As a Nigerian, I believe we should watch more medical dramas. Maybe then, we’d understand how stressful their job is and why they go on strike when they don’t get paid. These seven medical K-dramas will entertain you if you appreciate doctors’ romance, watching people being sewn up, and hospital politics.
Dr Romantic
Dr Romantic follows the life of Boo Yong-Joo, a famous surgeon nicknamed “Hand of God”, who disappeared one day and randomly came back to a small hospital called Doldam. Now he’s now known as teacher Kim but calls himself the romantic doctor. As Boo Yong-Joo is the best surgeon in Korea, he teaches Dong Jo and Seo Jung, two new doctors sent to the hospital, everything he knows.
Although his unconventional approach to medicine leaves his proteges conflicted about everything they learned in medical school, he’s mostly right in the end. This K-drama has its soft, funny and comforting moments. But there’s also all that blood, the rushing to the ER, the almost-too=real-looking surgery. Fall in love with Dr Romantic in 36 emotionally wrecking episodes.
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Doctor John
Doctor John is a medical drama about doctors that specialise in pain management. As a person with chronic back pain in my twenties, there’s a relief from watching doctors search for the cause of their patient’s seemingly mysterious pain and trying to cure them.
Like in every medical drama, there’s a young genius doctor(anesthesiologist) Cha Yo Han whose nickname is “Ten Seconds” because he has this weird ability of diagnosing any patient’s illness in ten seconds. Years later, another genius, Kang Shi Young meets our ten seconds guy who changes her life. This drama has all the feels and is a good watch — with a box of tissue papers beside you.
Hospital Playlist
There’s no medical K-drama as soft as Hospital Playlist. Five doctors entered the same medical university in 1999 and are now friends working in the same hospital. They’re also in a band together. This K-drama is a relaxing slice of life take on the medical drama sub-genre that shows the bond the five doctor friends have with their patients, co-workers, and one another. Get ready to fall in love with every patient, laugh at the banter and be jealous of the friendships. There are many easter eggs of characters from different shows for K-drama lovers.
Doctor Stranger
If watching all the conflict that happens in a hospital where the doctors are more focused on hospital politics than the patients is your cup of tea, you’ll enjoy this one. The main lead, Park Hoon and his father were kidnapped by North Korea when he was a child. In North Korea, he becomes a surgeon and somehow manages to escape back to South Korea after his father was killed, where he takes on many odd jobs until he is employed South Korea’s top hospital Myungwoo University Hospital. All the doctors mistreat him, but his primary concern is finding a way to bring the girl he loved from North Korea, only for him to meet a doctor in the hospital who looks exactly like her.
The Doctors
Hye Jung is a reckless and troubled student that lives with her grandmother after her parents abandoned her. She meets Ji Hong, a doctor who decided to become a secondary school teacher. He also happens to be the new tenant her grandmother adopts. They form a deep bond. He helps her study for school, and they quickly get too close. After Hye Jung’s grandmother dies, a jealous student accuses Ji Hong of being in a romantic student-teacher relationship with Hye Jung and breaks her spirit. 13 years later, Hye Jung and Ji Hon bump into each other under neurosurgery in the same hospital. Hye Jung’s main goal for becoming a doctor was to have the power to avenge her grandmother’s death due to medical malpractice. Insert romance, hospital politics, doctors rivalry and annoying patients, and you have the perfect binge-watch for the weekend.
Blood
What’s better than a doctor that has to deal with blood? One that’s also a vampire! In this K-drama, Park Ji Sang is a doctor specialising in hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery in Korea’s best cancer research hospital. He’s portrayed as cold and unfeeling, but we later realise that he wants to form bonds with people but hides it. He manages to be a doctor who deals with blood while being a vampire by suppressing his thirst for it. Of course, he meets a female colleague Yoo Ri Ta, a physician who is also the niece of the chaebol group chairman who owns the hospital. This babe is arrogant and annoying, yet he falls for her. Medical dramas can already be a handful. But when you add fantasy, you get a recipe for tears and heartbreak. Inject it, literally.
Ghost doctor
In Ghost Doctor Cha Young Min is an arrogant and selfish, yet gifted surgeon. He lives in isolation and only cares about his career. His polar opposite is a resident surgeon named Go Seun,g who isn’t great at his job, but at least people like him.
The day Cha Young Min has an accident and slips into a coma ,his spirit somehow possesses Go Seung’s body — suddenly gifting the latter with all his medical skills. If you like humour, I highly recommend Ghost Doctor.
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