Best fictional doctors

There are so very many doctors in fiction not only because doctors are needed regularly in our everyday lives and therefore not only deserve but require representation but also because they represent an opportunity for the writer. Such opportunities can be to explore the mad, bad, latest scientific discoveries or nightmares, good, gentle, intelligent, dotty, cranky, rebellious, supportive, caring, lost, long suffering, doomed, self-obsessed, competitive, over-eager, childish, accident-prone, guilty, insightful, arrogant, disillusioned, depressed, detail-minded, adventurous and obsessed in us all. In fiction they represent the best and the worst and also run into more folly than most.

So here is the best of many. From here it is personal choice, I believe, as even I'll have to pick out of at least 20 (maybe more) before I find my favourite.

Dr. Henry Frankenstein from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dr. "Doc" Daneeka from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Dr. Gregory House from House as played by Hugh Laurie

Dr. Abraham Van Helsing from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dr. Herbert West from Herbert West–Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft

Dr. Moreau from The Island of Dr. Moreau by H G Wells

Dr. Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris as played by Anthony Hopkins

Dr. John Dolittle from The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed by Hugh Lofting

Dr. Henry Jekyll from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dr. John H. Watson (left) from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. Faustus from The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Dr. Anton Phibes from The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again as played by Vincent Price

Dr. Emmett Brown from Back To The Future as played by Christopher Lloyd

Dr. Strangelove from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb as played by Peter Sellers

Dr. Who from Dr. Who

Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Wilson from Garflied

Dr. Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters as played by Harold Ramis

Dr. Raymond Stantz from Ghostbusters as played by Dan Aykroyd

Dr. Jack Griffin from The Invisible Man by H G Wells

Dr. C. A. Rotwang from Metropolis as played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge

Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. and Dr. Henry Jones, Sr.  from the Indiana Jones series as played by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery

Dr. Leonard McCoy from the Star Trek film series as played by DeForest Kelley

Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory as played by Jim Parsons

Dr. Temperance Brennan from  the Temperance Brennan novels by author Kathy Reichs and Bones as played by Emily Deschanel

Dr. Martin Ellingham from Doc Martin as played by Martin Clunes

Dr. Simon Tam from Firefly as played by Sean Maher

CPT Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and CPT "Trapper" John Francis Xavier McIntyre from M.A.S.H. as played by Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers

Dr. Cal Lightman from Lie To Me as played by Time Roth

 Dr. Frasier Crane from Frasier as played by Kelsey Grammer

Dr. Helen Magnus from Sanctuary as played by Amanda Tapping

Dr. Hubert J. Farnsworth from Futurama

Dr. John Zoidberg from Futurama

Dr. Julius Hibbert from the Simpsons

Dr. Ogden Wernstrom from Futurama

Dr. Perry Cox from Scrubs as played by John C. McGinley

 Dr. Rockso, the Rock N Roll Clown from Metalocalypse

Dr. Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1 as played by Amanda Tapping

Dr. Tom Jackman from Jekyll as played by James Nesbitt

Dr. Walter Bishop from Fringe as played by John Noble