Bear Sylvester is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera Doctors, portrayed by Dex Lee.
Lee began filming for the role in June 2019 and Bear made his first appearance on 18 November 2019, in scenes that show him attending an interview to become the practice manager at the fictional Mill Health Centre.
[3] On 12 November 2019, Simon Timblick of What's on TV wrote that Bear is a potential candidate for the job of practice manager at the Mill and noted that he impresses the partners, Zara Carmichael (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh) and Daniel Granger (Matthew Chambers), at his interview.
[7] A stressed-out Bear attends a meeting with a psychologist after Al Haskey (Ian Midlane) informs him that he may could a learning disability.
[10] He explained that at the beginning of Bear's tenure, the character was "blagging it quite a lot" since he knew he that he was not the first choice for the job.
[10] Bear assists Ayesha with starting a campaign to persuade members of the BAME community not to opt-out of organ donation, titled #DontOptOut.
They enlist Jimmi, Sid Vere (Ashley Rice), and Shak Hanif (Sunjay Midda) to help, and the group film an advertisement for social media.
After the #DontOptOut campaign is featured in a newspaper, the group celebrate its success with a drink, and when Jimmi and Shak leave, Ayesha and Bear are left alone.
He learns that Makeda needed a sigmoidoscopy but received racist treatment from nurse Cathy Jenkins (Laura Bayston) so she did not have it.
Bear confronts Cathy on her racism, but receives racist treatment from her boss, Prof Phillip Whybrow.
Bear confronts her "feeble attempt" to excuse her racism and gives her "some harsh home truths about her attitude and behaviour".
[17] For his part in the medical racism storyline, Lee received a nomination for Best Dramatic Performance at the 2022 British Soap Awards.