Doctor X Faces a Broadcast Review Complaint From a Real Doctor After Two Episodes

A self-identified orthopedic surgeon filed a broadcast review request against SBS's Friday-Saturday drama Doctor X: The Age of the White Mafia on the 13th, and posted a screenshot of the filing on social media on the 15th. The screen from the Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission shows the complaint with a status of "pending receipt," meaning it has not yet been processed.

It is the latest step in a dispute over medical accuracy that began almost as soon as the show did. Doctor X premiered on the 9th, following the genius surgeon Gye Su-jeong (played by Kim Ji-won), and has been a ratings success: 11.4% for episode 1 and 14.9% for episode 2. It also reached No. 1 on Netflix's global non-English TV chart.

What the complaint says

The poster argued that the drama "depicts rounds as unnecessary busywork, reduces medical staff to incompetent villains, and repeatedly ignores the uncertainty inherent in medical practice." They added that they understand dramatic exaggeration, but judged that this level could plant a mistaken view of medical reality in viewers.

The poster was candid about the odds. They wrote that an actual sanction is unlikely, but that raising the issue was still necessary. If doctors stay quiet, they are asked why they don't speak up, and if they do speak, they expect criticism; as a professional, they said, they could not simply watch a false impression harden.

They had also written to SBS directly. On the 13th, the broadcaster replied that it had passed the message to the relevant department and would refer to it in production. The poster called that a standard answer and said they doubted it would lead to real change.

The scenes under scrutiny

Medical criticism has centered on a few moments: how an inguinal hernia patient is sent to emergency surgery, the thin depiction of anesthesia and treatment for a patient so critical that blood pressure cannot be measured, and a scene in which a cardiac arrest patient receives a 300J defibrillation shock. Critics say these do not match real clinical practice.

The discussion widened when Namgung In, an emergency physician and author who worked on the drama, answered a user on social media. Asked whether he had really provided medical advice, he said he was an on-site adviser. He added that if something medically wrong appears on screen, it can be read as the adviser having lost an argument with the production team.

Why a single filing matters

Medical dramas have long traded on heightened stakes, and viewers generally accept some compression of procedure. What is different here is that the objection has moved from online debate into a formal channel. Whether the commission takes it up is unknown, and the poster expects little. Still, the filing, combined with an adviser's public comment about the limits of his influence, keeps the accuracy question attached to a show that is otherwise performing very well.