An upcoming Fox drama about a doctor with amnesia seems to fall into the same category as ABC’s former series about a doctor on the autism scale.
They both present a dilemma for patients who are in the process of deciding on a doctor.
Even if everyone who works around these TV doctors insists that they are extraordinary medical geniuses, I would have to say, speaking for myself, that it would be very difficult for me to say yes to treatment from a doctor on the autism scale or one who has amnesia.
In fact, for all I know, these two situations do not even exist in the real world of medicine, but they apparently exist on TV.
The Fox series is called “Doc” -- not to be confused with the 2001 Pax-TV medical drama of the same name that starred Billy Ray Cyrus.
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Fox’s “Doc” premieres early in the new year on Tuesday, January 7. Molly Parker (“House of Cards,” “Deadwood”) plays the lead role, a Minneapolis internist named Amy Larson who, like all such TV doctors, is “brilliant” (amnesia or no amnesia).
The amnesia comes in the aftermath of a brain injury that results in a loss of memory going back eight years.
“The accident leaves her with no recollection of patients she’s treated, colleagues she’s crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push almost everyone away,” says a description from Fox.
No mention is made about the effects of this memory loss on her ability to remember aspects of her medical education and experience over the last eight years either.
Perhaps the “eight years” was chosen for this scenario because it does not go back far enough to encompass medical school or the first years of her practice.
Please do not think ill of me, but if I looked up a doctor online to learn more about him or her, and I found out the doctor has eight years of amnesia, I would not be contacting that particular office.
Nor do I want to call my insurance company, endure endless electronic prompts until I get a customer service person on the phone, and then ask them if I’m still covered if my doctor has amnesia.
The situation is much like the quandary presented on “The Good Doctor.” In that ABC show, Freddie Highmore played a young doctor, Shaun Murphy, who was said to be autistic.
Over the show’s seven-season run (which ended last May), the autistic doc demonstrated his life-saving brilliance time and time again.
In a TV context, this was easy to swallow because accepting this scenario presented no risk to the viewer. To my knowledge, the question of insurance never came up.
In real life, however, most people would likely pass on an autistic doctor. Such a decision might be based completely on ignorance of autism and its many shadings, but in the final analysis, the word “autism” alone would probably lead most people to say no to an autistic surgeon when facing surgery.
In its fictional world, “The Good Doctor” was a fine show. As for “Doc,” the TV Blog has not given it a preview yet, so I have no idea what effort it undertakes to make its story plausible.
Fox’s press material says the show is “inspired” by a true story and based on an Italian medical series. Look for a review in 2025.