Figures from Emergency Room - The emergency room
This article provides an overview of the characters from the US hospital series Emergency Room (1994–2009) and a summary of the most significant stories about the most important characters.
There are a total of 13 male and 13 female main characters - these are characters whose actors are listed as main actors in the opening credits - as well as an abundance of secondary characters. The article summarizes the stories of the main characters, which are usually told across episodes and seasons. As far as possible, the characteristics of the characters are illustrated and the developments in the professional and private lives of the characters are shown.
The article also provides a brief overview of the most important supporting characters and their roles. For a more complete list of characters and their cast members, see the article List of Cast Actors from the television series Emergency Room .
main characters
Mark Greene
Dr. Mark Greene works as an emergency physician, in the first season as a senior resident and from the second season as a senior physician and deputy head of the emergency department. The various, time-consuming jobs Marks and his wife Jennifer Greene lead to a divorce in the second season and to the sharing of custody of their daughter Rachel, which he often cannot take care of according to his own requirements due to work. In the episode Schwarzer Tag of the first season he leads - in the absence of the responsible gynecologist - a complicated birth, as a result of which the giving birth mother dies. In the aftermath of this event, for which Greene is also held responsible by the family of the victim, a malpractice lawsuit comes against the hospital, which has to pay millions as a result. One day in the third season, a black man who Greene initially classified as insufficiently injured dies , Greene devotes himself to treating a white man. The brother of the black therefore accuses him of racist behavior, which again leads to legal consequences for Greene. A few episodes after the day, Greene is beaten up in the bathroom without the perpetrator being identified. This also hurts him emotionally, so that he behaves emotionally unbalanced and sometimes aggressive for a few months. The experience gained from dealing with his injuries helps him in the fifth season in the treatment of a torture-related patient suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder .
In season six, Greene takes care of his father, who has lung cancer, at home until his death. In the fifth and sixth seasons he falls in love with his colleague Dr. Corday. The engagement, marriage and the birth of their daughter follow in the seventh season. He is also being operated on for a life-threatening glioblastoma , a malignant brain tumor ; after the operation he has a word-finding problem . At the end of the seventh season, Greene contains a serial killer who ran amok , from whom he also saw his family threatened, the defibrillation necessary for survival , so that the patient dies; Greene is hiding the truth. In the eighth season it turns out that Greene's tumor has relapsed and is now inoperable. He breaks off his work and chemotherapy in order to devote the few remaining months of life to private affairs. He spent his last weeks, with increasing physical decline, in Hawaii , a childhood place, where he died shortly before the end of the season at the age of 38. A flashback to one of his last days at the hospital can be seen in season 15; in it he introduces himself - although Weaver is the chief physician - as head of the emergency room.
Rachel applies for a job as a student intern in the emergency room in the final episode of the series.
Dr. Greene was played by Anthony Edwards and voiced by Hans Hohlbein in the German dubbed version .
Doug Ross
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Dr. Douglas Ross , usually just called Doug for short , is a doctor specializing in emergency pediatrics who works in the emergency room as an assistant doctor for the first four seasons and as a senior physician for the fifth season. He's humorous and doesn't take hospital regulations very seriously. At the beginning of the second season he is repeatedly guilty of insubordination towards the head of pediatrics, so that he does not want to extend his expiring employment contract. Soon after, Doug happens to find himself in a situation outside of the hospital, as a result of which he uses the media to save a child from death. To avoid negative press reports, his employment contract is extended.
The end of his love affair with Carol is not long over in the pilot film, in which he is treated drunk. As a womanizer, he manages to meet women very quickly and easily, who are sometimes significantly younger than him. Sometimes he - like his best friend and boss Mark Greene in the time between his two marriages - has several lovers at the same time. He even enters into relationships with his father's girlfriend who is cheating on him, as well as with the mothers of his young patients. Doug and Carol become lovers again in the fourth season and become engaged. At the end of that season, with her help, he carried out ultrafast withdrawal on a methadone- addicted baby, a type of treatment that has not yet been tried. In this and in other cases in the fifth season he lies to Mark and he again deliberately violates the regulations, so that his superiors immediately question his competence and his appointment as senior physician. After they learn that Doug has prescribed a patient-controlled pain management device to a patient with ALD without authorization, he quits his job and leaves town without Carol, who also feels he has betrayed her.
In the 15th season he is married to Carol and practices as a senior physician with her in a hospital in Seattle .
Dr. Ross was played by George Clooney and was voiced by Detlef Bierstedt in the German dubbed version .
John Carter
John Truman Carter III. is the most common figure. In the first two seasons he is a medical student specializing in surgery and mostly works under the direction of Benton. During this time he often finds himself - like other medical students in the series - in situations that can best be summed up with the saying "arrogance comes before the fall". After his doctorate , he works in the third season as a doctor in an internship (AiPler for short) in surgery, including pediatric surgery, with the director of which he immediately enters into a secret love affair. In that year he gets into an argument with Benton over the responsibility for the suicide of an AiPler friend, whom Carter judges as being too strictly directed by Benton. At the end of the year, much to the disappointment of his superiors, he decides to work in the emergency room from now on, because that is where he believes that he is most likely to use his talent in dealing with patients emotionally. Along with his change of subject and department at the beginning of the fourth season, he has to start his internship from the beginning. Because he belongs to a millionaire family, he can do his time as an AiPler in the emergency room without pay, which could not be planned for him in the budget in time. He rejects the full-time takeover of the Carter Foundation, which was previously run by his grandparents, because he has dedicated himself entirely to the medical profession.
From the fifth season he continues to work as an assistant doctor in the emergency room. In the sixth, he enters into a temporary sexual relationship with a former acquaintance who is having a mastectomy for breast cancer ; In a love scene, you can also see her breast with the fresh surgical scars. Later in the season, John and medical student Lucy Knight are stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient in the emergency room. While Lucy succumbs to her injuries, John is operated on on a kidney . As a result of the attack and the operation, he becomes emotionally unbalanced and addicted to pain medication for a while . In the fourth season he had helped his cousin fight his drug addiction himself - albeit in vain -, but now he only manages to go to a rehabilitation clinic after he has been threatened with discharge and with Benton's help . After several months, thereat of stay and strictly controlled, he continues to work, but not without relapse into addiction, so he in his application for the post of senior physician is ignored; he receives this from Dr. Chen's resignation in the eighth season. That season he enables his newly divorced mother to seek treatment for a county boy with cancer and cope with her past, when her other son once died of leukemia .
From the seventh season onwards, he sometimes helps Abby Lockhart deal with her personal problems. In the ninth season he is in a relationship with her and is about to propose marriage. Also because of Abby's alcohol problem, the relationship breaks up. During a 2-week mission for Doctors Without Borders , which is told at the end of the ninth season, in the DR Congo, his life is in serious danger. Three weeks after his return to Chicago, he travels to the Congo again, where he finds Kovac, believed to be dead, alive (season 10). Unlike Kovac, Carter stays in the Congo. During his 7 months as a doctor in a hospital near Kisangani , he fell in love with the French-Congolese Makemba Likasu , or Kem for short. Having become pregnant by him, she travels back to Chicago with him. At the end of the tenth season, she suffers a stillbirth . Deeply saddened by this, she leaves Chicago without parting with Carter.
He is senior physician from the tenth season at the latest. After the death of his grandmother (Season 9), until then head of the Carter Foundation, he is by testamentary available to Foundation Director. As such, in the eleventh season, he is pushing ahead with his plan to build a day care center as an extension to the County General, which is used for the outpatient treatment of the socially disadvantaged and whose construction he is financing with 150 million dollars from the foundation. Season against the end he becomes a lecturer appointed for emergency medicine, but stopped shortly after his work in the county general, because it is his intention to live with Kem in Congo. For the next four years he worked as a doctor in a refugee camp in the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur ; He is also confronted with patients who are persecuted and raped by the Janjawid .
Seriously kidney disease, he returns to Chicago in season 15 to undergo dialysis . During the dialysis period, he works a few shifts as a senior physician in the emergency room. In another hospital, he was forced to have a kidney transplant . At the end of the season he inaugurates the day care center named after his stillborn son.
John Carter was played by Noah Wyle and voiced by Oliver Feld in the German dubbed version .
Susan Lewis
Dr. Susan Lewis is an emergency room resident for the first three seasons. She initially had a love affair with the hospital psychiatrist Dr. Cvetic, who disappears without a trace after a nervous breakdown . In the further course of her work, she succeeds in dispelling the allegations of incompetence made against her by her superiors. Her sister Chloe, who sometimes asks for money and other help from her, is initially a drug addict and unemployed. Chloe disappears without a trace after giving birth to daughter Suzie, conceived by a stranger, and leaving her with Susan. Susan's job-related difficulty is making enough time for Suzie. Chloe returns in the second season and receives the daughter, who has since become loved by Susan, back, but only after a judge recommends that Susan would not be successful in claiming custody of the baby for herself. In the third season, Susan follows her sister to Phoenix and leaves the County General. When she leaves, she confesses to Mark Greene that she is also in love with him.
In the eighth season, she returns to the emergency room as a senior physician. With the rescue worker Chuck Martin, she has a love affair from the next season, from which a son emerges after an immediately annulled spontaneous marriage. In the ninth season she treats a boy suffering from testicular cancer , in the tenth season a blind, suicidal man. She also accompanies both patients privately on their last days. From the eleventh season - her pregnancy is just over - she is the chief physician of the emergency room and as such is involved in implementing measures to increase patient satisfaction . In doing so, she learns that holding a management position can lead to the loss of friendships. To her great disappointment, at the end of the season she was passed over when applying as a lecturer in emergency medicine, also because she had not raised enough research funding for the hospital. In order to get such a position anyway, she leaves the hospital and the city again permanently at the beginning of the twelfth season.
Dr. Lewis was played by Sherry Stringfield and spoken by Bettina Weiß in the German dubbed version .
Peter Benton
Dr. Peter Benton works in the county general as a surgeon and, as such, in part in the emergency room. He is an assistant doctor for the first five seasons. Like Doug and other colleagues, he is heavily in debt because of medical school. At the beginning of the series he is the only black man among the main characters and often behaves willful and reserved; it is difficult for him to talk about his own feelings. In the second season, he determines that the chief thoracic surgeon has embellished the results of his study . Benton's efforts in season three to specialize in pediatric surgery fail because of his lack of empathy. Towards the end of the fifth season he takes on a newly created position as a trauma surgeon ; his superior Dr. Romano sees Benton's talents wasted in this. At the beginning of the seventh season, against Romano's ban, which violates patient rights, Benton continues to treat a dialysis patient whose health insurance is bankrupt. As a result, the hospital has to pay a 5-digit amount of damages. In order to save this money elsewhere, and because of disloyal behavior, Romano withdraws the position he had just received as senior physician. As a result, he is forced to take a significantly lower-paying job as a freelancer in the county. As a newly appointed equal opportunities officer because of the color of his skin, he helps a black man who had previously been sorted out to be admitted to medical school.
In the third season, his short-term sexual partner Carla, whom he neither loves nor marries, gives birth to son Reese, whose fatherhood she attributes to Benton and who, born prematurely , is severely deaf . Reese therefore receives a hearing aid and learns to communicate using sign language . Benton, his sister Jackie, Carla and her partner Roger, who becomes Reese's stepfather, take care of his care . Benton's temporary love affair with Elizabeth Corday is initially uncomfortable because of the different skin colors. In the sixth season, Benton learns from Carla that Reese may not have been conceived by him after all. In season eight, after Carla's accidental death, Benton fights against Roger legally for custody of Reese. A paternity test only now shows that Benton is actually not the biological father. He is given custody after taking a less time-consuming job in another hospital where his lover, Dr. Finch works. In season 15, he can be seen as a general surgeon at Northwestern University Hospital.
Dr. Benton was played by Eriq La Salle and spoken in the German dubbed version by Stefan Fredrich (seasons 1–4) and Jörg Hengstler (from season 5).
Carol Hathaway
Carol Hathaway is the head nurse in the emergency room. After a failed love affair with Doug, she makes a suicide attempt in the pilot, which she barely survives. She called off her marriage to the senior doctor Taglieri at the last minute because she doesn't really love him. She ends her relationship with a paramedic in the second season because he does not want to seek therapy because of his propensity for violence. One of their most salient qualities is to admit to themselves and their fellow human beings their own mistakes, for which the suicide attempt is responsible. For example, in the third season she refuses to accept the suggestion of Mark and the nursing management to let her go unpunished for accidentally giving blood of the wrong blood type ; it is temporarily suspended. In the same year, she dropped out of medical school because being a nurse was her true calling. In the fourth season, with money raised from the Carter Foundation, she opens a social station next to the emergency room , which is used for aftercare for patients treated in the emergency room and is well attended.
After Doug quit his job in the emergency room in season five, he also leaves Carol behind. He is now pregnant with female twins . She gives birth to this in the sixth season before she also leaves her job and town to live with Doug and the children in Seattle . In a brief appearance in season 15, Doug and Carol run a doctor's office in Seattle .
Carol Hathaway was played by Julianna Margulies and spoken in the German dubbed version by Anke Reitzenstein (seasons 1–2, 6) and Cathrin Vaessen (seasons 3–5, 15).
Jeanie Boulet
Jeanie Boulet is introduced to the plot in the first season as both a physiotherapist and a private carer for Benton's decrepit mother. She is unfaithful to her husband Al in a brief love affair with him. From the second season she works as a physician assistant in the emergency room. She soon learns that she was accidentally infected with HIV by Al, who was also unfaithful to her . She initially keeps her infection a secret because of the fear of losing her job, also with Weaver's help. After her other colleagues learned about an HIV-positive employee through indiscretion , she openly admits her illness and her superiors speak out in favor of her continued employment out of fear of negative legal consequences. In order to avoid the infection of patients, she must no longer treat heavily bleeding or purulent wounds.
Over time and with the help of colleagues, she gains self-confidence to live with her illness. After she was fired for cost-saving measures, she managed to get her job legally and with the argument that she belonged to a minority worthy of protection due to HIV. Al, however, leaves the city and Jeanie because of the fear of stigmatization among his construction workers. Jeanie is highly esteemed among her colleagues and is even hired by the medical director as a private carer for his son, who is suffering from bone marrow cancer and is dying. During the time she was one of the main characters, she did not show any noteworthy AIDS symptoms. In the fifth she breaks out on hepatitis C , but the symptoms quickly subside. In the sixth, she marries an HIV-negative police officer, with whom she adopts an HIV-positive baby, for whose care she quits her job. During an appearance in the 14th season, she has long since been divorced and is the head of an aid center for people with HIV; AIDS breaks out in her adopted son.
Jeanie Boulet was played by Gloria Reuben and spoken in the German dubbed version by Carola Ewert (seasons 1–6) and Anna Carlsson (season 14).
Kerry Weaver
Dr. Kerry Weaver is by far the main female character appearing in most episodes. In the second season she works as a senior assistant doctor and from the next season as a senior doctor in the emergency department. She has a talent and a penchant for administrative activities which she likes to use to reorganize and make work processes more effective. One of its most important principles is compliance. In the fourth and fifth seasons, she temporarily takes on the role of emergency room manager. As such, she is initially committed to hiring the emergency room management company Synergix to cut costs; she is moving away from the recommendation, however, because most of the emergency rooms taken over by Synergix were closed a little later, and because they see patient care at risk.
She officially heads the emergency department from the sixth to the ninth season. She made a momentous mishap in season eight when she was needed in the emergency room, but she forgets her beeper and was therefore unavailable. To protect herself from this incident becoming known, she dismisses or demotes two doctors who thus become pawns . However, their mistake was discovered later. From the ninth season she is the medical director and therefore much less often to treat patients in the emergency room.
Up to and including the sixth season, viewers learn little about Weaver's personal life. That includes a brief straight relationship in season four. In the seventh season she befriends her colleague and hospital psychiatrist Dr. Legaspi who is a lesbian . As the relationship progresses, Weaver also becomes a lesbian. Legaspi separates from her again because Weaver does not want to live her sexual orientation publicly. From the next season on, Weaver is in a relationship with the firefighter Sandy Lopez. Lopez by a sudden, public kiss for Outing forced it lives the new relationship now open. Their joint plan to have a child after taking hormones initially fails due to a miscarriage of Weavers. Lopez then becomes the birth mother and gives birth to a son conceived with a sperm donation , whose parenthood she takes over with Weaver. A few months later, towards the end of the tenth season, Lopez dies while firefighting. Weaver first fights against Lopez's parents legally for custody and is ultimately awarded it.
In the ninth season, Weaver helps a councilor who has been admitted as a patient to hide his syphilis from the public by forging medical records. He thanks the hospital with a million dollar donation and Weaver with her appointment as Cook County's medical advisor . By blackmailing her with a budget cut for the hospital, she treats his sexual partner equally discreetly, keeping his homosexuality hidden from the public. She and the city council keep secret a diagnostic error made by Weaver that caused the patient to die.
Weaver is initially handicapped and therefore relies on a walking aid. Only in the episode I am as I am (season 11) do the viewers learn that she suffers from a congenital hip dysplasia , which makes her dependent on a walker. In it she also meets her birth mother for the first time, whose discovery she was told by a private detective in the eighth season. The Christian mother cannot accept Weaver's homosexuality. The walking aid does not restrict Weaver even during emergency operations. That changes with a fall in the twelfth season, as a result of which she has surgery on her hip so that she no longer needs a walking aid.
In the twelfth season, she hires the senior doctor Victor Clemente as the hospital personnel manager in the emergency room. Clemente, triggered by his personal problems, becomes a great burden for the staff and, because of a patient's claim for damages, also for the hospital. After the beginning of the 13th season, Weaver takes responsibility for the failure regarding Clemente by resigning as HR manager. In the following six months she continues to work as an ordinary senior physician. During this time, she tries out a hobby as a television reporter for medical reports, with whose producer she has a love affair. In the middle of the 13th season she quits after chief doctor Kovac had considered dismissing her for cost-saving measures.
Dr. Weaver was played by Laura Innes and voiced by Liane Rudolph in the German dubbed version .
Anna Del Amico
Dr. Anna Del Amico starts working as a pediatric assistant doctor in the emergency room shortly before the end of the third season, but quits a year later for personal reasons.
Dr. Del Amico was played by Maria Bello and voiced by Debora Weigert in the German dubbed version .
Elizabeth Corday
Dr. Elizabeth Corday , usually just called Lizzy by Romano , is an English surgeon who is an intern in trauma surgery in the fourth season as a sponsored by him . After a year of successful work, Romano refuses to sponsor her after she refused his request for a rendezvous. At the beginning of the fifth season she takes on a position as a surgical assistant and thus accepts a major professional regression. In this position, during a 36-hour standby shift, she made a serious treatment error due to fatigue, and she fell asleep during an operation; She therefore advocates more appropriate working hours before the assembled medical college. After a year in the position, with Romano's support, she was given a new position as senior thoracic surgeon and the position of deputy chief surgeon. In the sixth season she deals with a murderer from whom she - ordered by the police and with the threat of refusing him treatment - blackmailed the disclosure of information. She makes another medical malpractice because of an upcoming private appointment, causing her to lie in a malpractice lawsuit and result in a multi-million dollar settlement . After the end of her pregnancy, she is accused of being responsible for the deaths of several patients she had operated on from postoperative sepsis . In her defense, she ascertained that the head anesthetist could also be responsible. However, the outcome of this storyline remains open.
Widowed after Mark Greene's death, she is a single parent. When medical student Paul Nathan is doing his surgical internship, she fails him because of the disability his Parkinson's disease represents. From the tenth season she heads the surgery. Shortly after the beginning of the eleventh season, she lets Carter move her to a deliberate violation of the transplant regulations ; both the donor and recipient of the transplant are HIV positive. When the hospital management wanted to punish her with a severe demotion, she quit and returned to England. In season 15, she briefly appears as the senior surgeon at Duke University in North Carolina .
Dr. Corday was played by Alex Kingston and voiced by Peggy Sander in the German dubbed version .
Lucy Knight
Lucy Knight is a medical student and does an internship in the hospital from the fifth season, which she initially spends in the emergency room and in the sixth season in the psychiatric department. In order to be able to work concentrated, she takes Ritalin . She is fatally injured by a schizophrenic patient in season six.
Lucy Knight was played by Kellie Martin and voiced by Bianca Krahl in the German dubbed version .
Robert Romano
Dr. Robert Romano , who can also be addressed by the nickname Rocket (German: "rocket"), is introduced to the plot as a surgeon in the fourth season. One of his most noticeable characteristics is cold-tempered and sharp-tongued behavior towards employees and subordinates. Other employees characterize him as arrogant, vicious, sexist and aggressive. Opposite the lesbian employees Dr. Legaspi and Dr. He sometimes makes suggestive or sexist remarks to Weaver. He rarely behaves empathetically. In the fifth season he temporarily heads the emergency room, from the sixth onwards he is both chief surgeon and medical director .
At the beginning of the ninth season, a terrible accident occurs on the helipad on the hospital roof, in which Romano's left arm above the elbow is severed by the tail rotor of a rescue helicopter. The arm is reimplanted immediately , but Romano can not regain his motor skills ; so that he has it amputated at the end of the season . In the meantime, his disability has prevented him from continuing to operate as a surgeon. He loses his posts as medical director and chief surgeon and is reluctantly appointed chief physician of the emergency room shortly before the end of the ninth season. There he lets his frustration and anger out on the employees, towards whom he behaves in a hostile and sometimes racist manner. In the tenth season he works partially with a prosthetic arm and continues to be a great burden for the staff because of frequent insults. In the middle of the squadron, it is again a rescue helicopter that is his undoing: A sudden change in wind direction causes the aircraft to crash onto the hospital roof and then directly into the entrance of the emergency room, devastating parts of the hospital and killing him.
At his memorial service, which most hospital workers avoid, it turns out that he had no family. A large part of his estate will be bequeathed to the hospital, which is one of the reasons why the County General, at the instigation of the staff council, declared the hospital to be the “Robert Romano Health Center for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transsexuals” with a plaque, albeit to the great amazement of the employees. At the time still a lawsuit pending before a patient hospital, his misogyny accused.
Dr. Romano was played by Paul McCrane and voiced by Martin Keßler in the German dubbed version .
Luka Kovač
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Born in Croatia and speaking with a Croatian accent, Dr. Luka Kovač is introduced to the action as a jumper in the sixth season and after a few episodes is employed as a senior physician in the emergency room. Raised Catholic as a child , he lost his Christian faith through the death of his wife and two children in the Croatian War . A Catholic bishop , whom he is treating in the seventh season, convinces him to speak about his war experiences, which are also shown in flashbacks.
In the eighth season he is in a relationship with a friend who becomes pregnant and, after separating from him, keeps the abortion of the fetus from him . In the ninth season in particular, he is a tragic womanizer: in short succession he has alternating sexual relationships with nurses, who cause him to be temporarily suspended, and with a prostitute . He has a car accident with an intern, also as a result of exhaustion. Towards the end of the ninth season he travels to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a mission for Doctors Without Borders . There he helped out in a hospital for several weeks before he and some patients got caught between the front lines of armed conflict and in serious danger to their lives. After the Mai-Mai militia executed his companions and he looks forward to his execution, he prays . Because of this, and because he wears a recently given cross of Jesus around his neck, the militia officers spare him on the assumption that he is a priest. He is found by Carter, suffering from malaria and near death.
Returning to Chicago and recovering, he meets the new nurse Sam Taggart in the tenth season. He helps her take care of her son and covers her when she takes advantage of the mutual friendship to treat patients on her own initiative. After the relationship broke up at the beginning of the twelfth season - also because Sam, unlike him, no longer wants to have children - he falls in love with Abby Lockhart again. In the twelfth season he also takes over the management of the emergency room. The birth of their son follows in the 13th season. That season, Curtis Ames, one of his former patients, did not succeed in legal proceedings seeking compensation for the consequences of a stroke that Ames suffered following alleged mistreatment by Kovač. Badly bitter, Ames becomes a stalker for Kovač and his family, kidnaps him vengefully, tortures him and ultimately commits suicide .
Bitter about bureaucracy and other unpleasant duties, he resigns as chief physician shortly before the end of the 13th season. At the same time he marries Abby. A little later he leaves her alone to be with his sick father in Croatia. After returning to Chicago, he stopped working in the County General and worked as a doctor in a hospice . Shortly after the beginning of the 15th season, he and his family left Chicago permanently for Boston .
Dr. Kovač was played by Goran Višnjić and spoken in the German dubbed version by Klaus-Peter Grap .
Cleo Finch
Dr. Cleo Finch works as a pediatric assistant doctor in the emergency room from the sixth season. She is a very serious and often humorous, skeptical person. She falls in love with Peter Benton and moves to another hospital with him in the eighth season.
Dr. Finch was played by Michael Michele and spoken by Heide Domanowski in the German dubbed version .
Dave Malucci
Dr. Dave Malucci starts working as a resident in the emergency room in season six. Often he behaves carelessly when dealing with patients and in a provocative manner with colleagues. In season eight, he is fired for repeated, unprofessional behavior; sex in the ambulance is crucial.
Dr. Malucci was played by Erik Palladino and was spoken by Christoph Banken in the German dubbed version .
Abby Lockhart
Abby Lockhart is inducted into the maternity ward as a midwife for season six . She does this job parallel to her medical studies. From the middle of the season she works as a student intern in the emergency room. She has to drop out of school due to lack of money as a result of her divorce; she therefore works as a nurse in the emergency room from the seventh season.
In the seventh season, her mother Maggie Wyczenski, who has bipolar disorder, makes an unexpected visit. Because Maggie doesn't want to take her neuroleptic medication , she has manic attacks, loses control, disappears, and later attempts suicide . Lockhart has already had an abortion for fear of offspring with bipolar disorder. In the ninth season it turns out that her brother Eric is also manic-depressive, she tries to help him to a therapy, but for a long time unsuccessfully.
Lockhart is in a relationship with Kovač in the seventh season, but also receives advances from Carter. She used to be alcoholic and starts drinking again in the eighth season, which is why she - prompted by Carter - goes back to a group of anonymous alcoholics . After her brother falls drunk into the grave at the funeral ceremony for Carter's grandmother, her relationship with Carter ends.
In the ninth season, she is appointed head nurse in the emergency room. In the tenth, she resumes her medical studies, which she successfully completes at the end of the season. When Dr. Lockhart has been an assistant doctor from the eleventh season. She falls in love with Kovač again and becomes engaged to him. Triggered by a fall in a shooting in the emergency room, she had a premature birth of their son, which required a hysterectomy .
A few months later, she receives an unexpected visit from her father, with whom she has had no contact for decades; however, she wants nothing more to do with him and sends him away. The marriage with Kovač follows at the end of the 13th season. In the 14th season she starts drinking alcohol again because of the pressure to go about everyday life without Kovač, and she also lets herself into an affair . For these reasons, Kovač is temporarily separated from her, followed by rehab and almost being fired from her job. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 14th season, she received confirmation from the hospital management that she would be working there as a senior physician after the end of her internship. Her first shift in this role is also her last in the County General, as she and her family are leaving Chicago for Boston to start over.
Abby Lockhart was played by Maura Tierney and was spoken by Silke Matthias in the German dubbed version .
Jing-Mei Chen
The Chinese-born Jing-Mei Chen , sometimes called Deborah or Deb , can be seen in the first season as a medical student or surgical intern; She breaks off her training because of excessive demands. In the sixth she returns as an assistant doctor, now as an emergency doctor. In the following season, she gives birth to a son, whom she immediately gives up for adoption . At first she did not inform her parents, whom she considered bigoted , of the pregnancy because the child was conceived by a black man.
At the beginning of the eighth season she works as a senior physician, but after a few episodes she quits her job because Weaver wanted to deprive her of this position as a result of a malpractice for which Chen was responsible, which caused the patient to die. After a few weeks, Chen found out that Weaver was partly responsible for the unsuccessful treatment, and blackmailed her reinstatement, now as a senior doctor.
From the ninth season onwards she is in a relationship with Pratt, from whom she hides the reason for the release of her son for adoption. After her mother's accidental death in the tenth season, she takes care of her seriously ill father privately. Because the time of care cannot be agreed with her duty roster, she quits her job in the eleventh season. She euthanized her father at his request .
Jing-Mei Chen was played by Ming-Na Wen and was spoken by Ghadah Al-Akel in the German dubbed version .
Michael Gallant
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Michael Gallant is introduced in the eighth season as a medical student in the internship, he is also a reservist in the US Army . In the tenth season in which he works as an AiPler, there are first signs of a love affair between him and Neela Rasgotra. He assumes your medical malpractice guilt to protect you. Shortly afterwards he gives up his job because the army recruits him to serve in the Iraq war , where he works as a hospital doctor with the rank of captain. In a brief appearance early in the twelfth season, he spontaneously married Neela. Shortly thereafter, however, out of an inner obligation, he returned to the mission in Iraq, where he was killed by a mine explosion at the end of the season.
Michael Gallant was played by Sharif Atkins and voiced by Markus Pfeiffer in the German dubbed version .
Greg Pratt
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Dr. Gregory Pratt is introduced to the plot as an AiPler in season eight. On his first appearances, his daring and arrogant behavior incurs the displeasure of his colleagues and superiors. From the ninth season he works as an emergency medical assistant doctor. In the tenth season, Pratt's unauthorized behavior means that he accidentally breaks the neck of a patient during intubation . In the eleventh season he is said to have poor leadership quality on the part of his superiors; He does not take advantage of the opportunity to apply as a senior physician.
Pratt has been looking after his mentally handicapped adoptive brother Leon for a long time . After he was exploited by friends in the ninth season and unintentionally entangled in criminal activities, Pratt puts him under protection from the police. Pratt has several love affairs with women one after the other; however, he is rather averse to long-term relationships. At the end of the tenth season, he and his lover Dr. Chen had a serious car accident in which a patient died.
In the eleventh season he happens to find his father Charlie Pratt in Chicago, with whom he had no contact for decades. Greg learns for the first time that Charlie was forced not to take part in Greg's upbringing because his birth mother spurned Charlie. Greg also met his half-brother Chaz Pratt through Charlie. Initially shocked by Chaz's gayness , Greg accepts him over the course of time, during which Chaz also works as a rescue worker.
In the twelfth season he protects a patient friend from criminal prosecution by secretly exchanging his alcoholic blood sample. After Pratt admitted his criminal behavior to his superior, he sent him to a refugee camp in Darfur for several weeks to do penance . There Pratt is also in mortal danger.
From the 13th season he is senior physician. Despite the lack of a pharmacist's license, he supports a drug exchange market that a pastor runs illegally among his mostly black, low-income parishioners with drugs . After one of the recipients of such funds dies under the wrong medication, Pratt is prosecuted. Due to the inadequacies of the public health system, however, the chamber refrains from withdrawing his license to practice medicine.
Also from the 13th season he is with the radiological chief physician Dr. Bettina DeJesus is in a relationship. She separates from him because he does not want to bind himself tightly to her. Only after she was operated on for colon cancer does he admit his consciously noncommittal emotional relationships with patients as the reason for his behavior. In the 14th season, the hospital management confirms that he has a lack of initiative, which he therefore trains in the further course of the season. In the last episode of the 14th season, when an ambulance explodes and an attack is carried out on its patient, Pratt is so badly injured that he dies in the following episode. It also turns out that he would have received the vacant position as chief physician of the emergency room.
Dr. Pratt was played by Mekhi Phifer and spoken by Dennis Schmidt-Foss in the German dubbed version .
Neela Rasgotra
The Indian - British Neela Rasgotra starts an internship in the tenth season as part of her studies, which she successfully completes at the end of the season. Immediately afterwards, she declines to take up the already secure job as a dermatologist in Michigan because she is not convinced that this job is right for her. After a few weeks of looking for a job (season 11), she is employed in the emergency room as an AiPlerin. She is also working there in the twelfth season as an emergency medical assistant doctor. Dr. Dubenko, however, is enthusiastic about surgery, where she has worked as an assistant doctor for the last three seasons.
When her husband Michael Gallant returns to Iraq against her will, she realizes that she married him too early. By his death at the end of the twelfth season, she becomes a widow. In season 13, she falls in love with both Tony Gates and Ray Barnett. At the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th season, she sustained serious injuries as a participant in an escalating rally, as a result of which she had to be resuscitated in the county general and had emergency liver surgery. In the 14th season, she initially becomes a mentor for an ingenious, but socially inexperienced assistant doctor and works temporarily in orthopedics .
In the 15th season her internship comes to an end; Shortly before the end of the series, she moves to the hospital in Louisiana , where her friend Ray Barnett also works, as a senior surgeon .
Neela Rasgotra was played by Parminder Nagra and spoken by Sonja Spuhl in the German dubbed version .
Samantha Taggart
Samantha Taggart , usually just called Sam , has been a nurse in the emergency room for the past six seasons. She is a single parent with son Alex, who has diabetes . When Alex's drug addict and unreliable father Steve appears towards the end of the season to be family with them again, Sam and Alex flee from him again, but Luka soon persuades them to return. In the eleventh season, Sam and Luka are a couple. Sam overlooks Lukas instructions several times during his work, once she also causes the death of a patient. Luka helps Sam find Alex, who is fleeing to Steve. Shortly afterwards, at the beginning of the twelfth season, the love relationship breaks up due to communication problems and because, unlike him, she no longer wants to have children. A little later, Sam is persuaded by the new head nurse Eve Peyton and a raise in salary to fire her colleague Haleh, but remorsefully reverses this step a little later.
Towards the end of the twelfth season, Steve, meanwhile a prisoner in a Cook County prison, can be treated with some fellow prisoners in the emergency room, only to use the place to escape from their custody. They cause a shootout and kidnap Sam and Alex. After Sam was raped by Steve, she shoots him in cold blood and without self-defense. An influential and wealthy MDS patient helps her after the beginning of season 13 through his relationships to avoid criminal prosecution for murder. She has been working part-time as a private carer for this patient from the twelfth season onwards and lives with Alex with him. As a result of Steve's death, Alex becomes increasingly difficult to bring up and negligently causes an apartment fire; shortly afterwards she sent him to a boarding school for young people with behavioral problems.
In season 15, in which she begins the clinical phase of her training as an anesthesiologist , she moves into an apartment with Alex and her new lover Tony Gates and his stepdaughter Sarah. The relationship suffers from a serious injury to Alex. Later in the season, her sister's absence forces her to take care of her demented mother, who suffers a stroke .
Sam Taggart was played by Linda Cardellini and spoken by Dascha Lehmann in the German dubbed version .
Archie Morris
Dr. Archibald Morris is inducted into the tenth season as an assistant doctor in emergency medicine. In his first appearances, he attracts attention for his squeamish and insensitive behavior as well as for smoking weed . In the first few seasons he is often in the role of a clumsy and slob. This is one of the reasons why his appointment as senior physician at the end of the eleventh season caused great astonishment among his colleagues. He has four nipples . In the twelfth season, for the first time, he receives a visit from four children who were conceived by sperm , which he gave as part of several sperm donations .
At the end of the twelfth season, he quits his job in the county general and works as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company . But because he quickly disliked this job, shortly after the beginning of the 13th season he was employed again in the hospital, now as a senior physician. Towards the end of Season 14, he is one of the prisoners of a hostage-taker who is shot in the emergency room and is therefore undergoing temporary psychiatric treatment.
In the 13th season he has a love affair with a strictly Christian intern, and in the 15th season with a policewoman.
Dr. Morris was played by Scott Grimes and voiced by Robin Kahnmeyer in the German dubbed version .
Ray Barnett
Dr. Ray Barnett works from the eleventh season as an assistant doctor in the emergency room and works part-time as a rock musician. In his first year in hospital, he has to learn that patient welfare is more important than quitting work on time to attend gigs . In the twelfth season, he realizes too late that his sexual partner Zoe is underage, and thus comes into conflict with her father. Because Barnett cannot spare enough time for his band because of his medical profession, his band mates exclude him from the band in the twelfth season. He also fails to win his now married roommate Neela Rasgotra as a lover. Nevertheless, he tries that with the now widowed Neela in the 13th season; he is rival of his colleague Tony Gates . Believing he lost the battle for Neela, he gets drunk at a party just before the end of season 13. On the same evening he had a serious traffic accident as a drunk pedestrian, as a result of which both of his lower legs were amputated outside the county general and he did not return to work in the emergency room. During a visit to Chicago in season 15, he seems to move effortlessly with lower leg prostheses . In it he can also be seen as a physiotherapist in a hospital in Louisiana .
Dr. Barnett was played by Shane West and voiced by Marius Clarén in the German dubbed version .
Tony Gates
Tony Gates appears for the first time in the twelfth season as a rescue worker who also studies medicine. From the 13th season he worked as an assistant doctor in the emergency room, but in that season - in contrast to other assistant doctors - he was sometimes referred to and addressed as a student.
When Gates enters into a love affair with the assistant doctor Neela Rasgotra , he separates from his partner Meg Riley, for whose daughter Sarah he became a surrogate father after the death of her husband Keith. Shortly before Meg commits suicide out of bitterness over the breakup, she tells him that Sarah is his daughter. Although this statement turns out to be false after a few months, Tony is fighting legally for custody of Sarah. He loses this fight at the end of the 13th season for the time being, because Sarah's biological grandparents take her in. Because the grandparents feel overwhelmed with Sara's upbringing, they release her back into Gates' care.
Because of his family affairs, including the unexpected appearance of his alcoholic, unemployed father in season 13, he sometimes leaves his job, for which he is criticized by superiors. Because of this and because of insubordination , he is temporarily transferred to the intensive care unit at the beginning of the 14th season . There he becomes a fatherly friend to a young patient with Fazio-Londe syndrome . Returning to the emergency room, he first falls in love with the hospital chaplain Julia Dupree, and a little later with nurse Sam Taggart. In the 15th season he lives with Sam, their son Alex and Sarah as a blended family . Due to a serious injury to Alex as a result of a breach of agreement with Gates, he and Sam are temporarily separated.
Also in season 15, Gates, who fought with Keith in the second Gulf War as a US soldier, is very committed to a diabetes patient who is homeless as a traumatized Iraq war veteran .
Tony Gates was played by John Stamos and voiced by Jaron Löwenberg in the German dubbed version .
Simon Brenner
Dr. Simon Brenner works as a senior physician in the emergency room from the middle of the 14th season. Since he is a nephew of Dr. Anspaugh is, he is said to have received this position from vitamin B at his new job . He was sexually abused as a child by a male friend of his mother's . That is why he reacts particularly sensitively to patients or relatives who are suspected of abuse. Because he does not want to share the related childhood experiences with Neela Rasgotra, she ends the mutual love relationship. Towards the end of the season he can be seen as a psychiatric patient.
Dr. Brenner was played by David Lyons and voiced by Frank Schaff in the German dubbed version .
Kate Banfield
Dr. Catherine Banfield is the ER for the last season and, as such, is often judged as very strict by her colleagues. As of season eight, her 5-year-old son died in the County General's emergency room of a stroke caused by previously undetected leukemia . After this event, she lived for years isolated from other people and in Australia . She suffered a miscarriage after her son died and before she started working in the county general . Despite the extremely low chances of success - she is already over 40 years old - she has an in vitro fertilization performed in the 15th season . Since this is unsuccessful, she and her husband Russell intend to adopt a child. Finally, she agrees with a desperate teenage mother to open adoption of the newborn.
Dr. Banfield was played by Angela Bassett and spoken by Anke Reitzenstein in the German dubbed version .
Important minor characters
David Morgenstern
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Dr. David Morgenstern is the senior surgeon, chief surgeon and head of the emergency department up to the fourth season. Returning to work after recovering from a heart attack , he makes a fatal mistake during a standard procedure, which he initially tries to cover up and Dr. Benton tries to attach, but then - along with his termination - admits.
Donald Anspaugh
Dr. Donald Anspaugh is a surgeon and medical director from seasons three to five , and head of the emergency department for seasons five. From season six he only appears in one or two episodes per season, mostly as a member of the hospital management team.
Maggie Doyle
Dr. Maggie Doyle , who is well versed in firearms and projectiles, is an AiPler for the third season and an assistant doctor in the emergency room for the following two seasons. In connection with her homosexuality, in the fifth season she struggles against Dr. Romano initiated an internal sexual harassment case . But with that she suffers a setback when her Dr. Corday withdraws her support.
Lucien Dubenko
Dr. Lucien Dubenko is introduced to the plot as senior surgeon in season 11 . Shortly afterwards, he will succeed Dr. Cordays as head of surgery. In order not to appear in person in the emergency room, in the 11th season he sometimes gives remote diagnoses and treatment instructions using a mobile robot. In the twelfth season he has an operation for prostate cancer . In the 14th season he is in a love affair with the emergency room chief physician Dr. See Skye Wexler. At the end of that season, he quit his job as a surgeon in protest of complaints made against him about the death of a patient. Also at the urging of Dr. Rasgotra, he resumes his job at the beginning of the next season.
Victor Clemente
Dr. Victor Clemente works in the twelfth season as a senior physician in the emergency room. He attracts attention with his unconventional treatment methods, including the use of a device he brought with him, and with the tapping of spells. At his previous place of work, a hospital in Newark , he fell in love with the local nurse Jodie Kenyon. Because Jodie's husband, policeman Bobby Kenyon, tried to stop this, Clemente fled Newark. Now working in the County General, Clemente is visited by Jodie, who wants to live with him. Consuming drugs with her, he neglects his job until they are both found and shot by Bobby. As a result of this incident, he is post-traumatic and sleepless until he causes a scandal by urinating openly at a street crossing and he is given psychiatric treatment.
Others (selection)
- (Dr.) Dale Edson, surgeon, represented by Matthew Glave
- Adele Newman, social services worker, portrayed by Erica Gimpel
- Al Boulet, husband of Jeanie Boulet, portrayed by Wolfgang Bodison (season 1) and Michael Beach (from season 2)
- Al Grabarsky, police officer, portrayed by Mike Genovese
- Alex Taggart, son of Sam Taggart, portrayed by Oliver Davis (up to season 11) and Dominic Janes (from season 12)
- Brian Dumar, Paramedic, portrayed by Brian Lester
- Carla Reece or Carla Simmons, mother of Reece Benton, portrayed by Lisa Nicole Carson
- Charlie Pratt, father of Dr. Pratt, portrayed by Danny Glover
- Chloe Lewis, sister of Dr. Lewis portrayed by Kathleen Wilhoite
- Christine Harms, Paramedic, portrayed by Michelle Bonilla
- Chuck Martin, rescue pilot, portrayed by Donal Logue
- Chuny Marquez, Emergency Room Nurse, portrayed by Laura Cerón
- Connie Oligario, Emergency Room Nurse, portrayed by Conni Marie Brazelton
- David Greene, father of Dr. Greene, represented by John Cullum
- Dawn Archer, emergency room nurse, portrayed by Angel Laketa Moore
- Doris Pickman, paramedic, portrayed by Emily Wagner
- Dr. Alexander Babcock, surgeon, represented by David Brisbin
- Dr. Angela Hicks, surgeon, represented by CCH Pounder
- Dr. Bettina DeJesus, friend of Dr. Pratt, portrayed by Gina Ravera
- Dr. Carl DeRaad, Chief Medical Officer, portrayed by John Doman
- Dr. Charles Corday, father of Elizabeth Corday, portrayed by Paul Freeman
- Dr. Dustin Crenshaw, surgeon, represented by JP Manoux
- Dr. Jack Kayson, Senior Cardiologist, represented by Sam Anderson
- Dr. Janet Coburn, Gynecologist, represented by Amy Aquino
- Dr. Jessica Albright, surgeon, portrayed by Dahlia Salem
- Dr. Kevin Moretti, chief physician of the intensive care unit, then the emergency room, portrayed by Stanley Tucci
- Dr. Maggie Doyle, assistant doctor, portrayed by Jorja Fox
- Dr. Neil Bernstein, Head of Pediatrics, represented by David Spielberg
- Dr. Paul Grady, Resident Physician, portrayed by Gil McKinney
- Dr. William Swift, Emergency Medicine Physician, represented by Michael Ironside
- Dwight Zadro, paramedic, portrayed by Montae Russell
- E-Ray Bozman, Emergency Room Coordinator, represented by Charles Noland
- Frank Martin, Emergency Room Coordinator, represented by Troy Evans
- Haleh Adams, Emergency Room Nurse, portrayed by Yvette Freeman
- Hank Loman, patient, portrayed by Paul Adelstein
- Hope Bobeck, Assistant Doctor, Christian, portrayed by Busy Philipps
- Isabelle Corday, mother of Elizabeth Corday, portrayed by Judy Parfitt
- Jackie Robbins, sister of Dr. Benton, represented by Khandi Alexander
- Jane Figler, Intern, Resident Physician, portrayed by Sara Gilbert
- Jennifer Greene, (ex-) wife of Dr. Greene, portrayed by Christine Harnos
- Jerry Markovic, Emergency Room Coordinator, represented by Abraham Benrubi
- John "Jack" Carter Jr., father of John Carter, portrayed by Michael Gross
- Kit, Surgery Nurse, represented by Bellina Logan
- Lily Jarvik, emergency room nurse, portrayed by Lily Mariye
- Linda Farrell, Pharma Representative, represented by Andrea Parker
- Lydia Wright, Emergency Room Nurse, portrayed by Ellen Crawford
- Maggie Wyczenski, mother of Abby Lockhart, portrayed by Sally Field
- Makemba "Kem" Likasu, friend of Dr. Carter, represented by Thandie Newton
- Malik McGrath, Emergency Room Nurse, represented by Deezer D.
- Millicent Carter, grandmother of Dr. Carter, represented by Frances Sternhagen
- Morales, paramedic portrayed by Demetrius Navarro
- Olivia Evans, friend of Dr. Pratt, represented by China Shavers
- Pamela Olbes, Paramedic, portrayed by Lyn A. Henderson
- Rachel Greene, daughter of Dr. Greene, played by Yvonne Zima (up to season 6) and Hallee Hirsh (from season 8)
- Randi Fronczak, Emergency Room Coordinator, represented by Kristin Minter
- Ray "Shep" Shepard, paramedic, portrayed by Ron Eldard
- Reese Benton, son of Carla Reece, portrayed by Matthew Watkins
- Reggie Moore, police officer, portrayed by Cress Williams
- Richard Elliott, MDS patient, represented by Armand Assante
- Roger McGrath, partner of Carla Reece, portrayed by Victor Williams (until season 7), Vondie Curtis-Hall (season 8)
- Samantha Sobriki, wife of Paul Sobriki, portrayed by Liza Weil
- Sandy Lopez, firefighter, portrayed by Lisa Vidal
- Sarah Riley, daughter of Meg Riley, portrayed by Chloe Greenfield
- Shirley, Surgery Nurse, represented by Dinah Lenney
- Steve Curtis, father of Alex Taggart, portrayed by Cole Hauser (season 10) and Garret Dillahunt (from season 11)
- Timmy Rawlins, Emergency Room Coordinator, represented by Glenn Plummer
- Walter Robbins, brother-in-law of Peter Benton, portrayed by Ving Rhames
- Wendy Goldman, emergency room nurse, portrayed by Vanessa Marquez
- Yosh Takata, Emergency Room Nurse, portrayed by Gedde Watanabe
Chief physicians in the emergency room
Sorted chronologically in ascending order.
- Dr. David Morgenstern - Seasons 1 to 4
- Dr. Kerry Weaver (acting) - Seasons 4 to 5
- Dr. Amanda Lee - Season 5
- Dr. Donald Anspaugh (interims) - Season 5
- Dr. Robert Romano (interims) - Season 5
- Dr. Kerry Weaver - Seasons 6 through 9
- Dr. Robert Romano - Seasons 9 to 10
- unoccupied - seasons 10 to 11
- Dr. Susan Lewis - Seasons 11 to 12
- Dr. Luka Kovač - seasons 12 to 13
- Dr. Kevin Moretti - Seasons 13-14
- Dr. Skye Wexler (interims) - Season 14
- Dr. Kate Banfield - Season 15