History Main / CourtPhysician

* ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': Odham Kendar keeps a doctor of the Medical Cabal in his court at nearly all times, due to suffering from an unspecified ailment.

* Roderigo "Roger" Lopes was the court physician of Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI, up until he was accused of plotting to poison the Queen and was then hanged and quartered. As Lopes was a Portuguese ''converso'' of Jewish ancestry,[[note]]His father António was forced to convert to Catholicism, and young Rodrigo was raised in that faith. He was nevertheless accused of practising crypto-Judaism by the Inquisition in his native Portugal, so he fled to London, where he converted to the Church of England as a matter of convenience.[[/note]] some believe that Lopes and his trial might have influenced the creation character of Shylock from Shakespeare's ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''.

* Roderigo Lopez was the court physician of Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI, up until he was accused of plotting to poison the Queen and was then hanged and quartered. Some believe that Lopez and his trial might have influenced the creation character of Shylock from Shakespeare's ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''.

* The household of Queen Elizabeth II has a Medical Household of several physicians, both generalist and specialist, working to preserve her health.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Maesters usually fill the role within the Houses of Westeros. So does the Grand Maester at the royal court in King's Landing. Ironically though, the one who did the most to advance the Maester's rather stale medical science (Qyburn and Samwell Tarly respectively) left/were expelled from the order for doing so (Qyburn's experiences were a bit... unethical to say the least).

* In ''Fanfic/TheLandOfWhatMightHaveBeen'', professional mage-surgeon Dr Kiln serves as the personal physician to the [[RebelLeader Great Mentor]] of the Deviant Nations. Given that his employer is [[NeverMessWithGranny old]], [[HandicappedBadass infirm]], and [[FrontlineGeneral not above straying onto the battlefield]], he's got his work cut out for him. However, the Mentor also enjoys sending him to care for vital personnel like [[Theatre/{{Wicked}} Elphaba]] - who usually doesn't want his help or appreciate [[spoiler: being dosed with performance-enhancing drugs without her knowledge]]. Consequently, Kiln is left a bit exasperated by the fact that both of his patients seem to have a death wish, forcing him to work overtime on the battlefield to save their lives. [[spoiler: He's actually the [[AlternateSelf alternate universe equivalent]] of Boq.]]

* ''Film/TheLastKingOfScotland'' charts the career of the fictitious Dr Nicholas Garrigan, personal physician to President Idi Amin. Having taken a shine to the young doctor during a chance encounter, Amin has him attend not only to his own health but that of his family, while also allowing him to spend his off-hours working at a hospital. Unfortunately, though Garrigan is rewarded with five-star accommodations, fine clothes, fancy cars, and significant influence, he soon ends up having to confront the human rights violations that ensue as his patient grows steadily more unstable. By the end, Garrigan is widely hated as an unwitting enabler of Amin's madness and treated as little more than a pet for the president to amuse himself with.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Played with in "[[Literature/FeetOfClay Feet of Clay]]". When the Patrician falls mysteriously ill, Commander Vimes distrusts all doctors, mostly because nearly all of the Ankh-Morpork medical community consists of quacks who can always claim that a dead patient was "the will of the Gods". Instead, he hires a horse doctor as his physician because racing horses are ''valuable'' and a horse doctor who can't keep the majority of his patients alive risks having an encounter late at night with somebody telling him that "[[TheDon Mister Chrysophrase]] is ''very'' upset."
* In the ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' saga, Suk doctors are employed by the richest and most powerful families to serve as private physicians. Already highly-regarded for their skills, what makes them truly valuable is their reputation for utter trustworthiness: as part of their training, Suks are [[BehavioralConditioning conditioned]] to be [[UndyingLoyalty incapable of betraying their masters]], ensuring that they can never be used as assassins. It's for this reason that only Suk doctors are allowed to attend to the Padishah Emperor and that Dr Wellington Yueh enjoys the total trust of the Atreides family. [[spoiler: Unknown to all, Baron Harkonnen has been able to break Yueh's otherwise-infallible conditioning by [[IHaveYourWife holding his wife hostage]], allowing the Harkonnens to mould him into the perfect traitor within Atreides ranks.]]

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': One of the duties of the Order of Maesters is to serve the medical needs of the nobility, and as such, a member of the Order is assigned to each of the kingdom's lords in order to care for them and their families. The heads of the Order also elect a Grand Maester to serve the ruling monarch of the Seven Kingdoms, entrusting him with the health of the royal family and often the members of the Small Council as well. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, maesters are not in possession of a Hippocratic Oath, and follow the orders of their liege lords ahead of ethical concerns: the story kicks off with the dying Jon Arryn being secretly withheld treatment by [[EvilGenius Grand Maester Pycelle]] in order [[HeKnowsTooMuch to prevent him from revealing the secrets]] of Queen Cersei.]]
* In the ''[[Literature/TheCulture The Culture]]'' novel ''Literature/{{Inversions}}'', Vossil is the (female) court physician at a court with a MedievalEuropeanFantasy feel, and is capable of miraculous cures. Although the other characters she interacts with don't know this, the reader is to understand that she is an operative for The Culture, a post-scarcity ''science fiction'' society.

** ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII'': "The Reaper's Due" DLC allows the player to hire a court physician who can attempt to treat the diseases the DLC also added. Mind you, since it's Middle Ages medicine, any treatments he offers are a crapshoot at best, and if the physician has the mystic trait he might try to treat the patient by rubbing them with the ashes of sacrificed animals or decide they're possessed and attempt to drown them, for example. However, if the physician's learning score is high enough, these madcap treatments can actually work.

* [[UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk Grigori Rasputin]] made his name as the personal healer of Alexei, the hemophiliac son of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. His ability to supposedly cure the boy's symptoms when no one else was able to earned him the personal ear of the Tsarina. Considering his lowborn status as a Siberian peasant, this made him a number of enemies in the Russian court who despised his influence over the Tsar's family and suspected him of all sorts of unpleasant things, from sexual perversion to charlatanism to treason to witchcraft. Eventually it got to a point where he was assassinated by Russian nobles, which according to legend [[RasputinianDeath took many consecutive attempts]]. Interestingly for this trope, he was also a man of the cloth (a preacher of the Orthodox Church and not, as his [[TheMagnificent popular epithet]] would lead you to believe, a monk).

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[[AC: Real Life]]

* The ''[[FanFic/TriptychContinuum Triptych Continuum]]'' gives us The Doctors Bear ([[{{Series/Scrubs}} Vanilla and Chocolate)]], Royal Physicians. In Equestria's case, the posting was recently revived after a major health scare, and the unicorns who contributed to the solution were asked to hold it. They're responsible for keeping the Princesses in good condition, and that means [[spoiler: they had to be told certain secrets, like the fact that there's no such thing as a naturally-born alicorn.]] It's something of a high-stress occupation, especially since having both siblings fall ill at the same time means the doctors become responsible for saving the world -- and in the name of preventing that circumstance, they do have a limited capacity to issue medically-based orders, to keep their patients out of needless danger [[spoiler: And there's also the ongoing problem of having to figure out how an alicorn body actually ''works''...]]

* The ''[[FanFic/TriptychContinuum Triptych Continuum]]'' gives us The Doctor Bear ([[{{Series/Scrubs}} Vanilla and Chocolate)]], Royal Physicians. In Equestria's case, the posting was recently revived after a major health scare, and the unicorns who contributed to the solution were asked to hold it. They're responsible for keeping the Princesses in good condition, and that means [[spoiler: they had to be told certain secrets, like the fact that there's no such thing as a naturally-born alicorn.]] It's something of a high-stress occupation, especially since having both siblings fall ill at the same time means the doctors become responsible for saving the world -- and in the name of preventing that circumstance, they do have a limited capacity to issue medically-based orders, to keep their patients out of needless danger [[spoiler: And there's also the ongoing problem of having to figure out how an alicorn body actually ''works''...]]

* [[UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk Grigori Rasputin]] made his name as the personal healer of Alexei, the hemophiliac son of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. His ability to supposedly cure the boy's symptoms when no one else was able to earn him the personal ear of the Tsarina. Considering his lowborn status as a Siberian peasant, this made him a number of enemies in the Russian court who despised his influence over the Tsar's family and suspected him of all sorts of unpleasant things, from sexual perversion to charlatanism to treason to witchcraft. Eventually it got to a point where he was finally assassinated by Russian nobles, which according to legend [[RasputinianDeath took many consecutive attempts]]. Interestingly for this trope, he was also a man of the cloth (a preacher of the Orthodox Church and not, as his [[TheMagnificent popular epithet]] would lead you to believe, a monk).

** The ''[[FanFic/TriptychContinuum Triptych Continuum]]'' gives us The Doctor Bear ([[{{Series/Scrubs}} Vanilla and Chocolate)]], Royal Physicians. In Equestria's case, the posting was recently revived after a major health scare, and the unicorns who contributed to the solution were asked to hold it. They're responsible for keeping the Princesses in good condition, and that means [[spoiler: they had to be told certain secrets, like the fact that there's no such thing as a naturally-born alicorn.]] It's something of a high-stress occupation, especially since having both siblings fall ill at the same time means the doctors become responsible for saving the world -- and in the name of preventing that circumstance, they do have a limited capacity to issue medically-based orders, to keep their patients out of needless danger [[spoiler: And there's also the ongoing problem of having to figure out how an alicorn body actually ''works''...]]

** The ''[[FanFic/TriptychContinuum Triptych Continuum]]'' gives us The Doctor Bear ([[{{Series/Scrubs}} Vanilla and Chocolate)]], Royal Physicians. In Equestria's case, the posting was recently revived after a major health scare, and the unicorns who contributed to the solution were asked to hold it. They're responsible for keeping the Princesses in good condition, and that means [[spoiler: they had to be told certain secrets, like the fact that there's no such thing as a naturally-born alicorn.]] It's something of a high-stress occupation, especially since having both siblings fall ill at the same time means the doctors become responsible for saving the world -- and in the name of preventing that circumstance, they do have a limited capacity to issue medically-based orders, to keep their patients out of needless danger.

* UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat once received a letter claiming that his physician Philip of Acarnania had been bribed to poison him. The next time he fell ill, Alexander told Philip about the letter, remarked that he knew little about medicine but much about men, and demonstrated that he did not believe the accusation by drinking the medicine Philip had brought. His trust was well-placed; he recovered.

* UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat once received a letter claiming that his physician Philip of Acarnania had been bribed to poison him. After being given a medicinal drink, Alexander told Philip about the letter, remarked that he knew little about medicine but much about men, and demonstrated that he did not believe the accusation by drinking the medicine. His trust was well-placed; he recovered.

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* In ''Fanfic/TheLandOfWhatMightHaveBeen'', professional mage-surgeon Dr Kiln serves as the personal physician to the [[RebelLeader Great Mentor]] of the Deviant Nations. Given that his employer is [[NeverMessWithGranny old]], [[HandicappedBadass infirm]] and [[FrontlineGeneral not above straying onto the battlefield]], he's got his work cut out for him. However, the Mentor also enjoys sending him to care for vital personnel like [[Theatre/{{Wicked}} Elphaba]] - who usually doesn't want his help or appreciate [[spoiler: being dosed with performance-enhancing drugs without her knowledge]]. Consequently, Kiln is left a bit exasperated by the fact that both of his patients seem to have a death wish, forcing him to work overtime on the battlefield to save their lives. [[spoiler: He's actually the [[AlternateSelf alternate universe equivalent]] of Boq.]]

[[AC: Film]]
* ''Film/TheLastKingOfScotland'' charts the career of the fictitious Dr Nicholas Garrigan, personal physician to President Idi Amin. Having taken a shine to the young doctor during a chance encounter, Amin has him attend not only to his own health but that of his family, while also allowing him to spend his off-hours working at a hospital. Unfortunately, though Garrigan is rewarded with five-star accommodations, fine clothes, fancy cars and significant influence, he soon ends up having to confront the human rights violations that ensue as his patient grows steadily more unstable. By the end, Garrigan is widely hated as an unwitting enabler of Amin's madness and treated as little more than a pet for the president to amuse himself with.

[[AC: Literature]]

* In the ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' saga, Suk doctors are employed by the richest and most powerful families to serve as private physicians. Already highly-regarded for their skills, what makes them truly valuable is their reputation for utter trustworthiness: as part of their training, Suks are [[BehavioralConditioning conditioned]] to be [[UndyingLoyalty incapable of betraying their masters]], ensuring that they can never be used as assassins. It's for this reason that only Suk doctors are allowed to attend to the Padishah Emperor, and that Dr Wellington Yueh enjoys the total trust of the Atreides family. [[spoiler: Unknown to all, Baron Harkonnen has been able to break Yueh's otherwise-infallible conditioning by [[IHaveYourWife holding his wife hostage]], allowing the Harkonnens to mould him into the perfect traitor within Atreides ranks.]]

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* ''Theatre/TheMadnessOfGeorgeIII'' from 1991 has three personal physicians attending the King: Doctors Baker, Pepys and Warren. Their principal treatment is bloodletting, which was in vogue at the time. Analyzing the King's symptoms is regarded as the theatrics of flim-flam phonies.

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* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas,'' it's possible for you to "[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential volunteer]]" the services of [[spoiler: Arcade Gannon]] as a personal slave and physician to Caesar. [[spoiler: Should Caesar survive his illness and achieve victory over the Mohave, Arcade spends many years unwillingly attending to his new master's health, even becoming valued as an companion for his education and his willingness to argue with Caesar; in the end, Arcade is able to use this as an opportunity to steal a scalpel and [[DrivenToSuicide disembowel himself]]. However, if Caesar dies prior to the endgame and Lanius achieves victory in his stead, the Legate quickly tires of Arcade's sarcasm and has him crucified.]]

[[AC: Western Animation]]

-->'''Azula''': I'd rather the family physician look after [[spoiler: Zuzu]], if you don't mind!

** The second was one Theodor Morell, a fashionable doctor with his own practice until he was personally recommended to Hitler. He was nicknamed ''Reichsspritzenmeister'' (Reich Master of Injections) due to his use of injections, some containing products such as caffeine, belladonna, cocaine and methamphetamine. Due to his poor hygiene, obesity and strange cures, other members of the inner circle thought Morell was a quack; in particular, Albert Speer characterized him as a lazy, careless, opportunistic DrFeelgood who quarrelled frequently with Brandt. For good measure, it's likely that Morell's use of highly-addictive stimulants prompted some of Hitler's more questionable strategies over the years, and ultimately contributed towards the decline of his mental health.

* [[UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk Grigori Rasputin]] made his name as the personal healer of Alexei, the hemophiliac son of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. His ability to supposedly cure the boy's symptoms when no one else was able to earned him the personal ear of the Tsarina. Considering his lowborn status as a Siberian peasant, this made him a number of enemies in the Russian court who despised his influence over the Tsar's family and suspected him of all sorts of unpleasant things, from sexual perversion to charlatanism to treason to witchcraft. Eventually it got to a point where he was finally assassinated by Russian nobles, which according to legend [[RasputinianDeath took many consecutive attempts]]. Interestingly for this trope, he was also a man of the cloth (a preacher of the Orthodox Church and not, as his [[TheMagnificent popular epithet]] would lead you to believe, a monk).

* UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat once received a letter claiming that his physician Philip of Acarnania had been bribed to poison him. After being given a medicinal drink, Alexander told Philip about the letter, remarked that he knew little about medicine but much about men, and demonstrated that he did not believe the accusation by drinking the medicine. His trust was well-placed; he recovered.

* Sir William Gull was the physician in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, and later to Queen Victoria herself. However, despite his success in saving Edward VII from typhoid, Gull is better known as one of the more popular suspects in the case of Jack the Ripper - as seen in ''ComicBook/FromHell'' - though it's doubtful that Gull actually killed any of the victims given that he was in his seventies ''and'' recovering from one of several strokes at the time.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Played with in "Feet of Clay". When the Patrician falls mysteriously ill, Commander Vimes distrusts all doctors, mostly because nearly all of the Ankh-Morpork medical community consists of quacks who can always claim that a dead patient was "the will of the Gods". Instead, he hires a horse doctor as his physician because racing horses are ''valuable'' and a horse doctor who can't keep the majority of his patients alive risks having an encounter late at night with somebody telling him that "[[TheDon Mister Chrystophrase]] is ''very'' upset."

* In the ''ComicBook/Marvel1602'' continuity, Dr Stephen Strange is the court physician to Queen Elizabeth I, no easy task given her failing health. Despite the change in setting, though, he's still essentially ComicBook/DoctorStrange and thus serves as an unofficial CourtMage to his monarch - making him the best-equipped to investigate Virginia Dare's strange condition. [[spoiler: Tragically, Elizabeth is assassinated on the orders of Otto Von Doom, leaving James I on the throne; soon after, [[KickTheDog he has Strange executed]].]]