Alright, so today I wanted to talk a bit about this whole ‘male doctor’ thing. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? You hear ‘male doctor,’ you kinda picture a guy in a white coat, maybe with a stethoscope. Simple.
Well, I found out it’s not always that simple. Not by a long shot. I was working on this personal project, needed to really nail down a character – a male doctor. And not some cardboard cutout from a cheesy TV show, you know? I wanted someone who felt, well, real. Someone you could imagine actually existing, with all the good and the bad that comes with being a human doing a tough job.
So, I figured, piece of cake. I’ll just do some research. Watched a bunch of those medical dramas everyone raves about. Total waste of time. All heroes with perfect hair or brooding geniuses who break all the rules but are always right. Not helpful. Then I tried reading articles, official interviews, you know, the polished stuff. Still felt like I was getting the PR version, not the actual person.
I even tried to, like, observe during my own appointments. But you can’t exactly pull out a notepad and start grilling your GP on his deepest fears or what he really thinks when a patient is being difficult. It was getting super frustrating. I was just hitting a wall of stereotypes or overly sanitized portrayals. I needed the messy bits, the everyday grind, the stuff they don’t tell you in brochures.
Now, you might be wondering why I was getting so worked up about this one character. Why the obsession? Well, it all goes back a few years. I had this really, really bad experience with a doctor. Happened to be a male doctor, but that’s not the whole point. This guy, he completely botched something for a family member. And it wasn’t just the mistake, it was his whole attitude. Dismissive, arrogant, like we were too dumb to understand. He made us feel small. And the fallout from that, it was tough. It dragged on for ages, cost a fortune, and just left a really bitter taste. That whole mess stuck with me, hard.
So, when it came to creating this character, I didn’t want to just phone it in. I felt I owed it to that past experience to try and understand what makes these folks tick, for real. It wasn’t just about a story anymore; it was about trying to get some kind of handle on that world, the responsibility, the pressure, maybe even the reasons some of them end up like that guy we dealt with.
Because of that, I had to change how I was looking for info. I started digging in different places. Found some online forums, like, super niche ones, where medical staff could talk anonymously. Not the shiny, happy professional association websites, but the places where they actually vent, share frustrations, talk to each other like real people. That was a bit of a goldmine. Reading about their long hours, the bureaucratic nonsense they deal with, the difficult patients – not just the heroic saves.
I even managed to chat with a couple of retired doctors. Just informal talks, nothing official. And they were way more candid. They told me stuff, little details about the day-to-day, the politics in hospitals, the things that really wear you down. That’s when I started to get a feel for it.
And slowly, I started to build this character. Not a saint, not a devil. Just a person. Probably tired a lot of the time. Definitely overworked. Trying to do an incredibly complicated job, sometimes doing it well, sometimes… not so well. With his own biases, his own blind spots, just like any of us. The ‘male’ part of ‘male doctor’ became less about some pre-baked stereotype and more about how his specific journey, as a man in that field, might have shaped him, his way of talking, his assumptions. Just one layer of many.
So yeah, ‘male doctor.’ What started as a simple character description turned into this whole investigative journey for me. Took a lot more effort than I bargained for. But that’s how these things go, right? If you want to get past the surface, you gotta be ready to dig. That’s my practice, anyway. And I think the character ended up a lot stronger for it. Felt like I finally understood a tiny bit more, and maybe got a little bit of that old frustration out of my system too.
