Dr. Abby: The Top Coordinator Turned Pokémon Doctor

In this Hoenn town, there's no Pokémon Center: there's a clinic. Dr. Abby sees sick Pokémon there and treats them with her hands, massaging pressure points. A photo set near her desk tells the other half of the character's story: before the white coat, she used to win Contests. Her appearance in the anime's Advanced Generation series was enough for her to leave May with a lesson.

Contents

• A town without a Pokémon Center, a clinic right nearby
• Healing by massaging pressure points
• The cup in the photo: a former Top Coordinator
• From the stage to the clinic: a complete career change
• The lesson she leaves May: trust your Pokémon
• Dr. Abby at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A town without a Pokémon Center, a clinic right nearby

It all starts with a trap. In disguise, Team Rocket has dug a pit that Ash and his companions fall into; Torkoal fights back, and the Skitty belonging to May jumps in to help, only to land on Torkoal's shell, which lets out a thick cloud of smoke. Brock's Mudkip drives off the intruders, but the damage is done: the smoke has affected Skitty, who can no longer make a sound.

Max pulls out his PokéNav to find the nearest Pokémon Center, and the group heads for the town it points to. Once there, a passerby tells them there's no Pokémon Center in town — but that a woman doctor runs her clinic right nearby.

That's where Dr. Abby comes in, and her very first line sets the tone: a few massages and some rest will be enough to get Skitty back on its feet. A practitioner who sees patients in her own home, and who starts by laying her hands on them.

Healing by massaging pressure points

Her medicine fits in a single line: she heals Pokémon by massaging their pressure points. A gentle, natural medicine, learned from a fellow doctor, which she applies here not to a visible injury but to a lost voice.

The effect is quick. Relaxed under expert hands, Skitty gets a trickle of its voice back after a few minutes; a full recovery will come with rest, as promised. May, who came looking for a Pokémon Center, discovers a very different kind of treatment.

The episode offers an unintentional demonstration of it. Team Rocket, spying on the consultation and already seeing these cute Pokémon as a gift for their boss Giovanni, comes back in disguise with a supposedly injured Meowth. The massage relaxes him so well that he ends up talking out loud and blows their cover.

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The cup in the photo: a former Top Coordinator

During the session, Ash wanders over to the desk and notices a photo: in it, Dr. Abby is holding a Grand Festival winner's cup, with a Skitty by her side. May instantly recognizes the face — she's seen it in the magazine devoted to Pokémon Contests.

The doctor then tells her story. She won a lot of Contests, and that success made her happy; she competed with her Skitty, and she was famous enough for a young Coordinator to recognize her from a single photo.

Then came the mistake. Overconfident in her abilities, she accepted a challenge against a Flygon, an opponent far too strong for her Skitty. The Pokémon came out of it injured, and that one battle too many turned her whole life upside down.

From the stage to the clinic: a complete career change

To get her Skitty treated, she went to the nearest doctor, who also practiced this gentle medicine on Pokémon. The Pokémon was nursed back to health, and the Coordinator realized there were other ways to work with Pokémon than competition.

She decided to learn the trade and stayed with that man for a while to train. It wasn't a passing curiosity but a change of life: once her training was complete, she went on to practice herself.

Her mentor then gave her a Moon Stone, which evolved her Skitty into Delcatty. The two have worked together ever since: her stage partner became her clinic partner.

The lesson she leaves May: trust your Pokémon

The former competitor hasn't forgotten everything. After telling her story, she shows May some ideas to improve her Contest performance: she throws balls to Skitty, who learns to juggle them using its tail and the move Double Slap.

The training is cut short. Unmasked, Team Rocket grabs Skitty and Delcatty and takes off in their hot-air balloon; Delcatty strikes the balloon's basket so hard that it brings it down, then dodges Cacnea and Seviper before hitting back with Thunderbolt and Solar Beam — moves with nothing Normal about them, to May's amazement.

Dr. Abby then advises May to ask her Skitty for Blizzard. The girl has her doubts, but the doctor insists: you have to trust in your Pokémon's abilities. Skitty follows Delcatty's example, pulls it off on the second try, and the two Pokémon unleash a simultaneous Blizzard that freezes the trio and sends them flying.

Dr. Abby at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Dr. Abby in Pokémon?
  A doctor who treats Pokémon in her own clinic, whom Ash and his friends meet during their journey through Hoenn. She's also a former Top Coordinator, who won the Grand Festival with her Skitty before changing careers.
• How does Dr. Abby treat Pokémon?
  With massage. She practices gentle, natural medicine and works on pressure points: May's Skitty, which lost its voice to smoke, gets some of it back after a few minutes of treatment, and rest does the rest.
• Why did Dr. Abby quit Pokémon Contests?
  After a string of successes, overconfident in her abilities, she accepted a challenge against a Flygon far too strong for her Skitty, which was injured. The doctor who treated it showed her another way of working with Pokémon, and she stayed on to train with him.
• Which Pokémon is with Dr. Abby?
  A Delcatty. It's her former Skitty, her Contest partner, evolved with the Moon Stone her mentor gave her at the end of her training.
• What does May take away from meeting Dr. Abby?
  That you have to trust in your Pokémon's abilities. On Dr. Abby's advice, she asks her Skitty for a Blizzard even though she thought it couldn't do it, and the move is mastered on the second try.

In short

Dr. Abby fits into a single episode's story, but she packs an entire life path into it: a Grand Festival winner who left the stage after her Pokémon got hurt, and who now heals other people's Pokémon with her hands. What she passes on to May isn't something you learn in Contests, either: believing your Skitty is capable of Blizzard already means seeing it differently.