos are seen doing science things sometimes wearing lab coats, sometimes without them.
- Averted: Neither medical professionals nor scientists wear lab coats very often.
- Enforced: The editor wants an easy visual shorthand that someone is a medical doctor or a scientist without using too much exposition, so the artist redesigns Alice and Bob to wear lab coats.
- Lampshaded: "Nice lab coat, Alice, makes you look really smart and reliable!"
- Invoked: Alice and Bob buy lab coats in order to look more legitimate.
- Exploited: Carlos wants to infiltrate a hospital, so he puts on a lab coat.
- Defied: Alice doesn't want to be the stereotypical image of a scientist, so she puts on the lab coat as little as possible.
- Discussed: "Nice lab coat, Alice, you look like a real doctor on one of those shows!"
- Conversed: "Why do these TV smart people always wear lab coats even when there's no reason to?"
- Deconstructed: Carolyn and Connie, both calling themselves "Doctor," are in lab coats presenting competing medicines to the ill Diane. Carolyn is a fluent Know-Nothing Know-It-All while Connie is a genius with No Social Skills, so Diane agrees to try Carolyn's cure first because it sounded more persuasive, but it only makes her worse.
- Reconstructed:
- Connie improves her presentation and general public speaking skills.
- Diane figures out that she chose wrong — or somebody else in her life does — and gets her the medicine Connie recommended, which makes her better.
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