Doctor Empathy, M.D.

 While Sylvia and I were watching The Pitt a couple of weeks ago, a demented idea popped into my head. 

Imagine an emergency room doctor who never learned how to be dispassionate, how to remain composed and professional when faced with the daily horrors of the ER. This hypothetical doctor can hold his emotions in check for the first few minutes of diagnosis and treatment, but then he breaks down in tears and has to complete his work while sobbing brokenly, whether he's treating a broken toe or a mortal gunshot wound. 

In a real-world setting, I would expect that such a doctor would be eventually dismissed for his effect on morale--both patient morale and the morale of everyone else in the ER. 

But imagine further that this emotional doctor also happens to be a preternaturally gifted genius who saves people in even the most desperate medical circumstances. Time after time, he saves patients that no one else could have saved. Once, his colleagues called him Doctor, Empathy, M.D., with the M.D. standing for "Mucho Depressing" instead of "Medical Doctor." But now, they see him with a mixture of bewilderment and awe, calling him "Master Diagnostician," "Master of Disease," or "Medically Divine." His colleagues can find Doctor Empathy exasperating, but they can see the value of his work, so they devote themselves through getting Doctor Empathy through each shift with his--and their--sanity intact.

I think this might make a pretty good dramedy.