As said Barbara, it's really longer to go from Adept to Master than from Trainee to Adept!!
And yes, the events and the Gong may help a lot!
The "likes/dislikes" may also help! some of my doctors like Medicine or Herbs!

Mine dislikes Laundr well, that's good at least. I think he dislikes resting, but he's a typical pond doctor LOL

Of all the Docs I tried.... MINE LIKES MEDICINE!! But will not practice it and also i had another who also LIKES HERBS, which is truly weird when they dont like to study the herbs oir practice medicine....

I believe if you are patient and persistent you should be able to just keep dropping them there and that skill will build. I only had one that this sorta didn't work with. I kept trying to get her to fish and she kept running from the water. She tends the garden though.

As Yosemite Sam might say: "Rassan' frassan' rickin' frackin' laaaaazy doctors!"

It seems slightly skewed that other villagers continue to do what it is that they're tasked, but doctors do nothing but laze about in the pond, get a drink, cool their feet. For heaven's sake I can't get my Master Scientists to do anything else.

You're right that you always have someone to heal, but I kinda like my peeps to have a wide skill-set. Plus, it makes it more worthwhile when you're taking time out to drag *four* of the lazy bums back to the bush they're avoiding like the plague. Takes as much time as it would with one!

*giggles* And I guess I was too squeamish. I made the "sickening" stew, but I didn't MAKE anyone eat it. I just made sure the doctor was around if they did.

Doctors are the most Lucky of all villagers

3 reasons

1.They get to rest when there is no work

2.They have to be scolded to do their work

3.They don't have to do anything when we're not playing

As long as you don't "invisible" your doctors

yep

If you think about it, that mirrors real-life doctors quite accurately.

In RL, doctors can only do so much studying; they then have to learn from experience with real cases of sick people.

It's not really true that they don't do anything when we're not playing. Lots of times I've opened a game to discover a doctor has advanced to Master while the game is off. A glance at the log file will often show them looking for sick people to heal, and successfully healing them. In addition, young doctors generally advance to adept on their own by studying the strange plants whether the game in on or off, as mentioned in other posts above.

My Docs are always doing laundry. Maybe they have a lot of scrubs to keep clean?? I never knew laundry was such an important part of practicing medicine!