The American drama "The Good Doctor" has received a lot of praise and excellent ratings since its first season aired in 2017. This medical drama is adapted from the 2013 Korean drama of the same name, which has been remade many times. It is said that it gives a very interesting direction in terms of subject matter. At a time when excellent medical dramas such as "Grey's Anatomy", "Surgery", "ER", etc. have become a thing of the past, "The Good Doctor" The emergence of this film has undoubtedly made the film and television drama market of this type boom again.
Exploring human nature, not just the White Lotus
The gimmick of the whole drama is that the male protagonist Sean Murphy is an autistic surgeon, but he is also a scholar Syndrome, has extraordinary visual thinking ability, and this complex physiological phenomenon brings about a very low level of communication with patients, but he is often able to make achievements in giving medical plans.
Of course, an excellent surgeon does not only need to have superb medical skills. Sean's lack of interpersonal skills brought many obstacles to his career, which started from the moment he entered St. Bonaventure Hospital. Being questioned, but also growing in doubt.
But just having the gimmicks of autism and savant syndrome is not enough. If it is just superficial, it is easy to make this subject into a cheating story with a strong aura of the protagonist, and let the whole drama revolve around it. Move with a curious mind.
The "Good Doctor" filmed the protagonist's story as a group portrait of surgeons, allowing the audience to see that in addition to this "abnormal factor", other stories with their own characteristics and personalities made everyone The characters are all three-dimensional, rather than "tool men" meant to set off a specific role.
They are not the Virgin White Lotus, the kind of good people who sacrifice everything for the success of the protagonist. Instead, they have doubts and dissatisfaction, tolerance for his identity and unintentionally triggering his anxiety. The authenticity of the character's behavior also creates a more vivid learning, immature surgeon Sean who still has a lot of room for improvement.
Of course, the doctor-patient relationship that cannot be avoided in medical dramas is also a key point. Many times, the stories between patients and their families are more arousing, connecting so many clues together and Keeping the plot from being fragmented is what makes this American drama so good.
Inclusion and competition: Sean and his fellow doctors
Dr. Andrews’ attitude towards Sean is perhaps the most intriguing. Morgan only sees him as a competitor and a Clare native. He is kind-hearted and tolerant of everything. Park has no extra prejudice against him and is busy with his own career. Melendez does not trust him but recognizes his ability, and Lim will create a good job for him despite strict requirements. In such an overall peaceful and even very friendly and patient team of doctors, all of whom have become more or less friends with Sean, Andrews has always maintained a skeptical attitude.
He firmly opposed the hospital's hiring of Sean from the beginning, and made the old president Glassman make a promise of "resigning if he doesn't succeed", digging a huge pit for both parties. Of course, he is not biased because of Sean's autism. More often, he considers decisions from the perspective of the doctor's professionalism and whether it is beneficial to his promotion, from the beginning of the department director to the first season. At the end, he became the dean. Every plan he made was very solid and shrewd. As a doctor, he has good communication skills and surgical skills, and has received praise from countless patients. He can be described as an exquisite egoist. In this way, his shortcomings are also very obvious. It is difficult to make decisions. He is always hesitant and unable to make up his mind. He swings from side to side, which may make him not suitable for holding power.
After he became the dean, in order to improve the medical level, he hired Dr. Han at a high price and let him ascend to the high position of department director. Dr. Han's resolute, cold and restrained acting style gave the original surgeons a sense of urgency, and he was also very dissatisfied with Sean's situation. After learning about Sean's condition, he involuntarily dispatched him to the pathology department and asked him to leave the operating table completely. Although Sean proved to him time and time again that he had excellent professional abilities, his colleagues also took the initiative to protect Sean. , telling Dr. Han that his communication skills are constantly improving and he can become a truly good doctor while studying. Dr. Han still has his prejudices.
Andrews rarely gave a tough stance on this matter. After communicating with Lim and Melendez, he learned that Sean was prejudiced, and in practice he recognized that Sean did have the qualifications. Due to his ability and quality as a surgeon, he fired Dr. Han to let Sean return to surgery. However, the price of all this was that he also lost the position of dean that he had finally obtained.
Of course, he was full of anger towards Sean after this incident. Spending his career for such a doctor he had never liked was too "not worth it". He admitted that he had a feeling for Sean. The impulse to seek revenge, and the impulse to regret that decision.
He made such a seemingly "kind" decision not because he had a crush on Sean, but more out of professional considerations. In his opinion, if he had enough If you have the ability, you should give him enough respect, rather than being full of prejudice and letting him continue to work in a "more suitable" but contrary to his ideal position.
Perhaps Andrews will never be able to like the eccentric Sean, and will continue to make things difficult and demanding for him, but he does not bully others because of this dislike, which is almost self-sacrifice. This approach gives his image a sense of forbearance, and his struggle among different choices also allows the audience to see multiple highlights in the character of an upright and ambitious man.
Pain is not a required course for love
In dramas, patients often make human choices when faced with life and death dilemmas, including when facing unidentified illnesses. Choosing whether to treat or not, this kind of situation where only high-risk surgery can confirm whether the tumor is malignant will put people in a dilemma - if it is a benign tumor, surgery may cause a certain degree of paralysis or have extremely high complications. Risks, and if no surgery is performed, it can only be allowed to grow. Once it is a malignant tumor, life will be lost in a short period of time and cannot be saved.
There are also young men who are born pedophiles and try various methods to restrain their desires because they do not want to let themselves be tortured by the evil thoughts of improper obsession with children, hoping that doctors will castrate them. However, due to medical It is ethically impossible to remove a patient's healthy organs without success. In the end, he chose to end his life out of deep self-loathing because he could not get rid of his pedophile mentality.
Such a plot is played out in almost every episode. The various thoughts that patients have when facing their physical diseases also very realistically reflect the psychological states of different groups, the struggles and fears. , self-blame and despair all seem to be "necessary". "The Good Doctor" pushes this emotion to the extreme, giving the audience a profound experience that they have to reflect on. One of the most subtle episodes came in season three.
The female patient who has no pain has been unable to feel physical pain and psychological pain since she was a child because she lacks certain neurons. However, she and her family have never known this symptom. Due to an accidental bacterial infection The infection was taken to the hospital, where abnormalities were discovered by doctors Morgan and Claire during the examination. For the patient, she only feels "being touched" when it comes to pain such as pinching her arm, while losing her mother, husband suffering from cancer, miscarriage, etc., which are huge psychological trauma for ordinary people, is just a "nothing" for him. Sad experiences,” she doesn’t feel emotionally uncomfortable with.
This congenital loss of pain makes her positive and optimistic in life, as if everything is under control, while her husband thinks that she is just extremely tough and tenacious and hides the pain in her heart. After learning about her illness, she felt an indescribable sense of imbalance - "If I die, she won't feel sad at all."
In the hearts of many people, love is always accompanied by pain. This kind of sadness when quarreling with the other person, or even the huge pain felt when the other person is sick or leaves, reflects the two people to a certain extent. The depth of emotion between them. If the death of one party is just a painless life experience for the other party, but he carries the pain that she cannot feel, it will undoubtedly cause distrust. Feeling the same sweet pain of love is experienced in every relationship, and this kind of love seems to have become a matter of course.
So, is this pain really a “necessity” for a good relationship? The answer given in the play is no.
For the person who has lost the sense of pain, this lack of painful emotions allows her to live happier and more worry-free in life, and to maintain an eternal peace of mind after various tragedies, and the whole person is extremely optimistic and positive; and hope It seems unfair that the other person she was able to regain her sense of pain was because she would be grieving while the other person could maintain the attitude of "nothing is wrong".
But in order to pursue the so-called fairness, what needs to be sacrificed is the peaceful life that another person gets in life due to the particularity of the body, and he needs to be forced to live in a way that can be avoided. No matter how you look at it, It's selfish. Sharing joys and sorrows is indeed a kind of deep love, but if we can avoid "bitterness", it may not weaken this love. "The Good Doctor" can provide such a thinking perspective, which undoubtedly breaks the conventional understanding of equal relationships.
Behind the medical drama and workplace drama are in-depth thoughts about people and human nature. It is about every living individual and the whole body of good doctors. How will their wonderful stories continue? What will the fourth season face? Let’s wait and see what new choices will be tested!