My Scrubs Finale

May 6, 2009 -- Tonight, ABC will broadcast what seems to be the series finale of the irreverent sitcom Scrubs; the show may return next season without some central characters. For eight years (the first seven on NBC), the show has imagined what it might look like if a hospital were staffed by gifted insult comics with soft hearts. Like ER, which ended its far longer run just last month, Scrubs has been a highly physician-centric show that has included one major nurse character. That has always been Carla Espinosa (played by Judy Reyes), a no-nonsense, relatively normal bedside nurse who has at times been said to have a management role. Espinosa has generally been presented as a smart, skilled nurse with some leadership qualities. And the show has at times underlined her knowledge and good judgment, even showing her teach junior physicians. She is married to the new chief of surgery Turk, and she has long been perhaps the closest friend of the ornery chief of medicine Perry Cox. Despite all those connections, however, the show has (contrary to fact) made very clear that as a nurse, Carla reports to physicians, and that physicians are ultimately in charge of all aspects of patient care. The show has also featured extensive physician nursing, in which physicians do important care tasks that nurses generally do in real life, like bedside monitoring and psychosocial care, an enormous theme on Scrubs. Even so, the show has clearly been better for nursing than popular newer dramas like ABC's Grey's Anatomy. So tune in Wednesday, compose a wishful J.D.-style daydream in which the best Scrubs nursing moments were representative of the show as a whole, and give the show a not-so-bad five! Read more about Scrubs...

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