By: Dr. Ken Hogarty
Doctor Sean Conley, President Trump’s “Dr. McDreamy” physician, seemed to be spinning for his boss, characterizing the clinically obese POTUS as “slightly overweight” in a Walter Reed briefing.
We think of Doctors as truth tellers, but they are human. While Doctor Martin Luther King is a beacon for his time and ours, on the contrary, legend tells of Doctor Faustus and his pact with the devil.
A misdiagnosis of truth? Spinning truth to serve oneself or another? You can decide from their real, tweaked or imagined quotes below whether these doctors, medical or not, are living out a Hippocratic or Hypocritical oath:
— Doctor Josef Mengele: “I call them solutions rather than prognoses.”
— Doctor Jekyll: “If he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek.”
— Dr. Evil: “Austin, nothing’s more pathetic than an aging hipster!”
— Doctor Larry Nassar, USA Gymnastics: “Exam table, pommel horse — what’s the diff?”
— Doctor Gregory House: “The Vicodin is for my patients.”
— Doctor “Hawkeye” Pierce: “Suicide is painless, Major Burns.”
— Doctor Henry Kissinger: “Ho Chi Minh is a Soviet stooge, not a nationalist.”
— Doctor Doogie Howser: “I can’t buy beer, but I can prescribe drugs.”
— Doctor John Watson: “Surely, Sherlock, I’d bump up the 7%.”
— Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas: “Natural reason: Humans? Really?”
— Doc Holliday: “What time at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt?”
— Doctor Spock: “Live long and prosper.”
— Doctor Benjamin Spock: “So youngsters can prosper and live long.”
— Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy: “Another’s dead, Jim. Trek on.”
— Doctor who misdiagnosed Lady Gaga: “You’re too hip for it to break.”
— Doctor Nick from [Simpsons]: “Hi, everybody! Lisa, where’s your dad’s heart?”
— Doctor Sigmund Freud: “Sometimes a dildo is just a dildo.”
— Doctor Hannibal Lecter: “Whenever feasible, one should try to eat the rude.”
— Doctor Strangelove: “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk.”
— Doctor Jonas Salk: “Spurn approved vaccinations? Are they crazy?”
— Doctor Melfi: “No, I don’t think all Sopranos sing.”
— Doctor Doug Ross [ER’s George Clooney]: “Epilepsy? I thought she liked my moves.”
— Doctor Paul Ehrlich: “The magic bullet for a man’s magic bullet.”
— Doctor Emmett Lathrop “Doc” Brown: “Nobody will ‘Marty McFly’ back to 2020.”
— Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman [Jayne Seymour]: “Better being a Bond girl.”
— Doctor Alfred Kinsey: “Imagine how hot today’s Kinsey Report movie would be.”
— Doctor who misdiagnosed Kelly Clarkson: “2006 Grammy? Big C, not hitting C.”
— Doctor Marie Curie: “Lead-lined coffin isn’t to fend off radioactive-earned hell.”
— Doctor Sheldon Cooper: “Amy: Big Bang, Indeed!”
— Doctor Zhivago: “Our thoughts were other people’s songs – too often Cossacks.”
— Doctor Ron Paul: “Self-destructive Covid-19 stay-at-home orders must end.”
— Dr. Henry Higgins: “I could pass that girl off as a prostitute in three months.”
— Doctor Che Guevara: “Where was my real-life Evita?”
— Doctor Frasier Crane: “I self-medicate with pomposity.”
— Doctor Ben Carson: “They were just speaker fees, hardly amounting to much.”
— Doctor Alan Harper: “I’m not just an outta-whack-back crack.”
— Doctor Jack Kevorkian: “Doctor Death? Condemned criminals can serve humanity.”
— Doctor Galen [Planet of the Apes]: “Dr. Zaius looks down his nose at chimps.”
— Doctor Peter Venkman [Bill Murray in Ghostbusters]: “He slimed me!”