After playing Doc Martin for 18 years, the beloved actor Martin Clunes clearly picked up a thing or two. The 51-year-old actor pushed his wife, Philippa Braithwaite, not to go through with a "nonsensical" operation when doctors wanted to remove her appendix. In a new interview with Reader's Digest, the TV star admitted he swiftly moved into action as her supportive husband after flicking through her medical notes.

He told the outlet: "She had an infection in her gall bladder, and the surgeon was minded to take out her appendix. There was no infection in her appendix, and instinct told me that it would be the wrong thing to do.

"So, I took her home instead, and she was treated there." The actor, who starred as the on-screen doctor from 2004 to 2011, revealed how much he learned about the medical field during his tenure in the role.

He went on: "You have to remember that British medical dramas are obliged to be accurate. You can't just make things up as they do on American shows. So we have a medical expert on the series, and I have learned about certain procedures."

The Men Behaving Badly star added that the hospital staff often mistook him for his alter ego doctor because they "handed me her medical notes to look at in a way they might not have with an ordinary member of the public." The TV star chuckled: "I do wonder whether there wasn't some confusion between me and Doc Martin."

Speaking to Daybreak on Monday (April 20), he went on: "She was really poorly and miserable, and we weren't at home, and they were talking about going in and taking her appendix out, and we both just thought, 'Well let's just go instead'."

Although he didn't take his previous role as a doctor too literally, he did say that by portraying Doc Martin Ellingham in the ITV show he also absorbed a sustantial amount of medical knowledge and jargon.

He confessed: "Sadly, I do think I've absorbed [some knowledge] as my wife frequently tells me, but I am always interested in people's medication and ask what they've been prescribed."