When some villagers are sick, you may bring a child to heal them. At the beginning, he refuses but if you insist he is able to heal and to gain some skills and when you have an epidemic, that child may become "apprentice doctor" (and so adept at 14 years old)!
Eh! No! Doing laundry doesn't give any point! And it's a pity when you see how many times they do that!!

Usually the main skill kids can gain is medicine. They can heal other villagers, although they can't yet study the plants. They can also gain a little additional skill in building by exercising. Otherwise, kids are often born with a little of their parents' skill. Finally, there are several island events that give skills.

I have a few master doctors, sometimes I had events that gave me a master doctor.

Some Adept Doctors seem to become Masters about 60. However, I've had them as young as 16. It just depends on how much patience you have with them. I hold "Doctoring 101" every day for a bit and just pile mine on the black vine over the pool. Some go on to become masters very quickly. However, when I find my adept doctors doing another skill that has them at adept, and they have not moved out of the same place they were when they became adept doctors, I just change their skill to the one they prefer. It's odd how many doctors of my tribe like to build as well.

well when my doctors arent working they enjoys the lagoon and anything unuseful to the tribe

Robert, check their stats often, because they kind of do the other skill on the sly, when you are concerned about something else.

In my tribe, I see that the doctors (trainee, adept or master) tend to their profession and are not interested to gain other skills. When they are not needed to heal, or are not expected to see a villager in the hospital :), they spend their time enjoying the pond, doing laundry or walking down the beach.

But I am about to find out this: when you train a villager at age 14 and get him to gain building and farming skills, and after that you train him to be a doctor, the doctor keeps some interest in faming and building skills, and becomes adept or master in those. My doctors become master-doctors when a lot of villagers catch an illness (darned gong :?).

have a lot of esteemed elders, but so far I have not succeeded in guiding a doctor to be among them: they are spending so much leisure time, that I cannot get them to gain 3 master skills in their life time.

But I love my doctors because the are really conscious about healing, and come rushing whenever they sense one of my villagers is ill.

Have a nice day