La doctora identificó la enfermedad.

Because la doctora means the doctor.

In Spanish, when you mean a specific person, you often use the definite article:

• la doctora = the female doctor

Using Doctora by itself is usually different:

• as a form of address: Doctora, venga por favor. = Doctor, please come.
• or in certain headline-style or shortened contexts

So in this sentence, La doctora is the normal way to say The doctor.

Doctora is the feminine form, so it tells you the doctor is female.

• el doctor = the male doctor
• la doctora = the female doctor

Spanish nouns referring to people often show gender this way. Since the sentence uses la, the noun also appears in its feminine form: doctora.

Identificó is the preterite tense, third person singular.

It means:

• she identified
• the doctor identified

The preterite is used for a completed action in the past. So this sentence presents the identification as a finished event.

The accent mark shows the stress and also helps distinguish it from other forms.

• identificó = she/he identified or you identified (formal singular, past)
• identifico = I identify (present)

So the accent is important. It tells you this is the past-tense form and that the stress falls on the final syllable: i-den-ti-fi-CÓ.

La doctora is the subject, so she is doing the action.

The structure is:

• La doctora = subject
• identificó = verb
• la enfermedad = direct object

So the sentence literally works like: The doctor identified the illness.

Because la enfermedad means the disease/illness, referring to a specific one.

In Spanish, articles are often used where English also uses them, and sometimes even where English might omit them in other contexts. Here, the article is completely natural because we are talking about a particular disease that was identified.

• la enfermedad = the illness / the disease

Without the article, the sentence would sound incomplete or unnatural in this context.

Yes, enfermedad is feminine.

You can tell here because it uses la:

• la enfermedad

Many nouns ending in -dad are feminine:

• la ciudad
• la universidad
• la enfermedad

So this is a useful pattern to remember.

Yes, that is possible, but it changes the emphasis.

The normal, neutral order is:

• La doctora identificó la enfermedad.

A more marked version could be:

• La enfermedad la identificó la doctora.

That structure puts extra focus on la enfermedad or on who identified it. It is less neutral and more context-dependent.

For a learner, the original sentence is the standard word order to learn first: subject + verb + object

Because Spanish usually does not need subject pronouns when the verb form already shows who the subject is.

• identificó already tells you it is he/she/usted in the preterite

So Spanish commonly says:

• La doctora identificó la enfermedad.

Adding ella is possible, but usually only for emphasis or contrast:

• Ella identificó la enfermedad, no otro médico.

It is pronounced roughly like:

ee-den-tee-fee-KOH

The last syllable is stressed because of the accent mark:

• i-den-ti-fi-CÓ

A rough full pronunciation of the sentence is:

la dok-TO-ra ee-den-tee-fee-KOH la en-fer-me-DAD

Yes, sometimes.

• la doctora = the female doctor
• la médica = the female physician/doctor

Both can refer to a woman who is a doctor, but they are not always used in exactly the same way in every context. Doctora is very common as a title or everyday way to refer to a female doctor. Médica emphasizes the profession more directly.

So:

• La doctora identificó la enfermedad.
• La médica identificó la enfermedad.

Both are possible, though the original sentence is perfectly natural.

Often yes, but you should not assume it matches English in every context.

In this sentence, identificó la enfermedad means that the doctor recognized or determined what the disease was. That matches English identified very well.

So here it is a very straightforward translation:

• identificar = to identify
• identificó = identified