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| Doc Season 3: Who Are the New Interns and Who Plays Them? |
Doc season 3 wastes little time introducing a new batch of interns at Westside, and four newcomers quickly stand out: Graham Barker, Ruth Chen, Kyle Ferguson and Nikki De Silva. The latest season begins after a small time jump following the hospital's previous lockdown, with several familiar faces gone and a new group of doctors trying to find their footing. They arrive with very different personalities, from an anxious perfectionist to a homeschooled medical prodigy, so Westside's newest recruits are hardly a quiet bunch.
Barrett Carnahan plays Graham Barker, a talented intern who has apparently been handed the world's least convenient surname: "the son of a major Westside donor". Graham has the ability, confidence and charm to make a strong impression, but the privilege attached to his family makes him uncomfortable with how others might view his achievements.
That gives Graham a particularly useful problem for the season. He isn't simply trying to become a better doctor; he is trying to prove that he deserves to be there without his father's money opening doors for him. It also creates an interesting contrast with Sonya, whose wealthy father has previously tried to influence her career. Graham's father has yet to properly enter the story, but the pressure surrounding him is already doing plenty of work.
Carnahan brings plenty of television experience to the role. He began acting in community theatre before moving to Los Angeles, eventually gaining wider recognition as Jake Riordan in One of Us Is Lying. His other credits include Good Girls Revolt, Grown-ish, Good Behavior and Obliterated, while he also appears as Marcus Haskell in For All Mankind season 5. In other words, Graham may be the new intern trying to prove himself, but his actor is hardly starting from scratch.
Then there is Ruth Chen, played by Cecilia Lee, whose defining quality is almost aggressively wholesome. Ruth is the empathetic member of the new group, the sort of person who seems determined to find the human side of every situation even when the hospital is doing everything possible to make that difficult.
Her first day does not exactly go smoothly, with Ruth coming dangerously close to making a serious mistake involving the Hippocratic Oath. Yet rather than becoming discouraged, she remains one of the most upbeat interns around. That compassion is clearly her greatest strength, although it can also leave her emotionally overwhelmed when cases become difficult.
There is a touch of early Jake Heller in Ruth, particularly in the way her desire to save people can become both a motivation and a source of pressure. Her background remains relatively unexplored for now, but Ruth's empathy gives her an immediate identity within the new intern group, rather than making her feel like another interchangeable hospital newcomer.
Lee also arrives with some medical-drama experience. She previously worked behind the camera as a camera assistant before moving into acting, appearing in Wong & Winchester, The Holiday Swap and Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. She later played Maya Chang in SkyMed, another series centred on people working in high-pressure medical environments. Ruth may be the cheerful one at Westside, but Lee clearly knows her way around a workplace where things can go sideways before lunch.
Kolton Stewart plays Kyle Ferguson, arguably the strangest member of the new intern class. Kyle is exceptionally young, exceptionally intelligent and apparently exceptionally unfamiliar with the concept of simply being a normal medical trainee.
His unusual education explains much of it. Kyle was homeschooled before pursuing medicine, leaving him with an impressive amount of theoretical knowledge but relatively little understanding of how an actual hospital operates. Knowing the answer in a textbook is one thing; knowing what to do when a real patient and a room full of doctors are staring at you is quite another.
Kyle quickly begins closing that gap, showing that his intelligence isn't just there for the writers to mention whenever convenient. His sincerity is another major part of his character. He genuinely wants to do the right thing, although that straightforward approach doesn't always work when medicine becomes complicated and people aren't quite as predictable as textbooks.
Stewart has a suitably varied background for the role, having worked across acting, music, dance and theatre from a young age. He gained recognition through Some Assembly Required, before appearing in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, The Expanse, Locke & Key and My Life with the Walter Boys. He has also voiced Rory Carmichael in Unicorn Academy and played Young Simba during the national tour of The Lion King. Kyle might be the rookie who knows everything except how the room works, but Stewart has plenty of experience to draw on.
The fourth newcomer is Nikki De Silva, played by Raffa Virago, and she might be the most immediately relatable of the lot. Nikki is smart, fast with a comeback and seemingly incapable of relaxing for more than three consecutive seconds. Her constant need to stay in control becomes a problem almost immediately because Westside is, rather inconveniently, a hospital where control is mostly an illusion.
Nikki's anxiety does not make her ineffective, though. Quite the opposite. When situations become unpredictable, her sharp instincts and willingness to act help keep things moving. She may spend half her time worrying about what could go wrong, but that caution can prove useful when something actually does.
Her first day with the team is hardly flawless, yet Nikki quickly establishes herself as one of the interns with the clearest understanding of what hospital life demands. Her tendency to overthink everything could become a running source of humour, particularly when paired with colleagues who are considerably more relaxed about chaos.
Virago has already built a career around emotionally demanding roles. She gained attention for Dying in Plain Sight, playing Morgan Cruz, a performance that earned her a 2024 Imagen Award. She later appeared as Cadet Pickford in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, while her credits also include Billie in Macy Murdoch and Amy Fernandes in Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.
What makes the new group work is that Doc season 3 doesn't introduce four versions of the same ambitious young doctor. Graham is dealing with the suspicion that his family name matters more than his ability. Ruth is driven by empathy but risks taking everything too personally. Kyle has extraordinary academic knowledge but needs to learn the practical language of medicine. Nikki understands the pressure of the job while simultaneously looking like she would quite like the universe to stop surprising her for five minutes.
That variety gives the season a useful new rhythm. After spending much of season 2 dealing with Hannah Clark and the impact of her past on Amy, the series has room to widen its focus again. The new interns aren't simply there to fill empty spaces at Westside. Each arrives with a problem that can naturally feed into the medical cases and relationships ahead.
the four newcomers are probably most interesting when the show allows their flaws to sit alongside their abilities rather than rushing to turn them into instant favourites. Graham's privilege creates an obvious source of conflict, but his desire to prove himself could make that storyline more complicated than the standard rich-kid stereotype.
Ruth has the warmest personality of the group, although there is always a danger that the endlessly compassionate doctor becomes a little too saintly. Kyle, meanwhile, could easily become annoying if his genius is pushed too hard, but his lack of real-world experience gives the character a fun weakness.
Nikki is perhaps the easiest to picture in the long run because her competence and anxiety naturally create both drama and comedy. Basically, Westside has recruited four doctors who each need to learn something completely different, which is far more useful than giving everyone the same "I want to be the best doctor" storyline. The only question is which of them will still be standing comfortably when Westside inevitably throws its next disaster at them.
For now, Barrett Carnahan, Cecilia Lee, Kolton Stewart and Raffa Virago give Doc season 3 a distinctly different group of young doctors to work with, and their characters already have enough personality to make the transition from newcomers to established Westside figures feel believable. Which intern has made the strongest first impression for you so far, and whose storyline do you think could become the most interesting as the season continues?