Elliot Reid

Dr. Elliot Reid
File:1SCRan02.jpg
First appearance	"My First Day"
Created by	Bill Lawrence
Portrayed by	Sarah Chalke
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Doctor of internal medicine (private practice)
Family	Simon Reid (father), Lily Reid (mother), Barry Reid, Bradley Reid (brothers), Sally (great aunt)
Spouse	J.D., Sean, Paul Flowers, Keith Dudemeister (boyfriends)

Dr. Elliot Reid is a fictional character played by Sarah Chalke in the American sitcom Scrubs.

Profile

Elliot is a close friend and former fellow attending physician to series protagonist John "J.D." Dorian, although the boundaries between friendship and romance have often been crossed throughout the show's run. It was a running joke in the show that she and J.D. slept together at least once a year during each of the first three seasons, but this has seemingly ended in order to avoid clichéd storylines.

She is also close to Carla Espinosa and Christopher Turk, the series' other chief characters. Her boyfriend, Dr. Keith Dudemeister, proposed to her in "My Turf War," and she said yes in the following episode, "My Cold Shower."

Family history

She is the daughter of Simon and Lily Reid, and is of German descent. Her father is Chief of Medicine at a private hospital in Greenwich. She grew up privileged but love-starved; she once attributed her many neuroses to the way she was treated by her parents. Her mother, a cold, bitter alcoholic, constantly pressures her about her love life and her appearance and encourages her daughter's insecurity about sex (she once told Elliot to "never let a man put his dirty howdoyoudo into your bajingo"). Elliot's mother had multiple affairs, including with the Reid's latino poolboy, Jorge, and several of Elliot's boyfriends. Elliot also has problems with her father, as she is constantly attempting to get his attention and prove to him that she is a capable doctor. She also puts some of her neuroses down to his affair with a female butcher. She eventually stood up to him in season 2 after he pressured her about her career choices and tried to push her into a desired specialty. Subsequently, her parents cut off financial support, forcing her to fend for herself.

Elliot has four brothers, one of whom is named Barry and appears to be gay. Elliot indicated that she found Barry's Playgirl magazines once and that Barry used to dance for Japanese businessmen, prompting the Reids to send him to 'hetero camp.' She also has a brother named Bradley, with whom she used to play 'The Wonder Twins. She mentioned in My First Day that all the men in her family are doctors (including her father, grandfather and her brothers).

The family also had a Latina maid/nanny named Consuela, with whom Elliot was very close. Elliot has indicated that Consuela sometimes filled the maternal role in place of her mother. When she was 11, Elliot's father told her that Consuela died, but Elliot later discovered that her father had her deported for putting knives in the fork drawer of the Reids' kitchen.

Elliot also has a Great Aunt Sally and a demented Great Uncle who wears an eye patch and says 'Honka Honka' when he goes to the bathroom. J.D. once met them when they visited the hospital, and it became an inside joke between them.

Elliot becomes engaged to Keith Dudemeister, played by Travis Schuldt, in the episode "My Cold Shower". In true Elliot fashion, she insists that Keith's proposal is the picture-perfect moment from her childhood, so she ends up planning it herself.

Career

Elliot attended Brown University , where she was in the sorority Omega Beta Gamma with Melody O'Harra. At Sacred Heart, Elliot began as an intern and later became a resident. She served as Chief Resident with John Dorian. At the end of her fourth year at Sacred Heart, she briefly left to take on an endocrinology fellowship at North County University Medical Center, which ended after her research partner found the cure to the disease they were researching. She returned to Sacred Heart and became a senior attending physician. At the end of the episode "My Coffee", she accepted an offer to become a private physician, allowing her to receive double the pay, still work at Sacred Heart, and never have to deal with superiors Dr. Cox or Dr. Kelso again.

Peculiarities

When first introduced, Elliot is portrayed as a hyper-competitive, talkative chatterbox who puts her foot in her mouth at every conceivable opportunity (she once asked an overweight woman "So, when's the baby due?" and accidentally insulted Turk's Jehovah's Witness mother by describing people of that faith as "crazed, annoying busybodies". She also has a tendency to tell over the top, seemingly random stories about her childhood and past, which somehow, in the end, relate to the matter at hand.

She has cold hands (which she attributes to bad circulation)and doesn't like to be touched (implied to be because she is a WASP from Connecticut). She also votes Republican, although she is very concerned about that information becoming public; she told JD not to tell anyone that she voted Republican in My Sex Buddy although in "His Story IV" she declares it due to the ongoing political debate, speaks German and French (which Chalke does in real life), and is insecure about her eyebrows, her "camel butt" and her bangs. She also has panic attacks, and describes herself as being claustrophobic, germophobic and Phobophobic. Among her many house rules is that she cannot talk or be talked to while she is on the toilet, or talk or be talked to by anyone who is on the toilet. She also mentions in the pilot episode that her parents expected a male child, possibly accounting for her masculine first name. According to J.D. and various patients, her bedside manner is cold and mechanical Other running in-jokes involve the notion that she bears a resemblance to Gary Busey. As told in the episode "My Big Move" one of her breasts grew slower than the other, but that "Lefty caught up in college."