If I want to say "Tanaka, who is a doctor, drinks cola". Is "Isha da Tanaka wa koora o nomu" the correct saying or not?
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It depends on what you're saying, but for something following this pattern, you would use の, e.g. 医者{いしゃ}の田中{たなか}はコーラを飲{の}む.
You could also use である, which would make for a more "direct" translation: "医者{いしゃ}である田中{たなか}はコーラを飲{の}む." だ can never be used in the attributive position since it is only a copula; you must use である instead. Additionally, and this may be subjective, but I feel that using である puts more emphasis on the attributive phrase or clause, and the rest of the sentence is something that depends on it--for example, "Tanaka, being a doctor, drinks cola." This implies that his being a doctor is important to the fact that he is drinking cola, which is not true in this case. In other words, you can't really use it for things that you're "just mentioning" or have no relation to the rest of your statement (at least, that's how I see it).
