Doctor Cha
医師チャ・ジョンスク
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A housewife of twenty years returns to medicine and discovers her husband's second family at the same hospital.
Cha Jeong-suk finished medical school, got pregnant during her training and gave up medicine. Twenty years on she runs the household of her husband, Seo In-ho, a senior surgeon at Gusan University Hospital, and waits on his domineering mother, Kwak Ae-shim. In-ho has slept in a separate room for a decade and treats her with contempt. When acute hepatitis leaves her needing a liver transplant, In-ho is the only match, and at his mother's urging he backs out; Jeong-suk wakes from the anaesthetic without a new liver. Another donor saves her. Her transplant surgeon, Roy Kim, lets her watch him operate, and she decides to use the life she has been given. Against her family's objections she passes the exams and becomes a first-year resident in family medicine at In-ho's hospital, in the same intake as her own son, Jung-min.
What she does not know, and what In-ho, his mother and in time her children all know, is that In-ho has had a long affair with Choi Seung-hee, his first love and now a professor in Jeong-suk's own department, and that they have a teenage daughter, Eun-seo. Jeong-suk learns it in stages, the last of them overhearing Eun-seo call In-ho 'Dad'. She moves into the residents' dormitory, confronts the two of them, tells Seung-hee to find another job and, after watching In-ho try to push the blame for a patient's death onto Seung-hee's department, asks for a divorce. Roy, younger and openly devoted, stays close.
Then her liver begins to fail again. Roy offers to be her donor. In-ho, in tears, begs to give her part of his liver this time. She refuses: she does not want to owe him. Only when he signs the divorce papers and asks her to take it as his repentance does she accept. The operations succeed. They finalise the divorce, go for a meal together and exchange apologies. Seung-hee and In-ho part, and she moves to another hospital. Jeong-suk turns down Roy. Three years later she has her own family medicine clinic and a motorcycle licence, and she is happy on her own.
Starring
Uhm Jung-hwaas Cha Jeong-suk
A medical graduate who spent twenty years as a housewife and returns to the hospital as a first-year resident after nearly dying.
Cha Jeong-suk’s story
Jeong-suk finished medical school, became pregnant by In-ho while he was seeing another woman, married him and gave up medicine. Twenty years on, when she needs a liver, he backs out. Saved by another donor, she decides to use the life she has been given and becomes a first-year resident at his hospital, beside her own son. She learns about In-ho's second family in stages, last of all overhearing his daughter call him 'Dad'. She gives Seung-hee a month to find another job and asks for a divorce. When her liver fails again, she refuses In-ho's until he signs the divorce papers and asks her to take it as his repentance. Afterwards they share a meal and apologise. She turns Roy down. Three years on she has her own clinic, a motorcycle licence and a happy life alone.
Kim Byung-chulas Seo In-ho
Jeong-suk's husband, a vain senior surgeon who belittles her and has kept a second family for years.
Seo In-ho’s story
In-ho married Jeong-suk when she became pregnant while he was seeing his first love, Seung-hee, and has had a long affair with Seung-hee since, with a teenage daughter by her. He treats his wife with contempt, and when she needs a liver, he backs out at his mother's urging. Once she knows everything, he will not divorce her; he drops Seung-hee and tries to lay a patient's death on her department. When Jeong-suk's liver fails again, he breaks down and begs on his knees to be her donor; refused, he signs the divorce papers and asks her to take the liver as his repentance. After the surgery and the divorce they share a meal and apologise. He becomes hospital director with no family to celebrate with. Three years on, he and Jeong-suk meet easily as co-parents.
Myung Se-binas Choi Seung-hee
In-ho's first love and long-time lover, a family medicine professor raising their daughter alone.
Choi Seung-hee’s story
Seung-hee was In-ho's first love until he married Jeong-suk, her classmate, who was pregnant. Later she had his daughter, Eun-seo, and has held on to him for years, wanting a whole family for the girl. When Eun-seo tells her, 'It's not that I needed a father. You needed a husband,' she asks In-ho whether he will divorce. He will not, and she returns his bracelet. Once Jeong-suk knows, Seung-hee refuses to let him go, and Jeong-suk gives her a month to find another job. In-ho drops her and tries to blame her department for a patient's death, and she fights back in public, telling Jeong-suk that the two of them are not so different. In the end she apologises, parts from In-ho without rancour and moves to another hospital, which three years on she runs.
Min Woo-hyukas Roy Kim
The transplant surgeon who saves Jeong-suk's life, encourages her back into medicine and falls for her.
Park Joon-geumas Kwak Ae-shim
In-ho's controlling mother, who treats Jeong-suk as a maid and stops her son from donating his liver.
Why it matters
Doctor Cha is a comedy about a woman who nearly dies and decides to live, and under the slapstick it is precise about what twenty years as a wife can cost. Jeong-suk gave up medicine for a family that treated her as staff; her husband would not give her part of his liver; everyone around her knew about his second family before she did. The series lets her rage, push his face into a birthday cake and move out. Its real subject, though, is a middle-aged woman going back to work among colleagues half her age and choosing, in the end, neither the husband nor the younger suitor but herself. It became one of the highest-rated series in the history of Korean cable television. The question it leaves is gentler than its villains deserve: whether someone who did this much harm can still be someone to share a meal with afterwards.