Doctors in Dramas Become Increasingly Diverse

Regardless of the times, there are doctors in gowns appearing in most dramas these days.

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There are many kind of medical specialists in weekend family dramas, genre dramas and mellow dramas that are based in hospitals, such as the tvN drama "Hospital Playlist" and KBS 2TV's "Fix You".

These days, even medical dramas feature doctor characters in various fields, unlike past works, as can be seen in "Hospital Playlist". The five main characters of "Hospital Playlist" are also from different majors, including ectomy, thoracic surgery, obstetrics and neurosurgery.

Thanks to this, from episodes of patients giving childbirth to those of patients getting liver transplants, the subjects have become more diverse and the planning intentions of director Sin Won-ho and writer Lee Woo-jeong-I, who aim for 'humanism' every time, have also been kept.

Doctors in recent dramas are also characterized by a large number of psychiatrists.

As can be inferred from the title, "Fix You" focuses on the Department of Mental Health Medicine. From the first episode, various patients appeared, ranging from delusional patients to soccer players feigning illness due to pressure, and Lee Si-joon (Shin Ha-kyun), who does everything in his power to treat them, drew attention.

It also added to the story, highlighting that there are various views among psychiatrists about mental illnesses. Unlike Lee Si-joon and Ji Yeong-won (Park Ye-jin), who have straightforward beliefs about their own treatment methods based on positive energy, In Dong-hyeok (Tae In-ho) perceives mental illness as a functional problem of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Psychiatrists often appear as major figures in recent dramas apparently because they are such occupations dealing with human 'emotions'. In the past, while physical emergencies and genius medicine increased the tension of the play, there have been many recent productions that control the density of the drama through character psychology and conflict descriptions.

Kim Yoon-gi (Lee Mu-saeng), who appears in the popular jTBC Friday-Saturday drama "The World of the Married", plays a big role as the only neurologist at Family Love Hospital, one of the drama's backgrounds.

He appears every time in crisis, like 'Daddy Long Legs' by Ji Seon-woo's (Kim Hee-ae) side when she was impoverished after divorce due to the affair of her husband Lee Tae-oh (Park Hae-joon) and her wandering son, Joon-yeong (Jeon Jin-seo), increasing the sense of immersion in the play.

Yoo Tae-eun (Yoon Jong-hoon) in MBC TV's Wednesday-Thursday drama "Find Me in Your Memory" is also a psychiatrist, while Cheon Jong-beom (Jang Ki-yong), the main character of KBS 2TV's Monday-Tuesday drama "Born Again" is also a medical student.

In addition, Song Na-hee (Lee Min-jung) and Yoon Gyoo-jin (Lee Sang-yeob) in KBS 2TV's weekend drama "Once Again" appear as internal medicine doctors at a pediatric hospital, with various doctor characters dominating the drama.

It seems that the phenomenon of doctor characters will continue for a while.

Song Seung-heon in MBC TV's "Dinner Mate" turns into Kim Hae-kyeong, a psychiatrist and food psychotherapist, while Park Byung-eun in tvN's "Oh My Baby" will be in charge of various episodes as pediatrics specialist Yoon Jae-yeong.

A drama production company official said in a telephone interview on the 12th, "A doctor is a professional who is in contact with the important problems of our daily lives such as life and health and it is a suitable character to solve the dramatic development of the drama", adding, "Sometimes, they are perceived as a character representing high-income earners and the upper class of society".

He added, "In recent years, we see psychiatrist characters related to the unstable psychology of modern people in rapidly changing environments, such as the increase of single-person households and the super-aged society, regardless of genre".