And then there was one. When the 13th season of “The Doctors” premieres Monday, only one doctor will serve as host: Dr. Ian Smith of Chicago.
The shift from a panel of physicians to just Smith — a Connecticut native who earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine — is just one of a few changes Chicago viewers will notice when they tune into The U (WCIU-Ch. 26.2/WMEU-Ch. 48.1) at 9 a.m. weekdays. The hour-long syndicated program is now taped in Stamford, Conn., instead of in Los Angeles. Guests will also appear by video chat amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want to produce a show and put on a show that’s going to help people and provide the information that people are asking for very badly,” Smith told the Tribune by phone. “And so we want to encourage viewers not just to watch us, but interact with us. If there are topics that you want us to cover, if there are experts that you would like to come on the show, please let us know.”
TV is a familiar medium for Smith, a longtime medical contributor to Rachael Ray’s daytime show; a former NBC News health and medical correspondent; and dietitian for the VH1 series “Celebrity Fit Club,” which ended in 2010. He also has written several books, including a novel due out Oct. 1, “The Unspoken,” which was inspired by the 2014 Chicago police killing of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.
The following interview with Smith has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Q. What changes will viewers see on this new season of “The Doctors?”
A. First of all, our theme this year is “take your power back,” and so we’re really going to focus on helping the country reformulate where we are mentally and physically and really regain a sense of control — a control of information, a control of our bodies, a control of our moods. So we’re going to change the format in the sense of we’re going to have a lot of new types of segments that we haven’t had in the past. We’re calling them “franchise” segments. We’re going to have a segment where we talk to people who made a pivot in their life, inspirational stories because of their pivots.
We’re going to have a book club where we actually have a book of the month and several recommendations for that month and different categories that will help people become more empowered. And we’re going to have fiction. We’re going to have some escapism because we believe that there’s power in words. We’re going to have music. We’re going to have musicians come and talk to us and play some music because music is also medicine. So we’re really going to make it a fast-paced show. We’re still going to deal with the X’s and O’s of medicine, but we’re going to expand it to overall wellness, which is beyond disease. It’s about spirituality. It’s about your mental health and about your outlook, your brain.
Q. How much will you tackle coronavirus this season?
A. A lot. We have every intention of really giving a big push to distributing scientifically based information to the country about the virus, about treatment options, about vaccines or potential vaccines, what their safety and efficacy are. So we really are going to be focusing on really what I believe is filling that void that exists right now about real, true, credible, reliable information. We’re going to talk a lot about coronavirus and not just the virus itself, but the things around it. How do you learn? How do you form learning pods? How do you do sports in this era? How do you date during coronavirus? All these different issues that are tangential to the virus infection itself, we’re going to be covering that also.
Q. How often do you travel (to tape the show), and what precautions do you take to travel during this pandemic?
A. We have different weeks. We have active weeks and dark weeks, but a few weeks a month I’ll head out there. I’m taking extreme precaution. My Instagram page will show you how I travel. I wear gloves. I wear, obviously, an N95 mask. I wear goggles or a face shield. I wipe down all of my areas. I don’t touch any public surface with my hands, obviously, but I wipe down all my areas. I also have to say that the airlines have been doing a really great job of cleaning and sanitizing. (They’re) very vigilant about keeping people separate when you’re getting on the plane and off the plane, making sure they call row by row. So they’re really, I think, doing a great job of trying to make it as safe as possible.
Q. Talk to me about this new set. Will it be socially distanced? Will there be a studio audience? What will it look like?
A. Just like other shows, there will be no live audience, and we’re not going to have a virtual audience either. All of our guests will be Zooming into us, and I’ll be inset, and I’ll be talking to them through Zoom to the TV monitors. We’ve shot many shows already, and it feels great. We have different areas of the set that I go to depending on the type of interview I’m doing. It’s just really a nice-looking, very live, very active set, a very new look to the show.
Q. Coronavirus has taken on sort of a political tone. Will politics play at all on this new (season)?
A. We are going to do our absolute best to keep politics out of the pandemic. I think one of the reasons why we’re in such a mess now and why we have not fared better than we have fared is because we’ve allowed the pandemic to be politicized. Viruses and diseases and illnesses are not political. They’re apolitical.
A virus is looking for a host, which is a body. The virus does not know if you are wealthy or poor, what race you are or what party you’re affiliated with, and so no, we are going to do our absolute best to keep politics out of it and really just talk about the facts and get people information they can use. Listen, we want to help everyone. I don’t care what your race is. I don’t care what your economic situation is or your political affiliation. I want to help everybody. I don’t want to see anyone suffer any more than has already happened with this virus.
Q. You mentioned earlier a book club. You’re an author of (a new) Chicago-set book.
A. Yes, that’s going to kick off our book club. My new book is called “The Unspoken.” It is a purely Chicago story. It is based in Chicago. It is very geographically factual, so you’ll recognize a lot of the neighborhoods and the restaurants and Lake Shore Drive and everything else, the Loop and Navy Pier.
It’s a private investigator who used to be a detective with the Chicago Police Department who leaves after not wanting to participate in a cover-up, and he decides to hang up his own shingle and become a P.I. He takes on very select cases around the city, and his first case is finding a wealthy missing girl from the North Shore. His name is Ashe Cayne, and it’s a fun story. It’s already getting rave reviews. We’re very excited, and it’s been considered already and optioned for a TV series before it even came out. This is going to be one book of a series. This character is going to be a recurring character in a series, and it’s always going to be about Chicago.
