The following is a list of characters from the NBC/ABC American comedy-drama Scrubs that aired from 2001 to 2010 and the 2026 revival series.
Character appearance summary
+Scrubs cast and characters Character Portrayed by Seasons1234567891011 John "J.D." Dorian, M.D. Zach Braff colspan="11" Elliot Reid, M.D.Sarah Chalke colspan="8" colspan="2" Christopher Turk, M.D. Donald Faison colspan="11" Robert "Bob" Kelso, M.D. Ken Jenkins colspan="8" colspan="2" Percival "Perry" Cox, M.D. John C. McGinley colspan="9" colspan="2" Carla Espinosa, RN Judy Reyes colspan="8" colspan="2" "Janitor" Neil Flynn colspan="7" colspan="2" Denise Mahoney, M.D. Eliza Coupe colspan="7" colspan="2" Lucy Bennett Kerry Bishé colspan="8" colspan="2" Drew Suffin Michael Mosley colspan="8" colspan="2" Cole Aaronson Dave Franco colspan="8" colspan="2" Sam ToshAva Bunn colspan="9"
Main characters John Dorian (J.D.)
Zach Braff portrays Dr. John Michael "J.D." Dorian, the show's original protagonist and narrator. J.D. begins the series as a staff intern, progressing to resident, then to attending physician, and eventually chief of medicine. His voice-over to the series comes from his internal thoughts and often features surreal fantasies. J.D. is a recurring character in Season 9, though he is still considered to be the protagonist of the episodes in which he appeared. Braff received top billing as a main cast member in each of his appearances for that season. He did not appear in the last episode of the series, titled "Our Thanks", and no mention was made of him. In the revival series, when J.D., now a concierge doctor, visits a patient of his at Sacred Heart, he accepts Dr. Cox's offer of replacing him as chief of medicine. J.D. and Elliot married between season 8 and 9, and are divorced in the revival series. J.D. has two sons, Sam, with his ex-girlfriend, Kim, and Ollie, with Elliot.
J.D.'s name is based on that of Dr. Jonathan Doris, a college friend of series creator Bill Lawrence. Doris served as medical adviser to the show.
Christopher Turk
Donald Faison portrays Christopher Duncan Turk, J.D.'s best friend, a surgical attending physician and later chief of surgery. Turk roomed with J.D. in college and medical school, and the two have an extremely close relationship, described in the Season 6 episode "My Musical" as "guy love". Over the first three seasons, he quickly starts a relationship with and ultimately marries Carla Espinosa. J.D. claims that Turk got his middle name from his father's love of donuts.
Turk and J.D. both attended The College of William and Mary, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence's alma mater. They share a goofy sense of humor. For example, they both enjoy dancing "the robot"; "dramatic slow running"; pretending to be a "multiethnic Siamese doctor"; and pretending to be the "world's most giant doctor".
They own a stuffed yellow Labrador Retriever named Rowdy, which they treat like a live dog. J.D. was Turk's best man and is the godfather of Carla's and his child, Izzy. In the revival series, Turk and Carla have three additional daughters.
Donald Faison was the only original cast member, besides John C. McGinley, to return for Season 9 as a regular cast member.
Turk's name is based on that of real-life physician Jon Turk, a medical consultant for Scrubs.
Perry Cox
John C. McGinley portrays Percival "Perry" Ulysses Cox, a senior attending physician at Sacred Heart, the hospital's residency director, and eventually chief of medicine in Season 8 ("My Cookie Pants"). J.D. considers Cox his mentor despite the fact that Cox routinely criticizes and belittles him. Cox frequently suggests that this harsh treatment is intended as conditioning for the rigors of hospital life.
Dr. Cox is sarcastic and bitter, with a quick, cruel wit, normally expressed through frequent and sometimes incredibly long rants in which he viciously attacks almost every character on the show. He is athletic, often found playing basketball in the hospital's parking lot with younger employees. In "My Friend the Doctor", he shows off by slam-dunking a basketball, but injures his back when he lands, a reminder that he is middle-aged. Out of vanity, he tries to disguise his injury. His parents were an absent or abusive mother and an alcoholic, abusive father, which may have sculpted his narcissistic personality and poor social skills.
McGinley says in the Season 1 DVD bonus features that Dr. Cox's habit of touching his nose is a homage to Paul Newman's character in The Sting, although Cox also uses it as a sign of irritation on occasion, rather than just a sign that "it's going to be OK", as it was used in the film. Dr. Cox has also been compared to Gregory House (although Cox's character was created several years before House's) by Dr. Kelso, who says, "Oh Perry, you are so edgy and cantankerous, like House without the limp." This is further explored in "My House", during which Cox acquires a temporary limp. At the end of the episode, through a series of circumstances, Dr. Cox walks into a room where the other characters are sitting and, in a very House-esque way, gives them the answers to everything they have been trying to figure out in the episode. In the revival series, Dr. Cox retires and appoints J.D. as his successor as chief of medicine. Months later he returns to the hospital and finds out that he has an autoimmune disease.
Elliot Reid
Sarah Chalke portrays Elliot Reid, another intern and later private-practice physician. Her relationship with J.D. becomes romantic on several occasions, and at the start of Season 9, she is married to J.D. and seven months pregnant. Between seasons 9 and 10, Elliot divorced J.D., and are now co-parenting their son, Ollie together. Elliot is driven by a neurotic desire to prove her abilities to her family (in which all of the men are doctors), her peers, and herself. Being the byproduct of a wealthy family, Elliot was largely unprepared for the "real world" hostilities and socioeconomic differences among the hospital staff. Elliot has an estranged relationship with both of her parents, particularly her mother, who often belittles and demeans her. Elliot has a habit of speaking in a high pitched voice when she becomes irritated or feels ignored.
At Sacred Heart, Elliot begins as an intern and later becomes a resident after a grueling yearlong internship. She serves as co-chief resident with J.D. during Season 4. At the end of that season, she briefly leaves to take an endocrinology fellowship, which ends five days later after her research partner finds the cure to osteogenesis imperfecta, the disease they are researching. After a brief spell at a free clinic, she returns to Sacred Heart and becomes a senior attending physician. At the end of the episode "My Coffee", she accepts an offer to go into private practice, allowing her to receive double the pay, still work at Sacred Heart, and never have to deal with superiors Dr. Cox (McGinley) or Dr. Kelso (Ken Jenkins) again. In "My Full Moon", she ponders her future career after struggling to deliver the bad news to a patient diagnosed with H.I.V. She tells Turk that if she were lucky enough to get married and have enough money to stop working, she would "walk out of this place and never look back".
Carla Espinosa
Judy Reyes portrays Carla Espinosa, the hospital's head nurse, who acts as a mother figure to the interns, often hiding their mistakes from their attending doctor. During the course of the series, Turk forms a relationship with Carla; eventually, they marry and start a family together. Carla does not appear in Season 9 but is mentioned a few times by Turk.
Carla starts dating Turk (Faison) in the show's second episode, "My Mentor". They remain together for almost the entire run of the show. Carla marries Turk in the finale of Season 3, "My Best Friend's Wedding". She and Turk go through a trial separation in Season 4 after Carla discovers that Turk is still talking to his ex-girlfriend without telling her he is married, a separation that is prolonged after Carla and J.D. kiss. After couples' therapy and some frank discussions with each other and J.D., Turk and Carla reunite and immediately begin trying to conceive. Initially, they are unsuccessful, but Carla finally gets pregnant toward the end of the season after several episodes in which she and Turk worry about their respective fertility. Carla gives birth to a baby girl, whom they name Isabella, in the episode "My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby". J.D. becomes the godfather to the child. In "My House", she is revealed to suffer from postpartum depression. She spends most of the following episode in denial about the condition, but finally gets help after a frank discussion with Jordan Sullivan, who also suffered from the condition. Carla and Turk go on to have three more children. In the revival series, Carla is dealing with menopause.
Robert Kelso
Ken Jenkins portrays Robert "Bob" Kelso, Sacred Heart's chief of medicine for most of the series. Kelso is portrayed as cold, heartless, and cruel, driven primarily by the hospital's bottom line rather than the well-being of patients. However, he is occasionally suggested to have a softer side, with his cruelty being a means of coping with years of hard decisions. Other characters have noted that he is burdened by the job. He often alludes to having a wife named Enid and a homosexual son named Harrison, although neither is ever seen. He retires in Season 7, after which his relationship with staff at the hospital improves. Toward the end of Season 8, he realizes he misses being a doctor. In Season 9, he returns to Sacred Heart as a professor.
Throughout the series, he is at odds with Dr. Cox, Sacred Heart's chief attending physician, who eventually replaces him as chief of medicine. Cox calls him "Bobbo" or similar variations, often refers to him as a "pod person" or "the Devil himself", and even punches him in the episode "My Dream Job". The two occasionally share moments of understanding and compassion, however, such as when Kelso tells a depressed Cox that the hospital and Kelso himself need him, as they balance each other out to do what is best for the hospital. After his retirement, Kelso becomes more openly friendly with Dr Cox.
Janitor
Neil Flynn portrays the hospital's custodian known as "Janitor" through most of the series. An incident in the pilot episode establishes an adversarial relationship between J.D. and him, which persists throughout the series. This tends to take the form of the Janitor pulling mean-spirited pranks on J.D., although he gives J.D. a pass after J.D.'s father Sam dies. In the last episode of Season 8, the Janitor reveals his name to J.D. as "Glen Matthews", though he is referred to immediately afterward by a passerby as "Tommy", leaving his true name ambiguous.
In the Season 9 premiere, Turk tells J.D. that the day after he left Sacred Heart, the Janitor asked when J.D. was returning, either oblivious to, or in denial of, J.D.'s departure, and upon coming to the realization that J.D. no longer worked at Sacred Heart, promptly walked off the job and quit. He returns in the revival series, and his son is now the Maintenance Guy at Sacred Heart. His son gets along with J.D. until his father accuses J.D. of thinking he got his job due to nepotism.
Flynn also voices a parody of Janitor in a 2003 episode of Clone High, serving as the school janitor of Clone High High School and the foster father of Ponce. He is credited as "Glen the Janitor", in reference to his alleged given first name.
Denise Mahoney