The picture of health: Pop culture's best doctors

House was basically Sherlock Holmes but a doctor. By the way, shout out to Dr. Watson, Holmes’ companion. Gregory House, as played by Hugh Laurie, was a gruff man with little-to-no bedside manner. However, he was also a genius and could find the solution to almost any medical malady. Maybe he won’t be nice to you, but if nobody else can solve your problem, he can.

We aren’t necessarily sure Doogie Howser was a particularly good doctor. He was definitely an impressive doctor. After all, he was still a child when he became a practicing doctor. That was the entire hook of the show. Neil Patrick Harris was a teenaged doctor, making Doogie Howser something of an iconic name in pop culture.

Scully and her partner Fox Mulder are FBI agents who work on a variety of strange, grim, and often supernatural cases. While Mulder is a believer, Scully is a skeptic, though after some time it became a bit much. She saw, like, 50 aliens and ghosts but still wasn’t ready to believe? However, on top of everything else, Scully is a medical doctor with a degree from Stanford. That helped her in her FBI work, especially when it came to forensic pathology.

We are talking medical doctors, but psychiatrists and psychologists are medical doctors as well. They just focus on the brain and mental health. Harley Quinn is a criminal and sometimes romantic partner of Joker (or in modern times also Poison Ivy). However, before all that, she was Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist working at Arkham Asylum. That’s where she met Joker. Things didn’t go great from there.

So many medical shows are serious dramas. “Scrubs,” on the other hand, was very much a comedy. The show was full of doctors, including Turk, Elliot, and Perry Cox. We could have shouted any of them out, but we’re using John Dorian, aka J.D., as the stand-in for them all. As played by Zach Braff, he’s the ostensible lead of the show.

Frasier was great on “Cheers.” Then he got his own spinoff and he got even better. Frasier is one of the best sitcom characters ever, and “Frasier” is an all-time great sitcom. However, he’s not the only iconic psychiatrist in his social circle. Let’s not forget his brother Niles or his wife (and then ex-wife) Lilith Sternin, both great characters as well.

Like “Scrubs,” “MASH” is a sitcom teeming with doctor characters. Also like “Scrubs,” one of them stands out above the rest as the de facto lead. Hawkeye was a surgeon during the Korean War, using jokes and dark humor to deal with the chaos surrounding him. Alan Alda was great in the role, making Hawkeye one of TV’s top doctors.

Much like Columbo, we never really got Quincy’s first name. Also like Columbo, Quincy solved crimes. The weird thing, though, is Quincy isn’t a police officer. He’s a medical examiner. Yes, Quincy used his job as a coroner to solve crimes. That’s just how TV went back in the day, and Quincy was on the air for eight seasons and 148 episodes.

“St. Elsewhere” is one of the most-memorable medical dramas, in part because of the famous twist in the series finale. Doctors came and went on the show, but the one that we primarily remember now is Dr. Chandler. Why do we remember him? Because he was played by Denzel Washington, of course.

While “Northern Exposure” hasn’t had a significant cultural legacy, it was quite popular when it aired. The show even won some Emmys over its five years on television. Dr. Fleischman was a classic fish out of water in the show. As a young doctor from New York, he has to take a job in a remote town in Alaska in order to pay off his medical loans. It’s a simple premise, but it worked.

You knew what you were getting right from the title of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” Jane Seymour’s character was not just a doctor, but a doctor in frontier times when you had to ride a horse to get from place to place. At the time, the idea of a female doctor was also a bit of a surprise, and occasionally an issue. While the show was not exactly a critical darling, it did prove quite popular as something of a comfort show, and Seymour got several Emmy nominations (but no wins).

“ER” was just about the hottest thing on television when it began airing. For many, it is still the quintessential medical drama. It was also a springboard for a few careers. Most famous among those shot to stardom was the man who played Doug Ross. You know him better as George Clooney, at one point arguably the biggest movie star in the world.

While we otherwise stuck to only one doctor per show or movie on this list, we had to include two from “ER.” Its cultural power was just too strong, and its ensemble just too impressive. While Clooney was the biggest star born from the show if there was anything close to a lead doctor on the “ER” cast it was Mark Greene, who was played by Anthony Edwards. If we are going to laud “ER,” Greene needs to be included.

“Grey’s Anatomy” really grabbed attention when it debuted, turning inoffensive pop songs into hits and helping to build Shonda Rimes’ career. Many notable characters appeared on the show, some of which got terrible nicknames. However, it’s Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey that has managed to be on the show for the entire run, something the likes of Katherine Heigl and Patrick Dempsey didn’t manage.

Bob Newhart’s comedic strength was playing the straight man to eccentric characters (or sometimes to the other end of an unheard phone call). That made the premise of “The Bob Newhart Show” a smart one for him. Newhart plays Bob Hartley, a psychologist in Chicago who works as a therapist for a variety of off-the-wall characters. Of course, friends like Jerry and Howard aren’t exactly easier to deal with. Good thing he has the education necessary to handle them.

Medicine has come a long way. Want proof? Just watch “The Knick,” Stephen Soderbergh’s show about a hospital in the early 1900s. Clive Owen stars as Thackery, a doctor working with the knowledge and tools available to him at the time. Owen is excellent in the lead role, though this is not a show for those with a weak stomach around blood.

With the rise of steamy medical dramas, it was inevitable a parody would arrive. That being said, “Children's Hospital” rose above simple parody to become something truly absurd and bizarre. If you remember any doctor from the show, even if you haven’t seen it, it’s probably Rob Corddry as Blake Downs. He’s the one who is always dressed as a clown and is usually caked in blood.

In “The Simpsons,” there are two primary doctors. Julius Hibbert may chuckle a lot, but he’s actually good at what he does. Then there’s Dr. Nick. When you can’t afford a qualified doctor, you go to Dr. Nick. If you need to stay under the radar, like say if you “fell on a bullet” and it drove its way into your gut, you go to Dr. Nick. At least he’ll always greet you with an enthusiastic “Hi, everybody!”

Buckaroo Banzai has a lot on his plate. He’s a physicist, a test pilot, and the frontman for a popular rock band. Oh, also he’s a brain surgeon. Yes, there is seemingly nothing that Buckaroo Banzai can’t do, which is part of the joke with the character. Unfortunately, we never got to see him take on the World Crime League in the sequel to “Across the eight Dimension” we never saw.

Leslie Nielsen used to be a serious actor. For years he made a living doing drama. That’s why he was cast in “Airplane!” as Dr. Rumack. He was being cast against type. Suddenly, a whole new career was born. Surely Nielsen never would have ended up such a beloved comedic figure if he hadn’t played Rumack in this joke-a-minute spoof. You can deliver the punchline to our setup yourself, we’re sure.

Dr. Jekyll is one of the quintessential doctors of fiction. It all began with a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. You likely know the story. Harry Jekyll hopes to hide away his dark impulses, but a serum he creates causes him to transform into his evil alter ego, Mr. Hyde. Cue literally dozens of TV and movie adaptations. We will single out the 1931 version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” because that version won Fredric March a Best Actor Oscar.

We think of Stephen Strange, aka Dr. Strange, primarily as the Sorcerer Supreme. He’s mastered the mystical arts and can astroproject and do all sorts of magical stuff. Before all that, though, he was a more traditional doctor. Sure, he was a talented one, but once a car accident robbed him of his steady hands he decided to take on a different line of work. Namely being a superhero.

Even if you haven’t seen “Dr. Zhivago,” you’ve surely heard the name. It’s a classic film, an epic drama from David Lean, who also directed “Lawrence of Arabia.” The movie was critically and commercially immensely successful. “Dr. Zhivago” was nominated for 10 Oscars, won five, and is the eighth-highest grossing film ever adjusted for inflation.

Dr. Loomis has had a more fraught professional experience than many of these doctors. After all, he’s not just a psychiatrist. He’s Michael Myers’ psychiatrist. Yes, the Michael Myers of “Halloween” infamy. Dr. Loomis doesn’t just need to see Myers as his patient, he often finds himself dragged into trying to stop Michael when he invariably escapes and creates mayhem. Donald Pleasance played Dr. Loomis in five films, but when Rob Zombie rebooted the franchise the role went to Malcolm McDowell.

It’s pronounced “FRONK-en-steen.” Or at least that’s what Frederick Frankenstein would have you believe in Mel Brooks’ classic “Young Frankenstein.” The original Dr. Frankenstein is one of pop culture’s most-famous doctors. However, he’s more of a scientist – a mad scientist to be specific – than a medical doctor. His grandson Frederick, though, is a physician. Then he gets involved in the family business, but this time hilarity – not mayhem – ensues.