Carol Hathaway is a fictional character from the NBC medical drama series ER, portrayed by actress Julianna Margulies. She is the nurse manager in the ER. She regularly appeared throughout the series from the pilot episode to her penultimate episode of the show's sixth season. She was mentioned throughout the series and made her final appearance in season fifteen, the show's last season, when she is revealed to have a new career as a transplant coordinator.
Casting and early character development
The character of Carol Hathaway was supposed to die by suicide during the pilot episode of ER. Margulies explained in 2000 that the show's creator, Michael Crichton, "had something like that happen when he was a resident" at Harvard.
However, test audiences who viewed the show before its official premiere reacted negatively to her death. Her character was well-liked by test audiences. Some nurses also protested her suicide attempt, disappointed at how the death of such a strong, confident nurse would represent the profession on television. Foreign buyers of the show, too, were interested in the dynamic between her and the Doug Ross character as he was seen reacting to her suicide attempt in the pilot. As a result of these reasons, it was decided that Carol Hathaway should recover.
Then-unknown actor George Clooney, who had filmed the pilot episode with Hathaway's actress Julianna Margulies, called Margulies to let her know that he had overheard producers saying that her character might survive the suicide attempt after all and become a series regular. He encouraged her to consider waiting for ER producers to call her and not take another job. Clooney was right and Margulies accepted the role of Carol Hathaway on ER in 1994.
That same year, Julianna Margulies said of her character, “[Hathaway] is strong and controlling and that’s why she’s good at her job. She has a dry sense of humor and a very dark side to her that she doesn’t wear on her sleeve. She’s very compassionate, even if she’s dealing with her own demons.”
To prepare for her role as Carol, Margulies observed and shadowed medical professionals at hospitals in Los Angeles and Chicago, including Cook County General Hospital, the hospital that inspired the look of the show's emergency room. She ultimately based Hathaway on two nurses, in particular, whom she had observed working at Cook County General Hospital. Julianna Margulies has said that, when playing Carol, she developed a backstory in her mind that her father's death is the reason that Carol became a nurse.
Margulies initially worried that viewers would see Hathaway as too young to be the head nurse in the ER, but was reassured by the nurses she met that Hathaway's young age made sense considering the stress levels and strength needed for the job.
Margulies also attended nursing conferences as research for the role. In response to Carol attempting suicide in the first episode of the show, Margulies did research on the high rate of drug overdoses in nursing professionals, citing the high stress levels and expectations of the job.
Carol Hathaway is a complex television character. Margulies has said that she pushed for Hathaway to be represented strongly on ER. "The first year it was really easy to write for her, because she was coming from such a low place that she could only go up after a suicide attempt," she said in 1997. “The second year, I felt that they lost sight of Carol Hathaway and that she sort of became a reactionary character to everyone else's life. So I went in [that year] and I said: 'Look, I love this character. I think she is one of the strongest women on television. I think she is an incredible role model for people because she is so human, and why aren't you writing for her?' They all agreed with me completely."
Margulies was also instrumental in keeping Hathaway a nurse on the show, as producers wanted to make her a doctor. While the character does consider medical school, and proves herself to be well-qualified, Margulies felt that making her character a doctor would do a disservice to nurses, who she was proud to represent on television. She also felt it would be out-of-character.
In a 1996 interview with US Magazine, the actress also expressed her disappointment that the show did not dive deeper into Carol's mental health struggles. She said, "[Executive Producer] John Wells says Hathaway’s ratings go up when she’s lighter, and I know they think the show is dark enough. But I think they missed the boat."
However, in 2019, Margulies shared that her role as Carol Hathaway is one of the roles she is proudest of having played. She said, "I loved that character because she was so damaged herself, but she was such a healer to others. To start the beginning of a series having tried to commit suicide and to end up where she did, I think it's beautiful."
Career
Carol Hathaway is a registered nurse and is the nurse manager and charge nurse in the emergency room of Chicago's County General Hospital. In the pilot episode, Dr. Mark Greene refers to her as "very popular" with the staff in the emergency department. She is portrayed as a highly skilled trauma nurse. It is revealed in season two that she holds a master's degree in nursing when she completes a performance evaluation for physician assistant Jeanie. In season one, episode eight, she says that she is also certified to perform forensic exams.
Carol is tough and sensitive towards the lack of recognition the ER nurses experience. She takes her role in the ER seriously and, in one episode, is said by Dr. Weaver to be “the best nurse” they have on staff at County General. However, she does not like to take orders and is sometimes hostile to the physician assistants, as well as the interns.
Carol's high level of skill and knowledge mean that she is often teaching the med students. However, she often feels like her abilities — and the abilities of the other nurses — go unappreciated.
In season 3, Carol decides to attend pre-med classes at a local community college and eventually takes the MCAT exam. When she scores well on the exam, Dr. Kerry Weaver spends a day excitedly teaching Carol med student tasks, such as how to intubate a patient, which Carol does expertly. However, by the end of the day, Carol decides against becoming a doctor. When she helps a mother whose child has died, she realizes that her job as a nurse is worthwhile.
In season 4, Carol decides to open a clinic in the ER, but in season 5, she is forced to step down from overseeing the clinic due to a mistake involving Dr. Ross. She asks the nurse practitioner that she'd hired to help run the clinic, Lynette, to take over, so that the clinic could continue running without Carol's involvement. After the incident, Carol says that she is allowed to keep her job in the ER, but that she is out of management. However, in season six, she can still be seen completing managerial duties.
In Season 15, Carol is shown as a transplant coordinator in Seattle.
Mental health
Carol's mental health is a major plot line and backstory for her character. She attempts suicide in the show's first episode, being rushed into the ER via ambulance after an overdose of barbiturates. The attempt is nearly fatal, but thanks to the aggressive care of her co-workers, she recovers and returns to work eight weeks later.
On her first day back to work, in the season one episode, “Going Home”, Doug asks Carol what was going on in her life to cause the attempt. He feels guilty and fears it had something to do with him. Carol tells him, “there were actually more depressing things going on in my life than you.” She then says, “You know how it is, too much stuff starts piling up and you feel trapped.” She tells him she spends a lot of time discussing these things in therapy and does not want to talk about it anymore.
Episodes later, when Carol's application to adopt an abandoned child is denied due to her attempt, she tells Doug that she feels defective, and that she has worked hard in therapy since that day. At the end of season one, she expresses her fear to Doug that she will never be happy.
The reasons for Carol's suicide attempt are sprinkled throughout the series. She often uses her experience to connect with others. After physician assistant Jeanie Boulet's HIV status is revealed to the staff, Carol privately tells her about her suicide attempt and explains that she knows what it's like to come back to work and have everyone treat you differently. The two were once competitive rivals, but now, she suggests they be friends. Jeanie ends up working in Carol's free ER clinic. In many other episodes, Carol tells her patients and colleagues, when they are in distress, that they have to deal with their feelings and that keeping things inside makes things worse.
She often appears emotionally affected when other patients who have attempted suicide come into the ER. In the episode, "Long Days Journey", Carol helps work to save a woman who does die by suicide. After the experience, Haleh tells Carol that she knows that must have been hard for her to relive. Haleh asks if Carol had written a suicide note like the woman they had worked on. Carol tells her that she did not leave a note, because she did not know what to say.
In season two, episode eight, Carol cares for another patient who has attempted suicide. While working on the girl, she comments to Mark that she “hates this” and is clearly affected by the patient, to whom she later shares the story of her own attempt a year before. After caring for the patient, Shep comments - unaware of Carol's history - that anyone who takes a bunch of pills just wants attention and does not really mean it. Annoyed, Carol replied, “I really meant it,” shocking him and leading him to try to apologize to her several times. Later, in the same episode, he told her that he was glad that she survived her suicide attempt. Carol answered, “Me too.”
In season three, episode eleven, she tells Doug that she remembers how unhappy she used to be. She tells him that she "didn't think much of herself" when they dated before her suicide attempt, but now she "feels good." She explained, "I used to think I couldn't do things. Now, I'm taking a premed course. I guess it's about being in control."
In another season three episode, Carol expresses resentment toward her mother and tells her that she never felt supported growing up.
In season four, episode twelve, she tells paramedic Greg, "I thought of everybody but me when I tried to kill myself. I just got wrapped up in everybody else's expectations of me and forgot who I was. Now, I’m okay. I even tried to go to med school, but it just wasn’t for me.”
Also in the season four episode, “Of Past Regret and Future Fear”, Carol tells Doug that her father suffered from depression. Their conversation hints that his depression may have been a factor in his death, with Carol's mother believing “it was an accident.”
Seasons 1–3 Shortly after her character is introduced on the show, she is rushed into the hospital after an overdose of barbiturates in a suicide attempt. She had been working on shift just hours prior, making jokes and seeming like herself. The staff is distraught and almost too shocked to work. Dr. Greene has to continually remind them to treat her like any other patient.
In 2021, actress Julianna Margulies recalled her character's first episode. She said, "Whenever my character was at the medicine cabinet getting meds for her patients, she was putting some in her pocket for herself [for her eventual suicide attempt]. Not that they ever paid attention to that. If you re-watch the pilot, you can probably see her pocketing some medication."