thegooddoctorheadcanons:

The surgical team at St. Bonaventure has, what they affectionately call, The List. The List is on each of their phones, and it is a list of every single topic that they absolutely cannot, should not, and will not bring up during work hours. This was implemented after Claire and Jared spent fifteen minutes arguing about whether or not some actor deserved some award for some tv show. Melendez was so sick of hearing about it that he banned them from talking about it anymore. And before too long he began to ban more things that were distracting, and it got to be so many that they all had to keep track of it in their notes. And every time someone says or does something against The List, they’re immediately shut down, usually by Shaun, who responds to their breach by shoving his phone in their face.

It’s an expansive list that goes on and on. Claire can’t talk about the newest episode of The Bachelor on Tuesdays, and it’s forbidden to ask whether a hotdog is a sandwich or a taco because that had sparked a five minute controversy. Jared isn’t allowed to sing the Wherenberg theme song because he sings it wrong, and it annoys both Melendez and Shaun to no end. It’s on The List that Shaun can’t call Melendez arrogant anymore, but he still does anyway, so it’s kind of pointless. But it’s just as fair, because Shaun had asked if they could put ‘Melendez can’t be rude or grumpy to his students’ on The List and it had been vetoed.