The Popular K-Drama “Doctor Cha” Is Under Fire For The Poor Word Choices Used To Describe A Patient With Crohn’s Disease

The popular JTBC K-Drama Doctor Cha is under fire for misrepresenting Crohn’s disease and using poor word choices to describe it.

Doctor Cha is about a housewife, played by singer and actress Uhm Jung Hwa, who decides to return to her medical career as a first-year resident. Being much older than the others, she faces obstacles in her way from fulfilling her dreams.

In the seventh episode, the show introduced a patient with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes swelling in the digestive tract. The scene showed the patient’s family members saying negative things, such as, “How can you hide such a terrible disease?” They also stated that Crohn’s disease can be inherited genetically.

When this episode was released, there were patients with Crohn’s disease and their families who were unhappy. They criticized the show for not accurately portraying the illness and for the poor word choices used to describe it, such as “genetic” and “terrible disease.”

The viewer bulletin board for Doctor Cha had comments demanding an apology and correction from the production team. Some comments read, “If you don’t know about the disease, don’t write it” and “If it’s not a medical drama, you should remove the word ‘doctor’ from the title.”

One comment shared that the scene negatively affected their child with Crohn’s Disease.

My child has Crohn’s Disease. Why are you making my kid who was doing well feel pessimistic?

— Netizen comment

On May 9, an official from JTBC said they were discussing with the production team about the inquiries being made about the scene.