TV bosses have always been keen to commission shows featuring doctors and nurses. The latest medic to cure audiences' ailments is Jackie Peyton, the titular character in Nurse Jackie, currently in its fourth season over on Sky Atlantic. Smart, cynical and inherently flawed, she's a welcome addition to TV's cabal of cathode-ray clinicians.
But who does she join? To help separate the best from the rest we prescribe our six to watch of the very best medical types to grace our tellys. Have we included your favourite physician or should we be struck off for missing out a medical marvel? Help us diagnose the problems by leaving us your thoughts in the comments section below.
Dr Mark Sloane (Dick van Dyke) – Diagnosis Murder (1993 – 2001)
A favourite with students and grownups who really should know better, Dr. Mark Sloan, played by reformed mockney Dick Van Dyke, is one of the most implausible characters to take to the screen. As well as solving crimes (he's a consultant for the LAPD, where he helps his insufferable oaf of a son close cases), he plays the oboe, is a nifty dancer, cooks a mean barbecue, has an evil doppelganger and wears one of the whitest moustaches on the box. Oh – and he's also a doctor who, in the rare moments when he's actually doing his day job, seems to heal patients with little more than a reassuring smile and a cursory glance at their charts.
Dr Harold Legg (Leonard Fenton) – EastEnders (1985 – 2007)
Walford's resident doctor was a much-loved mainstay during the soap's early years and, despite officially retiring in 1997, he continued to turn up well into the new millennium. A pillar of the local community, Legg was something of a saintly figure who drifted around Albert Square healing the sick and attending to the infirm. While he treated everything from Donna's heroin addiction to Dot's hypochondria, he is perhaps best remembered for his bedside manner and a sturdy shoulder to cry on – the human equivalent of Prozac for the downtrodden denizens of London's East End.
Dr Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) – M*A*S*H (1972 – 1983)
With wit as sharp as his scalpel, Hawkeye was one of the main draws in a series that at its best prescribed a fistful of belly laughs alongside a scathing allegory of the brutality of war, in 25 minutes of near perfect primetime programming.
Dr Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelly) – Star Trek (1966 – 1969)
From space measles to Saurian viruses, Bones went where no Doctor had gone before – and probably won't want to go hence. Surgeon, psychiatrist, moral compass; Bones was so much more than a galactic GP and was just as likely to be found on away missions as he was the Enterprise's medical bay. He was also singularly responsible for a shipload of patients – a clear sign that even in the post-currency world of the 23rd century, Star Fleet's bean counters were still hacking away at the health service.
Senior Charge Nurse Charlie Fairhead (Derek Thompson) – Casualty (1986 – present)
Almost ever-present in the Holby emergency room, Charlie is the longest-serving character on TV's longest running medical series. With more than 35 years of nursing experience Charlie has saved scores of people from their deaths, as well as facing the reaper a few times himself: he's been shot, drowned, hit by a stolen ambulance and suffered a pulmonary embolism. Ouch.
Dr Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) – House (2004 – 2012)
TV's most cantankerous clinician is a medical maverick whose brilliance is only overshadowed by his brutality. Nevertheless he's the TV doctor you would most want to visit if you ever found yourself encumbered with an inexplicably obscure illness, even if you did spend your recuperation contemplating the irony of Neighbours alumni Jesse Spencer following in his fictional father's footsteps.
Honourable mentions
Dr Doug Ross (George Clooney) – ER (1994 – 2009)
Gorgeous George's ascent to hearthrobbery began on the ever popular ER, where he was just one of a string of impossibly attractive actors to cut their TV teeth.
Doogie Howser M.D (Neil Patrick Harris) – Doogie Howser M.D. (1989 – 1993)
Would you let a teenager who writes down life lessons on a rudimentary word processor treat you if you went into hospital? Of course not, which is why the inevitable lawsuits that came Doogie's way were carefully omitted from this preposterously pitched series.
Dr John "JD" Dorian (Zach Braff) and Dr Perry Cox (John C McGinley) – Scrubs (2001 – 2010)
Euthanasia seemed like the only humane option as Scrubs neared the end of it's nine-season run, but the intern/old-hand relationship between JD and Dr Cox was at the centre of all that was great and good about the series in its prime.
