Once a Doctor 1937

Excerpts from the Hippocratic Oath appear before the title card.

Jerry Brace, Gordon Oliver, a reckless alcoholic, and his foster brother, Steven Brace, Donald Woods, are physicians, as is their father, Dr. Frank Brace, Joe King. They work at the same hospital as Bruce Nordland, Henry Kolker, a celebrated brain surgeon who is a family friend. Both brothers are in love with Paula Nordland, Jean Muir. In their close-knit but troubled medical world, Steven often covers for Jerry’s faults, trying to salvage a sense of responsibility from their shared profession.

One night, Jerry takes nurse Ruby Horton, Louise Stanley, for a drunken ride and crashes. Fearful of the consequences, Jerry brings her home, while Steven is forced to confront the aftermath. At the hospital, Jerry begs Steven to go and save Ruby, and he vows to sober up and order an antitoxin for a patient. Steven discovers that Ruby is already dead; Jerry never orders the shot and passes out, and the patient dies as a result. When Steven recounts the events to Dr. Brace and Dr. Adams, he also shields the unnamed doctor who helped him, knowing the peril to both his career and his relationship with Paula.

Dr. Brace warns of the consequences, and Steven persuades Jerry to confess. But Jerry lies, feigning shock at the suggestions and blaming his brother. The lie costs Steven his career: he is fired and barred from future medical practice. Nordland trusts Steven, yet the only opening he can offer is a position as a male nurse at a charity clinic Nordland runs in a poor neighborhood.

At the clinic, Steven learns that his fifth life-saving operation—a secret, but crucial procedure—has earned him quiet recognition among a few colleagues. When a child is suddenly injured in a street accident, Steven insists on performing the necessary operation, a Nordland Decompression, with Paula accompanying him. Brace argues it’s too late, but Steven pushes ahead, and the police arrive just as the operation is underway.

Paula and Dr. Brace testify in court. The magistrate seems inclined to wait, but word comes that the child has died. Steven is convicted of manslaughter. Dr. Brace washes his hands of him, and Jerry makes a play for Paula, claiming that Steven was not fit to be a doctor and promising that he will give the profession—and Paula—the treatment they deserve.

A year passes. Steven is paroled and remanded to Nordland’s custody. Nordland explains that an autopsy reveals Steven’s surgery to be indistinguishable from his own, and Steven’s ability to perform Nordland Decompressions makes him invaluable to medical science. He cannot practice in the United States, but Nordland has established a charity clinic in Cuba. Dr. Brace, Jerry, and Paula sail to Havana on a private yacht, while Steven sails on the SS Orlando, a Cuban freighter whose ship’s doctor is a friend of the Nordlands.

On the yacht, Paula and Joe King’s character, Dr. Brace, are revolted by Jerry’s drinking, and when Jerry tries to stop his father from throwing a bottle overboard during a storm, Dr. Brace falls. Still drunk, Jerry diagnoses a basal fracture and wants to operate. The yacht’s radio distress call picks up the Orlando. Despite the storm, the vessels press toward the rendezvous, but there is no way to get Steven to the yacht by boat. Steven suggests a breeches buoy; Captain Littlejohn, Edward Keane, refuses to take responsibility for Steven’s life but fires a line anyway. As the captain predicted, Steven is underwater for much of the trip, but he surfaces just as Jerry is preparing to operate. Paula hides when she hears Steven’s voice, and crewmen muscle Jerry out of the cabin.

When he sees who the patient is, Steven hesitates and begins to leave. Paula stops him, and he lists the many wrongs he has endured, while Paula responds with the Hippocratic oath. He asks her to administer the anesthetic.

In a Havana hotel, Nordland interrupts Steven and Paula. He plans to introduce Steven to the board as the superintendent of his clinic. Dr. Brace asks to see them, presenting a telegram from Jerry. In the telegram, Jerry writes of “the first decent act of his life.”> “the first decent act of his life.” Jerry has confessed. He is going away for good.

Steven agrees to keep Dr. Brace’s name and undertakes to share it with Paula. The two share a quiet, hopeful kiss as the Havana night unfolds, marking a complex turn in their tangled, morally charged story.