The Good and the Bad of The Good Doctor - Dr. Shaun Murphy on The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor, first aired in 2017 and created by David Shore who interestingly also produced House M.D. follows a surgeon Dr Shaun Murphy who has autism and savant syndrome as he juggles his duties as a doctor and his personal life.
Though a great step forward in disability representation in the field of medicine, especially when compared to previous examples, The Good Doctor still has a long way to go. For example, when autistic adults reviewed the show, David Moloney, Autism Ontario Board Member and Mutual Fund Indexer with CIBC said “All in all, I find that it plays the autism card a little too heavily.” He found the show’s lead actor and writers tried to show autism as a “broad concept or a construct.” He thought this was too general an approach and much was lost this way. “It doesn’t really portray the positivity exuded by people on the spectrum.” (Cnudde, 2021) According to some reviewers, the show does a good job of representing all people who are marginalized (Nguyen, 2017) generalizing the context to other “outsiders” based on race, gender or sexuality, others are of the opinion that the show is too sentimental, using the age old trope of inspiration porn and The doctor who's good at medicine but bad with people is a trope making that doctor a person with autism verging on gimmickry. (Lawler, 2017)

Lawler, K. (2017, September 22). Review: ‘The Good Doctor’ is a too-sentimental portrait of doctor with autism. From USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/09/22/review-the-good-doctor-too-sentimental-portrait-doctor-with-autism/688744001/

Nguyen, H. (2017, October 30). ‘The Good Doctor’ Is the Perfect Show for Anyone Who Feels Like an Outsider, Marginalized, or Misunderstood. From IndieWire: https://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/the-good-doctor-marginalized-outsiders-abc-1201892747/