“Doctor Slump” (닥터슬럼프)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
March 16, 2024

☆☆☆☆
Yeo Jeong-woo (played by Park Hyung-sik)
Nam Ha-neul (played by Park Shin-hye)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

I included this review in my best-of list for Teen Vogue:

Former high school rivals Jeong-woo (Park Hyung-sik) and Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye) form a truce as adults after both face slumps in their medical careers. Celebrity plastic surgeon Jeong-woo loses his lucrative practice after a patient dies during surgery. Anesthesiologist Ha-neul takes a break from her career when she can no longer tolerate her abusive and sexist boss, who steals her ideas and promotes men over her. Jeong-woo’s well-connected family is less concerned about his mental health than how his failure can impact negatively on his father’s medical career. 

And Ha-neul’s image-conscious mother tries to push her daughter back to work, fearful that she will be deemed a failure if Ha-neul is no longer a physician. Thankfully, Ha-neul works out her feelings of obligation, disappointment, and confusion with the help of a therapist who is there to do what few in her life are willing to do: listen. Her influence also helps Jeong-woo realize what really matters in life. As Ha-neul says, “Life is a long journey. I’m not worthless because I didn’t reach a specific goal at a designated time. Good fortune exists and is waiting for me.” (Netflix)

Airdates: Sixteen hour-long episodes aired on JTBC from January 27 to March 16, 2024. (I watched this on Netflix.)

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