Though you may not know, lab coat’s have become almost as synonymous with pop culture lately as they have been with medical professional. Besides being the symbol for doctors, nurses and other medical professionals the world over, a lab coat has been a major prop in television, movies, music and literature as long as they have existed.

Don’t believe me: just check your television schedule. Doctor’s have become sex symbols in recent years. Outside of being successful and smart, doctors on television shows have become fit, rarely clean shaven, frisky lotharios that are just as concerned with getting the girl as they are with curing the disease (they typically do both, don’t you worry). The fact that these “doctors” (or at least the actors who play them on television) can look sexy while wearing their lab coats just speaks to how doctors have become the new sexy “it” profession on the small, and big, screen.

At the other end of the spectrum, there can also be nothing scarier than an evil person in a lab coat. What was sexy on McDreamy can become a mysterious cloaking device on a doctor moonlighting as an evil killer or a mass murderer who has taken on the doctor persona. These characters play on the human nature to be ultimately nervous about someone who is this intimate with your health and body. Hollywood, and authors, have always been good at exploiting this fear. This is why doctors, medical professionals, and people just dressed as doctors, have been some of the best serial killers and spooky stalkers in media.

Medical professionals as pop culture symbols have not just been a recent phenomenon. As far as there has been the printed word doctors have played key parts in stories. From Dr. Zhivago to Dr. Moreau to Doctor Frankenstein, people who have dawned lab coats have played key roles in some of our favorite classic stories.

Even on television shows, doctors have always been some of the most intriguing characters we align ourselves with on a daily or weekly basis. Soaps like General Hospital Days of Our Lives revolutionized the way doctors are thought of in daily life (i.e. as sex symbols). During prime time, doctors have always been a favorite of nighttime dramas. Recently, thanks to ER and Chicago Hope in the mid 90’s, doctors on television have hit a renaissance. Now you can rarely spend a night watching television without seeing a doctor drama. From the soap opera-like drama of “Grey’s Anatomy” to the more real life drama of “House” to even comedy shows like “Scrubs”, doctors in pop culture are all around us.

Kimberly Green finds cultural icons, such as the lab coat, to be a fascinating study.