History Characters / ER

!!'''VictorClemente'''

!!Introduced in Season 14
[[folder:Simon Brenner]]
!!'''Simon Brenner'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simon_brenner_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/DavidLyons

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character towards the end of Season 14. He became a regular in the final season.
* BelligerentSexualTension: After weeks of being at each other's throats, he and Neela get into a full-fledged shouting match, which of course culminates in them going at it.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: In the final two seasons, he falls for Neela and they even briefly become a couple. However, throughout their short relationship, Neela remains in love with Ray, and she leaves both Brenner and County General to be with Ray in Baton Rouge.
* EvilBrit: More like "{{Jerkass}} Aussie", but the gist is the same.
* LadykillerInLove: His womanizing ways are established from his first scene, but he falls in love with Neela.
* {{Nepotism}}: To the point of being either a StealthPun--he's Donald Anspaugh's nephew (nepotism comes from the Latin word "''nepos''", which means..."nephew")--or a literal example of {{Nephewism}}.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 14 before being added to the main cast the following (final) season.
* RapeAsBackstory: His BerserkButton reaction to a pedophile patient leads to him confessing to Morris in "Age of Innocence" that he was molested by one of his mother's boyfriends.
* ReallyGetsAround: His ''first'' scene is of him [[AThreesomeIsHot waking up in bed with two women]], and his womanizing reputation is well established afterwards.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a few of Doug's characteristics, namely an abusive past that influences his good (anger about abused children) and bad (sleeping around) behavior.

!!Introduced in Season 15
[[folder:Catherine Banfield]]
!!'''Catherine "Cate" Banfield'''
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_bassett_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AngelaBassett

* BlackBossLady: Not afraid to put people in their place, often with a properly stern expression.
* BrokenBird: Catherine and her husband were devastated by the death of their son. The two were estranged from one another due to the trauma of it for a fair amount of time, though they manage to reunite by the final season.
-->'''Catherine''': I'm not sure why I've done anything I've done since that day. Why'd I not leave my apartment for almost two years? Then I see the news about the tsunami, and I fly to a place 10,000 miles away. Why'd I do that? Why'd I come back? Why did my son have leukemia? I never understood any of it.\\
'''Morris''': I--I'm sorry for your loss. I...I don't really know what to say.\\
'''Catherine''': When your parents are gone, you're an orphan. When your spouse dies, you're a widow or widower. But when you lose your baby...there's no word for that.
* ChekhovsGunman: Her son was one of Mark's last few patients.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Highlighted with her and Morris' interactions. While at the start, there is some friction due to her firmness and his resentment at a stranger taking Pratt's place so soon after his death, by the time of "Heal Thyself", Catherine is able to open up to him about her son's death and Morris looks at her in a different light.
* DueToTheDead: Mark Greene's heroic- if ultimately futile efforts- to save her son have a lasting impact on her years later. As such, she accepts Carter back in the ER after he reveals to her that he knew Greene, and it is shown that the fact that Rachel is his daughter may influence her decision to accept her in the ER.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite her son supposedly being one of Mark's last patients, she was nowhere to be seen in Season 8.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: She makes her first appearance in the second episode of the final season, following Pratt's death in the first episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Bossy, abrasive, takes charge, and takes no nonsense? Sounds a lot like either Kerry Weaver or Angela Hicks.

!!Introduced in Season 12
[[folder:Tony Gates]]
!!'''Anthony "Tony" Gates'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_stamos_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/JohnStamos

* AbusiveParents: He was raised by an alcoholic father. He is none too pleased when his father shows up midway through Season 13.
* AscendedExtra: He appeared in two episodes in Season 12. He became a regular in the following season.
* BerserkButton: It's not a good idea to talk about Meg's death in front of him.
* ChickMagnet: His love interests include Meg, Neela, hospital chaplain Julia, Dr. Daria Wade, and finally Sam.
* CockFight: With Ray over Neela in Season 13, culminating in a fight at Luka and Abby's wedding.
* LoveTriangle: He and Ray compete for Neela's affections throughout Season 13. She breaks up with Gates after he and Ray fight at Luka and Abby's wedding, and in the Season 13 finale, she reveals to Ray that she's chosen him over Gates. While Ray initially doesn't want to deal with Neela following his accident, they reconcile and get together in the final season, during which Gates had already moved on to having feelings for Sam, effectively ending the Love Triangle.
* MrFanservice: One of the more sexual characters in the show's last few seasons. A fair amount of his subplots deal with him romancing Neela and then Sam.
* OfficialCouple: With Sam.
* PapaWolf: To Sarah.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a guest character in Season 12 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a lot of Doug's characteristics. He's TallDarkAndHandsome, a ChickMagnet, and a PapaWolf. He's brash and impulsive, and has issues with authority, to the point where he's explicitly called a "cowboy" by his supervisor Pratt, similar to how Doug was called the same thing by his supervisor Kerry. He has a BerserkButton for {{Abusive Parent}}s that stem from his own experiences. After other relationships come and go, he genuinely falls in love with the token nurse character, Sam, who herself shares some traits with Carol.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: As to be expected for someone played by John Stamos. He takes over for Luka in this position after the latter starts CommutingOnABus.
* WhatTheHellHero: Is given this by Sam when he lets Alex out of the house against Sam's orders and Alex ends up in a serious car accident. It leads to the destruction of their relationship that lasts until the final episode.

!!Introduced in Season 14
[[folder:Simon Brenner]]
!!'''Simon Brenner'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simon_brenner_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/DavidLyons

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character towards the end of Season 14. He became a regular in the final season.
* BelligerentSexualTension: After weeks of being at each other's throats, he and Neela get into a full-fledged shouting match, which of course culminates in them going at it.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: In the final two seasons, he falls for Neela and they even briefly become a couple. However, throughout their short relationship, Neela remains in love with Ray, and she leaves both Brenner and County General to be with Ray in Baton Rouge.
* EvilBrit: More like "{{Jerkass}} Aussie", but the gist is the same.
* LadykillerInLove: His womanizing ways are established from his first scene, but he falls in love with Neela.
* {{Nepotism}}: To the point of being either a StealthPun--he's Donald Anspaugh's nephew (nepotism comes from the Latin word "''nepos''", which means..."nephew")--or a literal example of {{Nephewism}}.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 14 before being added to the main cast the following (final) season.
* RapeAsBackstory: His BerserkButton reaction to a pedophile patient leads to him confessing to Morris in "Age of Innocence" that he was molested by one of his mother's boyfriends.
* ReallyGetsAround: His ''first'' scene is of him [[AThreesomeIsHot waking up in bed with two women]], and his womanizing reputation is well established afterwards.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a few of Doug's characteristics, namely an abusive past that influences his good (anger about abused children) and bad (sleeping around) behavior.

!!Introduced in Season 15
[[folder:Catherine Banfield]]
!!'''Catherine "Cate" Banfield'''
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_bassett_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AngelaBassett

* BlackBossLady: Not afraid to put people in their place, often with a properly stern expression.
* BrokenBird: Catherine and her husband were devastated by the death of their son. The two were estranged from one another due to the trauma of it for a fair amount of time, though they manage to reunite by the final season.
-->'''Catherine''': I'm not sure why I've done anything I've done since that day. Why'd I not leave my apartment for almost two years? Then I see the news about the tsunami, and I fly to a place 10,000 miles away. Why'd I do that? Why'd I come back? Why did my son have leukemia? I never understood any of it.\\
'''Morris''': I--I'm sorry for your loss. I...I don't really know what to say.\\
'''Catherine''': When your parents are gone, you're an orphan. When your spouse dies, you're a widow or widower. But when you lose your baby...there's no word for that.
* ChekhovsGunman: Her son was one of Mark's last few patients.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Highlighted with her and Morris' interactions. While at the start, there is some friction due to her firmness and his resentment at a stranger taking Pratt's place so soon after his death, by the time of "Heal Thyself", Catherine is able to open up to him about her son's death and Morris looks at her in a different light.
* DueToTheDead: Mark Greene's heroic- if ultimately futile efforts- to save her son have a lasting impact on her years later. As such, she accepts Carter back in the ER after he reveals to her that he knew Greene, and it is shown that the fact that Rachel is his daughter may influence her decision to accept her in the ER.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite her son supposedly being one of Mark's last patients, she was nowhere to be seen in Season 8.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: She makes her first appearance in the second episode of the final season, following Pratt's death in the first episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Bossy, abrasive, takes charge, and takes no nonsense? Sounds a lot like either Kerry Weaver or Angela Hicks.

!!Introduced in Season 5
[[folder:Lucy Knight]]
!!'''Lucy Knight'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kellie_martin_er_promo.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"At the beginning of every day, I've been grateful that I'm walking in here on my own choosing, and not carried in on some gurney. And at the end of the day, if I've helped just one person, it's been worth it."'']]
->'''Played By''': Creator/KellieMartin

* AudienceSurrogate: Brought in because Carter, the previous audience surrogate, was now a fairly experienced and accomplished doctor.
* BelligerentSexualTension: She and Carter fight. A lot. They end up making out in "The Storm, Part 1", but it never goes any further--Creator/NoahWyle was adamantly opposed to the relationship, feeling that it was improper, as Carter was a second-year resident while Lucy was a third-year medical student and therefore Carter's subordinate, and out-of-character for Carter.
* CharacterDevelopment: Despite her brief time on the show, she went from being a bumbling, clueless medical student to a very competent one who would no doubt have been an excellent physician.
* CousinOliver: It was explicitly stated that she was brought on to bring some new blood to the now five-year old series.
%%* TheCutie
* DistaffCounterpart: As an inexperienced third-year medical student, she was all but stated to be a female version of Season 1-Carter.
* DownerEnding: Her young life, growing friendships and brief but promising medical career are cut suddenly and shockingly short when she is stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient, after Carter kept blowing her off over the patient and not listening to her recommendations, her death devastating the entire staff. To add insult to injury, it is revealed shortly after her death that she had matched at County, and would have become a Psych resident if she had lived.
* KillTheCutie: Lucy is stabbed multiple times by a patient in the middle of a psychotic break on Valentine's Day. She doesn't survive despite the best efforts of the staff.
* MoralityPet: For Romano.
* NaiveNewcomer: She begins as this. She gradually grows out of it.
* ShipTease: With Carter in Season 5, culminating in a kiss, but apart from that it didn't develop much further, due to Noah Wyle not wanting a relationship between the two characters. Occasionally in Season 6, her interactions with Luka showed signs of this, but nothing came of it, as she was soon KilledOffForReal.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasts only a season and a half. Despite the professional development that Lucy undergoes, the audience never gets to know much about her personally.

!!Introduced in Season 6
[[folder:Luka Kovač]]
!!'''Luka Kovač'''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/goran_visnijic_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/GoranVisnjic

* AmbiguousDisorder: He has bouts of what appears to be clinical depression several times throughout his time on the show, but it's never officially diagnosed and the only time he appears to be seeking help, it turns out he's confiding in a prostitute. He also appears to suffer from PTSD as well.
* BerserkButton: Wife-beaters, child-abusers, just AssholeVictim patients in general.
* TheCasanova: Like Mark, Luka had never been with anyone other than his first wife Danijela before he started seeing other women. Unlike Mark, Luka actually knows how to charm them.
* ChickMagnet: Especially during his bachelor era from Season Eight to Season Ten.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Likely because he was unable to save his own family during the war, he develops this, often to his detriment--he takes a waitress from his favorite bar under his wing, blithely ignoring all signs that she's a thief and a liar.
* CommutingOnABus: Throughout Season 14. Notably, Goran Višnjić does not appear on the DVD cover for the season, but is first-billed as a member of the main cast in all of the episodes he appears in (7 out of 19). InUniverse, Luka spends most of it off-screen in Croatia to be with his dying father, occasionally appearing to see Abby and their son Joe. He eventually returns to Chicago full-time, only to spend time away from Abby when she reveals that she cheated on him. He forgives her in the season finale, and turns up one final time in the third episode of Season 15 for them to depart County General together.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: The pain, guilt and loss of his wife, son and daughter during the war in Croatia hangs like a cloud over Luka for most of the series.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: Despite growing tension with Carol and how good he was to her and her daughters, along with a shared kiss, she ultimately reconciles with Doug and departs County with the twins to be a family with him in Seattle, devastating Luka, who was finally starting to move on from his grief over his wife with her help.
** Also his initial relationship with Abby who was distant and growing closer to Carter at the time, and his relationship with Sam. Ultimately subverted with Abby as she and Luka get back together after she breaks up with Carter and he breaks up with Sam.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Frequently suffers from this in his professional and romantic lives alike, despite how capable and caring he is.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything Luka went through both before and during the series, he eventually got a happy ending with Abby and their son.
* HappilyMarried:
** He was this to Danijela in the past, which is why he suffered a HeroicBSOD upon her death and the deaths of their two children.
** Zig-zagged with Abby. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: Comes up frequently with him, especially early on with the similarly passionate about his patients Benton and later on with Pratt.
* HeroicBSOD: Plenty of these for him too, most of which seem to happen just as things are getting better for him--he starts to recover from the loss of Danijela and their two children Jasna and Marko by falling in love with Carol; despite briefly dating, Carol leaves him to reunite with Doug. He starts to recover from ''this'' by dating Abby, then he kills a mugger attacking them. One even happens out of nowhere then gets even worse after he almost kills a co-worker in a car accident.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: He's 6'4", while his main love interest Abby is 5'3".
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: The reason he breaks up with Abby the first time. He bends over backwards to try and make her happy, but she's always miserable and content with being so. It gets to the point where they have a fight, he says a lot of things he didn't mean, and they break up.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MagneticHero: A capable, charismatic, passionate arguer and take charge leader when required to be, with the most stand out example being when he convinced Kerry to let him bend the rules to treat a dying Croatian boy at County, convinced Corday to perform the surgery for him and a number of others to assist with the case, saving the boy's life in the end.
* MrFanservice: Of the TallDarkAndHandsome variety.
* NiceGuy: He went through some dark periods, but for the most part managed to remain this since his arrival on the show, his introduction showing it with his kindness towards a frightened little girl, comforting her while her mother was recovering from her injuries.
* OfficialCouple: With Abby.
* SadisticChoice: Played with. In his past he had to choose between saving his wife or his daughter, carrying one away to look for help or get to a hospital when both were gravely injured after their apartment was shelled. Luka was unable to choose between them, to leave either, and both ended up dying, no help coming for them, something that causes him no shortage of grief years later.
* SayYourPrayers: He did this in one episode while in the Congo, but winds up living through it. Subverted since the praying saves him--the rebels holding him think he's a priest and [[EvenEvilHasStandards shooting priests is the one thing they won't do]].
* ShellShockedVeteran: He lost his first wife and two children in the Yugoslav wars. Quite a lot of his behavior can be attributed to HeroicBSOD. It's also implied that he has some slight PTSD.
* ShipTease: With no shortage of female characters to various degrees over the years.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: A brooding hunk who is good with kids, with allusions to a mysterious, tragic past and a not-so-secret longing for Carol? He was referred to as "Euro Ross" on many other fan boards (his resemblance to Doug didn't help much to dispel this). A period of promiscuity for him pretty much cinched it. Not to mention the fact that he falls in love with and eventually marries Carol's effective replacement Abby.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Like Doug it comes up often from the female staff, patients and women outside the hospital. A housewife who was [[SkewedPriorities suffering from a stroke]] even had a number of thoughts about him for this while she was paralyzed and he was treating her.
%%* TroubledButCute
* UnexpectedVirgin: During a scene where several other characters are discussing when they lost their virginity, he admits that his first time was on his wedding night, because his wife was religious and they married young.
* UnresolvedSexualTension: With Carol. Especially bad as from his side of things, developing feelings for her was an indication that he was recovering from the deaths of his wife and children.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Actor Goran Višnjić was 27 during his first year on the show. He easily could have passed for 40 and was immediately shown to be an authority figure (already an Attending) in the ER. Which also makes this a case of either PlayingGertrude or ImprobableAge, as there's no way he'd be an Attending so young.

[[folder:Cleo Finch]]
!!'''Cleo Finch'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/michael_michele_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MichaelMichele

* ClingyJealousGirl: Gets pissy about going to Mark and Elizabeth's wedding, even though Benton and Elizabeth broke up ''three years before''.
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: To Doug. She's his opposite in practically every way, right down to their race and gender, except for being a skilled and dedicated pediatrician just like he was.
* DistaffCounterpart: To Benton. Her aloof, reserved personality is very similar to his.
* FlatCharacter: As she never served any purpose but to be Benton's African-American girlfriend, she got zero individual storylines and we learned very little about her during her two years on the show.
* HappilyMarried: To Benton.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Her few scenes with Elizabeth indicate that she disapproves of the fact that Elizabeth and Benton once had a relationship, even though Cleo herself is the product of such a union.
* MalcolmXerox: For a while, tended to see racism as the reason behind every slight or reprimand.
* MalignedMixedAncestry: Against ''herself''. It's implied that the reason for her hypersensitivity about race issues is compensation for being of mixed race and having grown up in the suburbs.
* OfficialCouple: With Benton.
* PluckyGirl: Even when she's faced with the possibility of contracting AIDS from an HIV-positive patient in the Season 7 finale, she continues to work and save other patients during a multi-trauma.
* PutOnABus: After Season 8. Unlike most examples here, she doesn't return.

[[folder:Dave Malucci]]
!!'''Dave Malucci'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/erik_palladino_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ErikPalladino

* AbusiveParents: Implied, given his reaction to them.
* AntiHero: Malucci, unlike most of the others, was a character very difficult to call an overall good or bad person, with a number of check marks in both categories balancing each other out. Ultimately it is left to the viewers to decide for themselves the kind of man and doctor he was.
* AscendedExtra: Spent his first few episodes credited as a guest star before being added to the opening credits.
* BrutalHonesty: Doles it out and receives it frequently. The latter most notably from Corday in one of his earlier appearances:
-->'''Elizabeth''': "Do you want to know the staff's opinion of you? You're lazy, sloppy, and your careless attitude towards your responsibilities as a physician endangers lives, as witnessed today. In short, none of us thinks you're much of a doctor."
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Deconstructed. He's initially presented as a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Doug: brash, impulsive, problems with authority, womanizing, etc. Eventually, however, he's way out of his league -- he makes numerous mistakes, is warned by Elizabeth that "[[BrutalHonesty none of us thinks you're much of a doctor]]" (unlike Doug, Malucci is considerably dumber than the other doctors and also much lazier), and is finally fired both when his misdiagnosis kills a patient and when he's caught having sex with a paramedic while on duty.
* ButtMonkey: Usually the butt of the joke, mockery and comedy of the seasons he was in. Most evident when he stupidly drinks Carol's breast milk from the fridge when he uses it for his cereal without bothering checking.
* CasanovaWannabe: Played with. Hits on practically every woman in sight, many of whom reject him. Even the woman he's caught having sex in an ambulance with blew him off initially. That said he does show up for Mark and Corday's wedding with two women as his dates, and has various women coming to the hospital searching for him, with him hiding from them and making excuses.
* ConfirmedBachelor: Unlike most of the rest of the cast, he never has an outright love interest who is part of the main cast, preferring to womanize.
* CunningLinguist: Speaks Spanish. Makes sense, considering he went to medical school in Grenada.
* DownerEnding: Whether the viewer believes he deserved it or not. Dave and Jing-Mei attempt to perform a procedure that ends up killing a patient, after they are unable to reach Kerry for her approval or presence, their supervisor, because she was off consulting with a detective over her missing mother when she should have been at the hospital and left her beeper at Doc Magoo's in the process. Despite Malucci's often highly questionable professionalism and at times jerkass qualities, he is scapegoated for losing the patient despite being the lowest ranking of the three so [[ManipulativeBitch Kerry]] can cover her own ass from the fallout, throwing him and Jing-Mei under the bus, and Kerry soon fires him not for having sex with a paramedic on duty, but because [[EvilIsPetty she simply didn't like him]] and was looking for any excuse to do so. [[AmbiguousSituation This is despite him possibly having a child he is trying to support]]. He points out how little she ever cared to ask him about his life or get to know him and delivers a long overdue spiteful rant to her in retaliation. Malucci is last seen clearing out his locker and [[DeathGlare glowering silently]] at Kerry, before departing County, career in tatters, and never being seen again, and only remembered negatively afterwards. The only silver lining to his story being Kerry eventually losing her KarmaHoudini status and being fired as well.
* DumbassHasAPoint: On several occasions. Case in point, with the exception of the homophobic slur that he caps it off with, his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that he gives to Kerry is dead-on accurate.
* DumbJock: A doctor variant. Attended medical school in Grenada because he did poorly in college and on his [=MCATs=].
* {{Foil}}: To Romano and Doug. Like Romano, he's brash and rude, like Doug, he's impulsive and a womanizer, but unlike either, he lacks the consistency and respect for his colleagues that make him worth having around.
* HandsomeLech: A downplayed example. A good looking guy with an often arrogant, abrasive personality who hit on just about every non patient woman at the hospital with a pulse, but would back down any time he was turned down instead of pursuing it further. He generally knew when it was time to turn down the seductiveness.
* HiddenDepths:
** Claims to have a kid, although this may have been an appeal to Kerry's emotions.
** He actually proved to be a pretty decent doctor on the rare occasions that he got his act together and stopped goofing off.
** He was also self-aware enough to admit that his college years were basically just a party, and that his MCAT score was so low, he was forced to go to medical school in Grenada, which he jokingly refers to as "the Harvard of the Carribbean."
** Cared a great deal about his patients and did his best to help them, even when uncomfortable with the situation, such as trying to advise a gay young man to leave his abusive AIDS infected boyfriend, or at least use protection so he doesn't get it too. He even risked his own life to help out a Hispanic couple who were being preyed on by drug dealers.
** Despite their animosity, he attempted to fix Kerry's car when it broke down in front of the hospital, showing he had some mechanic skills as well.
** Liked to play hockey during his free time outside of the hospital.
** Despite his accidentally killing a patient, he tried to save the patient and was scapegoated for the entire thing and fired at the first opportunity by [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Kerry]] who had screwed up in the first place by misplacing her beeper, thus not being there to approve of the attempt or oversee it.
* IdiotBall: Despite knowing full well that Kerry is out for blood due to his part in accidentally killing a patient, Malucci sneaks off to have sex with a gorgeous paramedic. Kerry catches him and subsequently fires him. That said, Kerry was out for his head regardless, and would have found a reason to get him fired and scapegoated for the loss of the patient somehow.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Arguably this or JerkWithAHeartOfJerk, depending on the viewer's interpretation of him. He has his moments of care and kindness, especially towards patients, is enthusiastic and outgoing, and even assaults a man who raped his daughter. A good example of this was when [[ConscienceMakesYouGoBack he went back, retrieved]] and recited a message he had dictated from a wife over the phone to her dying husband after initially throwing the message away because the man died before Malucci could recite it to him.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Unlike his predecessor Doug, there is seemingly less beneath Malucci's philandering, arrogant, DumbJock exterior, at times more interested in learning and practicing new medical techniques than he is with the feelings of the patients. Or he talks too much at the worst time, says the wrong thing or displays BrutalHonesty. He's even fired in part for having sex in an ambulance while on duty, and one of his few moments of depth (see above) being in his very last episodes.
* KickTheDog: He claims to have a child to support. Kerry fires him anyway. Later, Malucci's last mention on the series was Carter telling Gallant that he was reckless and killed a patient.
* MonsterClown: He has some unresolved fear of clowns.
* NervesOfSteel: What he lacks in manners and common sense he doesn't lack in courage and determination, always ready to throw down if need be, or charge to the scene of an accident after roping in Carter to help him, and even ready to risk his life to protect patients from criminals outside the hospital.
* NosyNeighbor: Shortly after joining the staff, he interrogates everyone about why Kerry limps. He finally admits it's none of his business after she confronts him about it, but still fails to learn his lesson--one year later, he does exactly the same thing regarding the paternity of Jing-Mei's baby.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Dave finds out drug dealers have been pretending to be a pharmacy to prey on a Hispanic couple he and Cleo are treating, he angrily storms out of the hospital, and off screen he goes to the fake pharmacy, pretends to be someone in need of their help and retrieves evidence to take them down to protect the couple, getting physically attacked in the process but escaping back to County with the evidence for the police.
* PapaWolf: Demonstrated in full when he tries to assault a father who raped his daughter, and might actually be a father if his claims to Kerry are true, his reaction lending further credence to this claim.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 8. Unlike most examples here, he doesn't return.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In part this was the reason for his departure. Although Kerry made it plain she would pull out all stops to keep Malucci out of the ER, she didn't have the outright authority to unilaterally fire him for sleeping with a paramedic while on his break, it was a matter for the disciplinary board, and not an especially grievous, fireable offense, as pointed out by Malucci and Greene to her. By this point however, as she keeps pressing and impeding him, Malucci [[RageBreakingPoint finally decides he has had more than enough]] of [[BadBoss Kerry]] and tells her and the job to go to hell, storming out of the hospital instead of taking it to the board or fighting for the job as Jing-Mei later does for hers.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: He makes his first appearance in the second episode of Season 6.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Like Luka, Malucci was given many of Doug's characteristics--brashness, impulsiveness, problems with authority, an antagonistic relationship with Kerry, and a once-mentioned but never explained kid, along with a BerserkButton reaction to {{Abusive Parent}}s that likely stem from his own experiences. To the point where ''his'' fan board nickname was "Doug Ross, Jr."
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: With [[TheRival Jing-Mei]], [[BadBoss Kerry]], and [[ByronicHero Benton]] especially.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasted only a little over two seasons and got very little CharacterDevelopment.

[[folder:Abby Lockhart]]
!!'''Abigail "Abby" Marjorie Wyczenski Lockhart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maura_tierney_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MauraTierney

* AbusiveParents: Subverted. While her mother may not have been willfully abusive or neglectful, it's still clear that Abby's childhood was hell thanks to her mother's UsefulNotes/BipolarDisorder, a mental illness that she consciously chose not to seek help for.
-->'''Maggie''': I never asked to be sick!\\
'''Abby''': You never tried to get better!
%%* TheAlcoholic
* AscendedExtra: In her first appearance, she was an OB nurse at Carol's birth. Not long after, she appeared in the ER as a medical student, and was later transferred to be an ER nurse after being forced to drop out of medical school.
* BettyAndVeronica: From Seasons 7-9, she's the Archie to Luka's Betty and Carter's Veronica. Luka comes from the war-torn Croatia; he's always a NiceGuy towards both his colleagues and patients throughout his tenure on the show, as well as a good mentor to the medical students, interns, and residents; and he helps and defends Abby whenever she's in trouble -- such as when Kerry yells at her for putting in a chest tube despite her being a nurse in Season 7, and when her neighbor Brian brutally beats her for convincing his wife Joyce to leave him in Season 8. Carter comes from an incredibly wealthy family; he TookALevelInJerkass after his stabbing and continues to do so for a long time; he constantly inserts himself into Luka and Abby's first relationship out of jealousy, giving off EntitledToHaveYou vibes towards Abby in the process; and, when he does date Abby in Season 9, he tries to change and fix her, which she explicitly tells him she doesn't appreciate, as she feels she isn't broken.
* BrokenBird: Her rough childhood and disasterous first marriage has left her very cynical about life and love.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Displays this twice in Season 8. She's a complete bitch to and about Luka's new girlfriend Nicole, even though she and Luka have broken up. She's similarly nasty to and about Susan whenever she sees her with Carter, even though she and Carter haven't even been together yet.
* DeadpanSnarker: Has her moments. Most notably as a nurse and occasionally after she has Joe.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything, Abby finally gets her happy ending with Luka.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. She had one during her first marriage out of fear of putting a child through the same hell she went through, or the child itself being mentally ill. But played straight when she gets pregnant by Luka, despite still having the same fears.
* HappilyMarried: Zig-zagged with Luka. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Neela.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* JadeColoredGlasses: A deeply snarky, unpleasant mannered and bitter woman quite often, especially in later appearances.
* KickTheDog: In "300 Patients", Neela pleads with Abby to end her alcoholism relapse. The following conversation ensues:
-->'''Abby:''' You know what, Neela? Sometimes, you are such a child!\\
'''Neela:''' Stop it. I'm trying to help you.\\
'''Abby:''' Well, I don't need it, really!\\
'''Neela:''' You've got to stop this. Think about...Joe, think about Luka, you have to--\\
'''Abby:''' And I really don't expect you to even begin to understand this.\\
'''Neela:''' Well, if you love them, you'll do something--\\
'''Abby:''' If I love them?!\\
''[{{Beat}}]''\\
'''Neela:''' Please...I'm your friend--\\
'''Abby:''' Are you really about to lecture me on love, with your track record?\\
'''Neela:''' Don't.\\
'''Abby:''' Because I'm thinking, right now, Ray is ''really'' wishing he didn't meet ''you''!
* TheMasochismTango: She outright calls her and her mother's interactions "The dance we do"--she shows up in the beginning stages of mania, swearing that things are going to be different, but eventually going completely off the wall and causing chaos, then disappearing for months before turning up again, this time in a depressed phase, possibly to the point of being suicidal. Despite how miserable the whole thing makes Abby, it's obvious that she can't bring herself to get out of it.
* MoralityPet: She is one of a scant handful of her colleagues at County that Kerry Weaver even seems to ''like'', let alone trust, but their relationship is genuinely warm and kind.
* MyBiologicalClockIsTicking: Why she goes ahead with having Luka's baby, despite her misgivings about the child possibly being bipolar.
* OfficialCouple: With Luka.
* OffTheWagon: Comes up now and again, which leads into her cheating on Luka in the process.
* ParentalSubstitute: Was this to her own mother and brother whenever her mother was in a manic or depressive state.
* PutOnABus: Near the very beginning of the final season ("The Book of Abby"), she leaves the ER to be with Luka and Joe in Boston. She makes one final return in "Shifting Equilibrium" via [[TheCameo phone call]] in order to reassure Neela on the latter's last day working at County General.
* ReallyGetsAround: It's implied that she slipped into this kind of behavior whenever she was drinking. Chuny at one point teasingly calls Abby "The ER Slut".
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Aside from his good looks, the reason why Abby develops feelings for Luka, her main love interest, is because he defended her from Kerry and took responsibility when he allowed her to put in a chest tube in a patient, despite her being a nurse at the time, during a multi-trauma and the staff was very limited. Later that night, she spontaneously kisses him and ignites their romantic relationship after he tells her that she's a good nurse and could be a great doctor.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She replaced Lucy as the "bumbling and clueless" medical student for a bit after the latter's death. Then, though their personalities and backgrounds were vastly different, she replaced Carol as the token nurse character and love interest of Luka once the latter left. Interestingly, when Abby first appeared on the show, she was precisely at the point Carol would have been in her medical studies had she decided to go to medical school.

[[folder:Frank Martin]]
!!'''Frank Martin'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/troy_evans_er_promo.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/TroyEvans

* AscendedExtra: Debuted all the way back in the {{Pilot}} as a cop.
* BigEater: Oh boy. This led to his heart attack.
* DeadpanSnarker: ''A lot''. Sometimes this was combined with his {{Jerkass}} behaviour, other times it was his method of communicating.
* FriendToAllChildren: Does make some snarky remarks about the staff's kids behind their back, but is shown to be more patient and concerned for their health and wellbeing compared to other patients.
* TheGenerationGap: Was implied to be the reason behind his jerkass behaviour. The further along the series went, he became less of a {{Jerkass}}.
* HiddenDepths:
** It was later revealed that he had a wife and a daughter with what looked like Downs Syndrome and was also a war veteran.
** His reaction to the deaths or injuries of various staff members (Mark, Gallant, Jerry, Pratt) reveals that, despite his gruff demeanor, he genuinely likes and respects his coworkers.
** He's also a very good cook, as indicated when he gives Catherine a recipe when she's debating what to prepare for her visiting in-laws.
** Goes all out to give Neela a nice going-away party (themed as a Bollywood performance!) so he can apologize to her for the bigoted comments he made about her ethnicity and nationality when she first joined the staff.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's initially a {{Jerkass}}, but he gets better after his heart attack.

!!Introduced in Season 8
[[folder:Michael Gallant]]
!!'''Michael Gallant'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sharif_atkins_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/SharifAtkins

* AdvertisedExtra: He was promoted to the main cast shortly after his first appearance. If anything, the series made ''less'' use out of him after promoting him than before.
* BackForTheDead: His final episode features his brutal death by a roadside bomb, ''in the opening scene''.
* CommutingOnABus: In Seasons 11 and 12 until he died.
* DownerEnding: Killed suddenly in Iraq from a roadside bomb, leaving Neela a bereaved widow and his friends and family back home devastated.
* FirstLove: To Neela.
* FourthDateMarriage: He and Neela express a mutual interest in each other in Season 10, but he gets shipped off to Iraq before he ever officially asks her out. From then on, [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship takes place via letters and e-mails]]. It's not known if they ever even ''had'' a proper date before he returns on leave and proposes to her, with them marrying that same day. This is acknowledged when, a month after they've married and they argue over his wanting to return to Iraq and her not wanting him to, Neela admits to her dismay, "I love you, but I still don't ''know'' you."
* GoodLookingPrivates: Whenever we'd see him in uniform.
%%* KilledMidSentence
* MeaningfulName: Gallant, obviously. To the point where his final episode is named after him--"The Gallant Hero and the Tragic Victor".
* NiceGuy: Along with Luka, he was one of the kindest and most helpful characters on the show.
* PutOnABus: After Season 10.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Blue to Pratt's Red. Pratt is more rude and impulsive, while Gallant is kind and by the book.
* TooHappyToLive: Mentions his wife Neela and how much he's looking forward to going home and seeing her not five seconds before the truck he's riding in is blown up, killing him.
%%* TookALevelInBadass
%%* WideEyedIdealist

[[folder:Greg Pratt]]
!!'''Gregory "Greg" Pratt'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mekhi_phifer_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MekhiPhifer

* AscendedExtra: He appeared in four episodes towards the end of Season 8, before being promoted to the main cast in Season 9.
* CharacterDevelopment: Started out very impulsive and egotistical. By his tenure's end, he'd become an excellent teacher and was about to be named ER Chief.
* DownerEnding: Despite his impressive CharacterDevelopment over the years, Pratt ends up dying a horrific, bloody death from an explosion at the beginning of the final season, surrounded by his friends, co workers and brother, before he was able to propose to his girlfriend, radiologist Dr. Bettina [=DeJesus=], as he had been planning to, and after he was just about to finally be named the ER Chief after his years of dedicated hard work.
* MeaningfulName: He ''is'' a bit of a prat, after all.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the Season 12 finale, after Gallant dies and Ray reveals that he's been trying to contact Neela, his main love interest and Gallant's widow, Pratt gently persuades Ray to give her some space and not complicate things. In "A House Divided", Pratt tries to give Ray advice on how to sort things out with Neela. However, Ray reminds him that he already took the senior doctor's advice before by giving her a lot of time and space, but in doing so, she started dating Gates instead.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 8 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Red to Gallant's Blue. Later on the Blue to Morris' Red.
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Died at the ''final season'' premiere.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** He shares a few characteristics with Malucci, being introduced in the same season the latter departed. He starts out as a brash, arrogant resident who often flirts with women, including sharing a tension with Jing-Mei, and has issues with his supervisors. However, unlike Malucci, Pratt stuck around County long enough to undergo a good deal of CharacterDevelopment, eventually becoming an ER Attending and would have become the ER Chief if he lived. This similarity is {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Carter at one point.
** Starting in Season 11, he has some traits in common with Doug--with whom, incidentally, Malucci also shared some traits--particularly regarding the drama with his DisappearedDad and their strained relationship, and with his efforts to be promoted at the ER in the final two seasons.
* TooHappyToLive: Was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Bettina and had just been named the new ER chief when he was killed.

!!Introduced in Season 10
[[folder:Neela Rasgotra]]
!!'''Neela Rasgotra'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/parminder_nagra_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ParminderNagra

* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Subverted and Defied. She and Gallant contact each other as much as they can throughout [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship]], and both are able to resist cheating on each other, although they nearly came close to doing so--he with one of his coworkers in Iraq, she with Ray's bandmate Bret. After she realizes she's in love with Ray, she moves out of their apartment to remain faithful to Gallant.
%%* BewareTheQuietOnes
* CharacterDevelopment: Goes from a shy neophyte, to confident physician, to even more confident surgeon.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: In "Blood Relations", she suffers from this while stuck in a hyperbaric chamber with a baby who has carbon monoxide poisoning.
* CommutingOnABus: Officially departs the ER in the antepenultimate episode, but manages to make brief appearances in the final two episodes.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ray tended to bring this out of her, before and during the time they were roommates.
* DudeMagnet: Her love interests include Gallant, Gates, Brenner, and finally Ray. Not to mention Dubenko's crush on her, medical student Mae Lee Park's crush on her, Bret's and Nick's (Ray's former bandmates) crushes on her, and Pratt's flirtation with her that led to his break-up with Jing-Mei.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything she went through, she finally gets her happy ending with Ray.
* HerHeartWillGoOn: While affected by Gallant's death at the end of Season 12, she does continue to engage in relationships afterwards, with Gates, Brenner, and Ray.
* HeroicBSOD: She has one so bad after being notified of Gallant's death that she turns around and picks up two charts to go back to work, as if nothing happened.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Abby.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LethalChef: According to Ray, her cookies are "[[BrutalHonesty the worst cookies ever made in the history of baking]]." Frank, Chuny and Morris agree with him, although they're more polite about their opinions.
* NaiveNewcomer: Takes on the role of the "hapless medical student" for the show in Season 10. She gradually grows out of it over the next year.
* OfficialCouple: With Ray.
* OneTrueLove: Ray. Neela's other relationships all fail for different reasons--with Gallant, it was because they barely knew each other, as well as his returning to Iraq despite her not wanting him to, which led to his death; with Gates, it was his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah; and with Brenner, it was his inability to open up to her about anything. In stark contrast, her relationship with Ray is open and honest; she enjoys spending time with him and is genuinely happy around him; and even when she dated other guys, she sought ''him'' out for advice instead of them, proving she holds a deep trust in him.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Goes from merely "cute" when she first joins the staff to positively drop-dead gorgeous by the time she leaves.
* SheCleansUpNicely: In "The Human Shield", she arrives at the hospital in a LittleBlackDress in preparation for Gallant's return.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** She shares a few characteristics with Carol, most notably in their love lives. Both married--or, in Carol's case, ''almost'' married--their first on-screen boyfriends, Tag and Gallant. Both of their second boyfriends, Shep and Gates, are paramedics. Both only briefly dated their third boyfriends, Luka and Brenner. Finally, both left County General to reunite with their fourth and final boyfriends, Doug and Ray.
** She also shares a few characteristics with Lucy, most notably in their career paths. Both start off as a bumbling and clueless medical student. Also, both have an uneven rotation in the ER, but excel in a different medical field--for Lucy, it was Psychiatry, and had she lived, she would have been given a position as a Psych resident at County; for Neela, it was Surgery, and she ends her tenure at County as a great surgeon.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: She leaves a bottle of wine at Abby's apartment, which Abby later drinks after ''very'' stressful day and subsequently relapses.

[[folder:Sam Taggart]]
!!'''Samantha "Sam" Taggart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_cardellini_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/LindaCardellini

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Played Straight with her ex-husband Steve and final boyfriend Gates. Inverted with Luka.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Is furious when she sees that Luka has hooked up with the woman he had a fling with while in Africa, even though she herself told him she wanted to take a break. She later gets pissy when Neela develops a short-lived crush on him. A few years later, while dating Gates, she does the same thing--breaks up with him outright, but gets angry when he begins dating someone else.
* CrimeOfSelfDefense: An assistant district attorney fully intends to prosecute her for murdering her ex-husband, ignoring that said ex-husband was not only a dangerous felon, but one who had committed several more serious felonies (escaping prison, several counts of assault with a deadly weapon/attempted murder, kidnapping, and rape) in the span of a day or so. Luckily for Sam, by this point she's been hired as a private nurse for a ''very'' wealthy man who is a big contributor to the district attorney's re-election campaigns, and he casually mentions (read: threatens) to the ADA that he'll be having dinner with the DA later in the week, and wonders if prosecuting Sam is really worth it (the implication being the DA hadn't even been informed yet).
* DeadpanSnarker: One of her defining character traits.
-->'''Angry Patient:''' (''banging chair against window'') Hey! You listening?!\\
'''Sam:''' Sir, please don't do that.\\
'''Angry Patient:''' Why?! You gonna do something about it?!\\
'''Sam:''' No.\\
'''Security Guard:''' (''tackles Angry Patient'')\\
'''Sam:''' But ''he'' will.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Proceeds to take a needle of a sedative from Morris, jumps in and proceeds to inject the sedative into a mentally disturbed guy who was being incredibly aggressive.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: By the time she saved the money for an abortion, she couldn't work up the nerve to go through with it.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MamaBear: Don't mess with Alex or else she will come after you.
* TheMurderAfter: She kills Steve when he falls asleep after raping her.
* OfficialCouple: With Gates.
* RapeAsDrama: When her ex-husband escapes from prison (nearly killing both Jerry and Luka in the process), he also kidnaps Alex and Sam. While they're hiding out, he rapes Sam, who has to stay quiet since Alex is sleeping nearby. The entire scene is shot ''very'' uncomfortably.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She shares some characteristics with Carol. Both are the token nurse character of their respective eras; Carol from Seasons 1-6, Sam from Seasons 10-15. Both have a DisappearedDad. Finally, both have a temporary relationship with Luka, who grows close to them partially because he gets along with, and helps them take care of, their respective children.
* TeenPregnancy: She had her son Alex at age 15. Unlike most teen pregnancies though, Sam and her son are fairly level-headed.
* WifeBasherBasher: Punches out an abusive boyfriend when he not only calls the girl a slut, he grabs Sam's arm, arguably making her actions self-defense.

[[folder:Archie Morris]]
!!'''Archibald "Archie" Morris'''
[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scott_grimes_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ScottGrimes

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character throughout Seasons 10 and 11 before becoming a main cast member in Season 12.
* CharacterDevelopment: Probably the most extensive in the show's history. Started out as an annoying, bumbling, incompetent fool who no one liked. Ended as one of the best doctors in the hospital whom everyone respected.
-->'''Carter''': [[SoProudOfYou Looks like you followed my advice, Archie]].\\
'''Morris''': How's that?\\
'''Carter''': [[ArcWords You set the tone]].
* TheConfidant: Abby {{Lampshade|Hanging}}s that, by the end of the series, he's become a trustworthy person to come to when it for sharing one's issues. This is reinforced later when Catherine reveals her history with County General to him--she had brought her son there for treatment and he had died there--and Brenner confides to him about getting molested as a child.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his initial shock at suddenly meeting four children who are biologically his from his sperm donations in the early 1990's, he quickly adjusts to meeting his kids and is very kind, enthusiastic, fond and paternal towards them right away for the short time he got to know them, wanting to get to know them better.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LadykillerInLove: He's something of a party animal...who finds himself falling head over heels in love with police detective Claudia Diaz in the final season. While they aren't engaged by the time the series ends, Morris makes it clear that that's where he sees their relationship going, and Claudia agrees with him.
* OfficialCouple: With Claudia Diaz.
* PluckyComicRelief: In the first few years of his tenure. Downplayed later on as he becomes more competent and his comedic lines appear less and less.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 10 and 11 before being added to the main cast in Season 12.
* SecretKeeper: Two in the final season. He is the only one in the department to know that Cathreine Bansfield lost her son in the very ER she now oversees, and he is the one who Simon Brenner opens up to about his abusive past.
* TheStoner: In Season 10. He gets better.
* TookALevelInBadass: Went from a lazy stoner who needed his friends help to get through a shift and was forced to stay as a doctor by his father to someone Catherine Bansfield herself described as one of the best doctors in the ER. A sign of his development is how he was assigned to perscribe triage for a group of injured workman in the closing moments of the final episode, showing his growth in terms of skill and character.
* TookALevelInKindness: Went from a disinterested doctor who couldn't care less about his patients and who was oblivious to how much everyone in the ER disliked him, into a thoughtful,caring confidant that multiple characters opened up to.
* YouAreInCommandNow: When Carter is PutOnABus in the Season 11 finale to reunite with Kem, he instructs Morris to "set the tone", just as Mark had told him in "Orion in the Sky".

!!Introduced in Season 11
[[folder:Ray Barnett]]
!!'''Ray Barnett'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shane_west_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ShaneWest

* AbusiveParents: A BerserkButton for him. In a deleted scene from Season 12, it's implied, but not explicitly stated, that he had a stepfather who suffered from substance abuse. In "Split Decisions", he threatens Zoe's father after he learns that the man beat her. In "A House Divided", he becomes angry with a man who mistreated his stepson, and he tells Kerry that the man reminded him of someone he used to know.
* AfraidOfNeedles: In "Shot in the Dark", he's nervous about getting the flu shot, as he has a "thing about needles," and tells Abby to give him the shot when he's not expecting it. She does so just as he's leaving after his shift.
* AnArmAndALeg: He has both of his legs amputated after getting run over by a truck. He later has them replaced with prosthetics.
* BettyAndVeronica:
** In Season 12, he's the Veronica to Gallant's Betty for Neela's Archie: Gallant's a military doctor and devoted to Neela, while Ray's a part-time rock musician and a womanizer. Despite Neela and [[LadykillerInLove Ray]] falling in love, she chooses to remain faithful to her husband Gallant.
** In Season 13, he's the Betty to Gates' Veronica for Neela's Archie: [[CharacterDevelopment Ray's a serious third-year resident]] who's honest with everyone, while Gates is an arrogant ER intern who constantly lies to save his own neck. Despite Neela initially choosing Gates because she was OnTheRebound from losing Gallant, she quickly becomes miserable in the relationship. During Luka and Abby's wedding, Neela breaks up with Gates and chooses Ray...right before the latter gets run over by a truck.
** Also in Season 13, he's the Archie for Neela's Betty and Katey's Veronica: Neela's a serious surgical intern who tries to separate her personal life from her professional life, while Katey's an incompetent medical student who doesn't mind that everyone--''especially'' Neela--is aware of her relationship with Ray. Despite dating Katey, Ray doesn't actually care about her because he already chose Neela in Season 12, and [[OperationJealousy he only dates Katey because he's jealous of Neela's relationship with Gates]].
** In the final season, he's the Betty to Brenner's Veronica for Neela's Archie: Ray has come to terms with his accident and enjoys working in the physical medicine and rehabilitation field to help fellow amputees and handicapped patients, while Brenner can't come to terms with his abusive childhood and prefers sleeping around over being an efficient Attending. Despite briefly dating Brenner, Neela already chose Ray at the end of Season 13, and she leaves [[DidNotGetTheGirl Brenner]] to be with Ray.
* ButtMonkey: Goes through a bit of trouble, culminating in him losing both of his legs near the end of his tenure as a main cast member. Fortunately, things get better for him when he returns in the final season.
* TheCasanova: Much like his predecessor Doug, he attracts a lot of women, mainly groupies, and is successful in getting them into his bed. However, he's nicer than the usual archetype, as he doesn't take advantage of them nor does he discard them so callously.
* ChickMagnet: Throughout the three seasons where he's a main character.
* CommutingOnABus: After being absent in Season 14, he reappears throughout the final season, far more well-adjusted than he had been in the past, and reignites his relationship with Neela. In the antepenultimate episode, she leaves Chicago to be with him in Baton Rouge, and the penultimate episode reveals that they're living together again.
* DisappearedDad: Both his biological father and stepfather are mentioned but never shown on-screen. He speaks fondly of his biological father in "Quintessence of Dust", telling one of his patients that his father got him into music and loved the blues. He doesn't feel the same way about his stepfather, though.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Towards Neela. He tries to [[DefiedTrope Defy]] this by telling her that he's sick of waiting for her to choose him over Gates. However, it's still Played Straight--after Neela loses interest in Gates due to his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah, and after Katey breaks up with him because she knows he only has eyes for Neela, Ray admits that he believes his commitment and patience in waiting for Neela to reciprocate his feelings will win her heart.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything he went through, he finally gets his happy ending with Neela.
* FriendToAllChildren: He's very good at interacting with child patients or children of patients, and encourages them to open up to him fairly easily.
* HopelessSuitor: For Neela in Seasons 12 and 13.
* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Following the accident that results in the amputation of both of his legs. When he returns to Chicago for a visit in the final season, he's been fitted with prosthetics and is living as normal a life as possible and has used his injuries to focus his medical practice on those in similar situations.
* LadykillerInLove: He hooks up with groupies and "hot" women and claims to like them, but he doesn't genuinely care about them. In stark contrast, he outright confesses and shows that he's truly fallen in love with Neela.
* MrFanservice: Getting introduced as part-time doctor and part-time rock musician meant that this was inevitable.
* OfficialCouple: With Neela.
* OneHeadTaller: He's 6', while his main love interest Neela is 5'2".
* OneTrueLove: Neela. With other women, he'd state that he merely ''liked'' them, or comment on how "hot" they were, or talk about how great the sex was, all of which are superficial, and he never wanted to be serious with any of them. Conversely, Neela is the only woman he confesses his ''love'' to, he wants to take her out on dates rather than immediately jumping into bed with her, and he indicates to Pratt that he's thought about settling down with her.
* PutOnABus: After Season 13.
* SecondLove: To Neela, after Gallant.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He shares a lot of characteristics with Doug. He's initially brash and impulsive and has issues with authoritative figures like Susan and Kerry prior to his CharacterDevelopment. He has a BerserkButton for AbusiveParents that originated from his own experiences. He has a great rapport with children. He's a handsome and charming stud in and out of the hospital. Finally, despite his constant dalliances with groupies and "hot" women, he genuinely falls in love with Neela, who herself shares a few characteristics with Doug's true love Carol.

!!Introduced in Season 12
[[folder:Tony Gates]]
!!'''Anthony "Tony" Gates'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_stamos_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/JohnStamos

* AbusiveParents: He was raised by an alcoholic father. He is none too pleased when his father shows up midway through Season 13.
* AscendedExtra: He appeared in two episodes in Season 12. He became a regular in the following season.
* BerserkButton: It's not a good idea to talk about Meg's death in front of him.
* ChickMagnet: His love interests include Meg, Neela, hospital chaplain Julia, Dr. Daria Wade, and finally Sam.
* CockFight: With Ray over Neela in Season 13, culminating in a fight at Luka and Abby's wedding.
* LoveTriangle: He and Ray compete for Neela's affections throughout Season 13. She breaks up with Gates after he and Ray fight at Luka and Abby's wedding, and in the Season 13 finale, she reveals to Ray that she's chosen him over Gates. While Ray initially doesn't want to deal with Neela following his accident, they reconcile and get together in the final season, during which Gates had already moved on to having feelings for Sam, effectively ending the Love Triangle.
* MrFanservice: One of the more sexual characters in the show's last few seasons. A fair amount of his subplots deal with him romancing Neela and then Sam.
* OfficialCouple: With Sam.
* PapaWolf: To Sarah.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a guest character in Season 12 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a lot of Doug's characteristics. He's TallDarkAndHandsome, a ChickMagnet, and a PapaWolf. He's brash and impulsive, and has issues with authority, to the point where he's explicitly called a "cowboy" by his supervisor Pratt, similar to how Doug was called the same thing by his supervisor Kerry. He has a BerserkButton for {{Abusive Parent}}s that stem from his own experiences. After other relationships come and go, he genuinely falls in love with the token nurse character, Sam, who herself shares some traits with Carol.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: As to be expected for someone played by John Stamos. He takes over for Luka in this position after the latter starts CommutingOnABus.
* WhatTheHellHero: Is given this by Sam when he lets Alex out of the house against Sam's orders and Alex ends up in a serious car accident. It leads to the destruction of their relationship that lasts until the final episode.

!!Introduced in Season 14
[[folder:Simon Brenner]]
!!'''Simon Brenner'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simon_brenner_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/DavidLyons

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character towards the end of Season 14. He became a regular in the final season.
* BelligerentSexualTension: After weeks of being at each other's throats, he and Neela get into a full-fledged shouting match, which of course culminates in them going at it.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: In the final two seasons, he falls for Neela and they even briefly become a couple. However, throughout their short relationship, Neela remains in love with Ray, and she leaves both Brenner and County General to be with Ray in Baton Rouge.
* EvilBrit: More like "{{Jerkass}} Aussie", but the gist is the same.
* LadykillerInLove: His womanizing ways are established from his first scene, but he falls in love with Neela.
* {{Nepotism}}: To the point of being either a StealthPun--he's Donald Anspaugh's nephew (nepotism comes from the Latin word "''nepos''", which means..."nephew")--or a literal example of {{Nephewism}}.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 14 before being added to the main cast the following (final) season.
* RapeAsBackstory: His BerserkButton reaction to a pedophile patient leads to him confessing to Morris in "Age of Innocence" that he was molested by one of his mother's boyfriends.
* ReallyGetsAround: His ''first'' scene is of him [[AThreesomeIsHot waking up in bed with two women]], and his womanizing reputation is well established afterwards.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a few of Doug's characteristics, namely an abusive past that influences his good (anger about abused children) and bad (sleeping around) behavior.

!!Introduced in Season 15
[[folder:Catherine Banfield]]
!!'''Catherine "Cate" Banfield'''
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_bassett_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AngelaBassett

* BlackBossLady: Not afraid to put people in their place, often with a properly stern expression.
* BrokenBird: Catherine and her husband were devastated by the death of their son. The two were estranged from one another due to the trauma of it for a fair amount of time, though they manage to reunite by the final season.
-->'''Catherine''': I'm not sure why I've done anything I've done since that day. Why'd I not leave my apartment for almost two years? Then I see the news about the tsunami, and I fly to a place 10,000 miles away. Why'd I do that? Why'd I come back? Why did my son have leukemia? I never understood any of it.\\
'''Morris''': I--I'm sorry for your loss. I...I don't really know what to say.\\
'''Catherine''': When your parents are gone, you're an orphan. When your spouse dies, you're a widow or widower. But when you lose your baby...there's no word for that.
* ChekhovsGunman: Her son was one of Mark's last few patients.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Highlighted with her and Morris' interactions. While at the start, there is some friction due to her firmness and his resentment at a stranger taking Pratt's place so soon after his death, by the time of "Heal Thyself", Catherine is able to open up to him about her son's death and Morris looks at her in a different light.
* DueToTheDead: Mark Greene's heroic- if ultimately futile efforts- to save her son have a lasting impact on her years later. As such, she accepts Carter back in the ER after he reveals to her that he knew Greene, and it is shown that the fact that Rachel is his daughter may influence her decision to accept her in the ER.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite her son supposedly being one of Mark's last patients, she was nowhere to be seen in Season 8.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: She makes her first appearance in the second episode of the final season, following Pratt's death in the first episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Bossy, abrasive, takes charge, and takes no nonsense? Sounds a lot like either Kerry Weaver or Angela Hicks.

!!Introduced in Season 4
[[folder:Elizabeth Corday]]
!!'''Elizabeth "Lizzie" Corday'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alex_kingston_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlexKingston

* BittersweetEnding: Elizabeth decides to [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight perform a technically illegal]] surgery at Carter's request to transfer the organ of an HIV infected man to another infected man in dire need of it, saving his life, and is reamed out for it and [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder betrayed by Kerry]], who gives little support to her and informs her there is no possibility of future tenure or promotion for her at County. Simultaneously, she is being gradually phased out and replaced by Dubenko, who Kerry also brought in, ignoring Corday's misgivings about him. In the end she sadly admits to Carter that she has been fooling herself since coming back to County after [[TheLostLenore Mark's death]], that she had no more place at County, and she leaves Chicago with Ella to return to England for a time. Though later on they return to America and she becomes Chief of Trauma Surgery at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, meeting Neela about a job she is applying for, and as seen in the finale remains on good terms with a number of the old County staff, and is still quite a part of her stepdaughter Rachel Greene's life.
* TheBusCameBack: Twice in the final season.
* ClingyJealousGirl: When Susan returns. Granted, she has a slight point, as Mark loved Susan passionately enough to race to Union Station to tell her so and then had a small breakdown when she left.
* FieryRedhead: She's a strong-willed redhead, although she starts showing a gentler side after developing a relationship with Mark.
* GoodBadGirl: Very openly sexual in her conversation and behavior, especially when first introduced.
%%* HerHeartWillGoOn
* HeroicBSOD:
** Elizabeth treated a patient from Zambia who suffered from back pain, caused by a herniated disc. The patient didn't want open back surgery and Elizabeth had planned to go on a trip with Mark that evening so she suggested a less invasive procedure instead. The patient ended up paralyzed after leaking cerebral-spinal fluid and he sues Elizabeth for malpractice. The case eventually gets settled because the patient decided to sue the manufacturer of the surgical equipment instead, but Elizabeth continued to blame herself for the incident (even though the reason he was paralyzed in the first place is because one of the waldoes wouldn't grip the bone fragment in his spine) and promptly spent weeks avoiding the OR at all costs
** Elizabeth has a breakdown during her wedding, making known her fear that Mark's tumour will return and her fear of him being hurt or ending up dead. Both of these fears end up being realised.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Is pissy about Mark and Susan working together, even though they were never actually romantically involved and even though every day she works side-by-side with her ex-lover Benton.
** She also chastises a fellow surgeon who asks her to speed up an operation because he wants to go to a ball game, when she herself rushed through an operation because she wanted to leave for a romantic weekend with Mark, permanently crippling the patient (to be fair, it could be that it's because of this error that she's lecturing the other doctor).
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Her mother and father are both scientists. Her father is a surgeon, her mother is a physicist.
* MamaBear: When Rachel asks if there's anything she can do to make up for nearly killing Ella with an ecstasy tablet, Elizabeth, ill with flu, fixes Rachel with her sunken, bloodshot eyes and says, "You can leave."
* OfficialCouple: With Mark.
* OneTrueLove: Mark. Elizabeth's relationships before and after Mark all fail for one reason or another, in the latter case probably because of [[TheLostLenore her love for Mark]]. When Benton asks her if she's seeing anybody in the series finale (seven years after Mark's death), she says that she's become far more focused on raising her daughter and working on her career.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 11.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Mark did manage to give her a daughter, Ella, and spend the first year of her life with her--long enough to hear her say her first words and, in a deleted scene from "On the Beach", see her learn to walk--before he finally succumbs to cancer.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Inverted. She's confused when someone refers to Benton, a surgeon, as "Dr. Benton" and needs to adjust to being called "Dr. Corday", rather than "Miss", as she was back in England.[[note]]Due to the way medical training evolved in England, British surgeons are called "Mr" or "Miss" rather than "Dr" after qualifying as board-certified surgeons, while physicians who don't specialise in surgery continue to be called "Dr".[[/note]]

[[folder:Robert Romano]]
!!'''Robert "Rocket" Romano'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paul_mccrane_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/PaulMcCrane

* AlliterativeName: Combined with his nickname "Rocket", he has a triple alliterative name.
* AnArmAndALeg: He loses an arm to a helicopter rotor.
* AscendedExtra: Made frequent appearances during Seasons 4 and 5 before being bumped up to series regular status in Season 6.
* AtLeastIAdmitIt: For all his numerous flaws, as Cleo called him, "a racist, sexist, elitist jackass," there was no denying that he never once hid the fact that he was a colossal egomaniac who couldn't be trusted and whose primary concern was himself.
* BackForTheFinale: Like with Mark Greene, he makes one last appearance in the series during its final season after being killed off in Season 10 thanks to the flashback sequence in "Heal Thyself". Despite it amounting to more or less a [[TheCameo cameo appearance]], it delivers what fans would expect from Romano, having him badger Greene in a forward and insensitive way about his cancer treatments while showing through his actions and facial gestures that he was genuinely worried about Greene's condition.
* BeardOfSorrow: He sports this after he loses his arm in a helicopter accident.
* BornUnlucky: Comes up often for him, especially the circumstances of his death.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He just wouldn't be able to keep his job if he wasn't very good at it. He pulls some outrageous stunts, says and does things that would be considered completely inappropriate, almost no one likes him and he tries his very best to alienate the one person (Elizabeth) that does.
* DeadpanSnarker: On steroids. His insults were frequently works of art.
* DownerEnding: From the moment he loses his arm until his death is a [[TraumaCongaLine series of worsening]] traumas and fortune for him, ending with a helicopter being dropped on him. Even in death Kerry posthumously insults him, along with many others, with nobody but Corday seeming to mourn him and Neela expressing her pity for his fate.
* DrJerk: Among the worst of them.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: For a character with such an extensive history on the show[[note]]By Season 10, the only main characters who had been around longer than him were Carter, Kerry, Elizabeth, Jing-Mei and Susan. Even then, the latter two had been PutOnABus respectively during Seasons 1 and 3 and only returned after Romano had been made a main cast member[[/note]], he suffers a pretty ignoble (though memorable) death when a helicopter falls squarely on top of him, a full year ''after'' a separate helicopter had torn one of his arms off.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: A episode that took place near Mother's Day had him enthusiastically describing the elaborate plans that he had for his mother, much to the shock of the other staff members.
-->'''Romano''': Bet you didn't even think I ''had'' a mother, did you?\\
'''Haleh''': Can't imagine what she's like.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Although there was a ''considerable'' gap in the hierarchy between him and Lucy in Season 6--he was Chief of Staff, while she was a fourth-year medical student--he seemed to genuinely like her, probably due to his oft-stated quality of only respecting people who stood up to him, which she had no trouble doing. When she's murdered midway through the season, he's very distraught by her death.
** Despite constantly locking horns with Kerry, he never forcibly outed her when she confessed to him about being a lesbian, citing that it's her business and does not involve workplace politics.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Is genuinely angry and disgusted at many of the dishonest stunts Kerry pulls.
* {{Flanderization}}: When he first appeared his bad traits were relatively low-key. The more often he appeared, the worse and more exaggerated he got.
* HatesEveryoneEqually: He's a bigot, yes, but he seems to have just as much disdain for those who are white/male/heterosexual as those who aren't.
-->''(to Elizabeth)'' "I know most people don't like me. That's fine. ''I'' don't like most people."
* HeroicBSOD: After his arm is reattached and he realizes he might never regain full mobility, then after he realizes it can't be saved and needs to be amputated for good, effectively ending his surgical career.
* HiddenDepths:
** Adores his dogs, studies martial arts (as evidenced by him showing up at work in such a uniform), is a member of the Polar Bear Club (he mentions it to Susan in one Season 8 episode and a deleted scene [[FanDisservice shows him in a Speedo]] having taken one of the elderly members to the ER) and knows sign language.
** He is also the only one to tell Elizabeth to go back to Mark. This is especially a touching scene because Elizabeth was probably the only woman he had genuine above-the-belt feelings for, and yet he told her to go back to her husband instead of attempting to use her moment of weakness to his advantage.
** His devastation at the realization that he might never be able to perform surgery again--a fear that comes true--reveals that for all his {{Jerkass}} ways, he genuinely loves his job and being able to help people.
* HopelessSuitor: For Elizabeth.
* InsufferableGenius: Comes up frequently.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Frequently. He may be an absolute a-hole, but when it comes to medical ethics and procedure, when he turns on the blasters, he's usually right. He would lash out against people for their incompetence and, in one case, illegal behavior. During a major rush of patients, he found Morris smoking pot. He ripped the younger doctor out of the bathroom stall and put him at the entrance desk, telling Morris to not move until he came back. The punishment never happened primarily because in a short time Romano would be killed by the chopper, no one realizing this, and [[KarmaHoudini Morris]] never telling anyone why Romano told him to stay still.
* KindheartedCatLover: Rushes his own dog into surgery because he refused to trust her welfare to "some poodle surgeon."
* LonelyFuneral: Romano was so disliked that Elizabeth was the only one to show up at his funeral.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** When he has to operate on his MoralityPet Lucy Knight, he actually stops being a {{Jerkass}} for a few hours and even manages a genuine FriendshipMoment with Elizabeth.
** For all his faults, he is normally kind to child patients. But when he is moved sideways (or in his view, demoted) to become head of the ER, he even starts acting belligerently toward them.
* PetTheDog: However rare they were, his NiceGuy moments were genuine. Even some of his supposedly {{Jerkass}} moments revealed that he was actually doing someone a favor--assisting a heavily pregnant Elizabeth with surgery, giving Benton time off to spend with his son, concern for the ailing Mark. Plus, the literal examples with his beloved animals, as well as his genuine fondness for Lucy.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The first thing he does when introduced is ask Benton why he doesn't have NWordPrivileges when Creator/ChrisRock does.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 4 and 5 before being added to the main cast from Seasons 6-10.
* ProperlyParanoid: In Season 10, he rides the elevator up to the hospital helipad with Neela to drop off a patient's watch that had been left behind. However, seeing the helicopter ready to take off triggers flashbacks to the loss of his arm from the year before, and he quickly gives the watch to Neela before heading back down himself. He turns out to have been completely justified in his fears, as the helicopter starts to fly out of control shortly after taking off due to the strong winds. If he had stayed on the roof, he may well have been impaled by some debris just like the doctor left behind with Neela was. Unfortunately, Romano dies anyway when he takes a walk outside in the hospital parking lot to clear his head, as the helicopter ends up crashing right on top of him.
* ShoutOut: When he's in the OR he wears a bandana with rockets on it. Whether the bandana or the nickname came first is never specified. He also has a model Saturn V rocket in his office, which he says is a gift from a former girlfriend.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Romano has been seen with some very attractive girlfriends.
* VillainRespect: The way to get Romano's respect is to stand up to him. Greene, Benton and Corday learn this; Lucy Knight is simply never fazed by him in the first place. He also comes to respect Luka a bit more upon his return from working in Africa, approving of his improved methods for clearing triage, and remarking he should send all the staff to spend some time working there too, though Luka having saved his life after losing his arm may have played a part in the respect.

[[folder:Cynthia Hooper]]
!!'''Cynthia Hooper'''
->'''Played By''': Creator/MariskaHargitay

* ButtMonkey: She has trouble keeping her shit together.
* TheMcCoy: She's overly emotional, and it often affects her work.
* NaiveNewcomer: She's introduced as having just moved to Chicago, and her inexperience as a hospital desk clerk lands her in hot water with several of the staff, most notably Carol.
* RomanticFalseLead: She and Mark briefly become an item, but she breaks up with him once she realizes he doesn't love her.

!!Introduced in Season 5
[[folder:Lucy Knight]]
!!'''Lucy Knight'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kellie_martin_er_promo.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"At the beginning of every day, I've been grateful that I'm walking in here on my own choosing, and not carried in on some gurney. And at the end of the day, if I've helped just one person, it's been worth it."'']]
->'''Played By''': Creator/KellieMartin

* AudienceSurrogate: Brought in because Carter, the previous audience surrogate, was now a fairly experienced and accomplished doctor.
* BelligerentSexualTension: She and Carter fight. A lot. They end up making out in "The Storm, Part 1", but it never goes any further--Creator/NoahWyle was adamantly opposed to the relationship, feeling that it was improper, as Carter was a second-year resident while Lucy was a third-year medical student and therefore Carter's subordinate, and out-of-character for Carter.
* CharacterDevelopment: Despite her brief time on the show, she went from being a bumbling, clueless medical student to a very competent one who would no doubt have been an excellent physician.
* CousinOliver: It was explicitly stated that she was brought on to bring some new blood to the now five-year old series.
%%* TheCutie
* DistaffCounterpart: As an inexperienced third-year medical student, she was all but stated to be a female version of Season 1-Carter.
* DownerEnding: Her young life, growing friendships and brief but promising medical career are cut suddenly and shockingly short when she is stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient, after Carter kept blowing her off over the patient and not listening to her recommendations, her death devastating the entire staff. To add insult to injury, it is revealed shortly after her death that she had matched at County, and would have become a Psych resident if she had lived.
* KillTheCutie: Lucy is stabbed multiple times by a patient in the middle of a psychotic break on Valentine's Day. She doesn't survive despite the best efforts of the staff.
* MoralityPet: For Romano.
* NaiveNewcomer: She begins as this. She gradually grows out of it.
* ShipTease: With Carter in Season 5, culminating in a kiss, but apart from that it didn't develop much further, due to Noah Wyle not wanting a relationship between the two characters. Occasionally in Season 6, her interactions with Luka showed signs of this, but nothing came of it, as she was soon KilledOffForReal.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasts only a season and a half. Despite the professional development that Lucy undergoes, the audience never gets to know much about her personally.

!!Introduced in Season 6
[[folder:Luka Kovač]]
!!'''Luka Kovač'''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/goran_visnijic_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/GoranVisnjic

* AmbiguousDisorder: He has bouts of what appears to be clinical depression several times throughout his time on the show, but it's never officially diagnosed and the only time he appears to be seeking help, it turns out he's confiding in a prostitute. He also appears to suffer from PTSD as well.
* BerserkButton: Wife-beaters, child-abusers, just AssholeVictim patients in general.
* TheCasanova: Like Mark, Luka had never been with anyone other than his first wife Danijela before he started seeing other women. Unlike Mark, Luka actually knows how to charm them.
* ChickMagnet: Especially during his bachelor era from Season Eight to Season Ten.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Likely because he was unable to save his own family during the war, he develops this, often to his detriment--he takes a waitress from his favorite bar under his wing, blithely ignoring all signs that she's a thief and a liar.
* CommutingOnABus: Throughout Season 14. Notably, Goran Višnjić does not appear on the DVD cover for the season, but is first-billed as a member of the main cast in all of the episodes he appears in (7 out of 19). InUniverse, Luka spends most of it off-screen in Croatia to be with his dying father, occasionally appearing to see Abby and their son Joe. He eventually returns to Chicago full-time, only to spend time away from Abby when she reveals that she cheated on him. He forgives her in the season finale, and turns up one final time in the third episode of Season 15 for them to depart County General together.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: The pain, guilt and loss of his wife, son and daughter during the war in Croatia hangs like a cloud over Luka for most of the series.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: Despite growing tension with Carol and how good he was to her and her daughters, along with a shared kiss, she ultimately reconciles with Doug and departs County with the twins to be a family with him in Seattle, devastating Luka, who was finally starting to move on from his grief over his wife with her help.
** Also his initial relationship with Abby who was distant and growing closer to Carter at the time, and his relationship with Sam. Ultimately subverted with Abby as she and Luka get back together after she breaks up with Carter and he breaks up with Sam.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Frequently suffers from this in his professional and romantic lives alike, despite how capable and caring he is.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything Luka went through both before and during the series, he eventually got a happy ending with Abby and their son.
* HappilyMarried:
** He was this to Danijela in the past, which is why he suffered a HeroicBSOD upon her death and the deaths of their two children.
** Zig-zagged with Abby. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: Comes up frequently with him, especially early on with the similarly passionate about his patients Benton and later on with Pratt.
* HeroicBSOD: Plenty of these for him too, most of which seem to happen just as things are getting better for him--he starts to recover from the loss of Danijela and their two children Jasna and Marko by falling in love with Carol; despite briefly dating, Carol leaves him to reunite with Doug. He starts to recover from ''this'' by dating Abby, then he kills a mugger attacking them. One even happens out of nowhere then gets even worse after he almost kills a co-worker in a car accident.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: He's 6'4", while his main love interest Abby is 5'3".
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: The reason he breaks up with Abby the first time. He bends over backwards to try and make her happy, but she's always miserable and content with being so. It gets to the point where they have a fight, he says a lot of things he didn't mean, and they break up.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MagneticHero: A capable, charismatic, passionate arguer and take charge leader when required to be, with the most stand out example being when he convinced Kerry to let him bend the rules to treat a dying Croatian boy at County, convinced Corday to perform the surgery for him and a number of others to assist with the case, saving the boy's life in the end.
* MrFanservice: Of the TallDarkAndHandsome variety.
* NiceGuy: He went through some dark periods, but for the most part managed to remain this since his arrival on the show, his introduction showing it with his kindness towards a frightened little girl, comforting her while her mother was recovering from her injuries.
* OfficialCouple: With Abby.
* SadisticChoice: Played with. In his past he had to choose between saving his wife or his daughter, carrying one away to look for help or get to a hospital when both were gravely injured after their apartment was shelled. Luka was unable to choose between them, to leave either, and both ended up dying, no help coming for them, something that causes him no shortage of grief years later.
* SayYourPrayers: He did this in one episode while in the Congo, but winds up living through it. Subverted since the praying saves him--the rebels holding him think he's a priest and [[EvenEvilHasStandards shooting priests is the one thing they won't do]].
* ShellShockedVeteran: He lost his first wife and two children in the Yugoslav wars. Quite a lot of his behavior can be attributed to HeroicBSOD. It's also implied that he has some slight PTSD.
* ShipTease: With no shortage of female characters to various degrees over the years.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: A brooding hunk who is good with kids, with allusions to a mysterious, tragic past and a not-so-secret longing for Carol? He was referred to as "Euro Ross" on many other fan boards (his resemblance to Doug didn't help much to dispel this). A period of promiscuity for him pretty much cinched it. Not to mention the fact that he falls in love with and eventually marries Carol's effective replacement Abby.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Like Doug it comes up often from the female staff, patients and women outside the hospital. A housewife who was [[SkewedPriorities suffering from a stroke]] even had a number of thoughts about him for this while she was paralyzed and he was treating her.
%%* TroubledButCute
* UnexpectedVirgin: During a scene where several other characters are discussing when they lost their virginity, he admits that his first time was on his wedding night, because his wife was religious and they married young.
* UnresolvedSexualTension: With Carol. Especially bad as from his side of things, developing feelings for her was an indication that he was recovering from the deaths of his wife and children.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Actor Goran Višnjić was 27 during his first year on the show. He easily could have passed for 40 and was immediately shown to be an authority figure (already an Attending) in the ER. Which also makes this a case of either PlayingGertrude or ImprobableAge, as there's no way he'd be an Attending so young.

[[folder:Cleo Finch]]
!!'''Cleo Finch'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/michael_michele_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MichaelMichele

* ClingyJealousGirl: Gets pissy about going to Mark and Elizabeth's wedding, even though Benton and Elizabeth broke up ''three years before''.
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: To Doug. She's his opposite in practically every way, right down to their race and gender, except for being a skilled and dedicated pediatrician just like he was.
* DistaffCounterpart: To Benton. Her aloof, reserved personality is very similar to his.
* FlatCharacter: As she never served any purpose but to be Benton's African-American girlfriend, she got zero individual storylines and we learned very little about her during her two years on the show.
* HappilyMarried: To Benton.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Her few scenes with Elizabeth indicate that she disapproves of the fact that Elizabeth and Benton once had a relationship, even though Cleo herself is the product of such a union.
* MalcolmXerox: For a while, tended to see racism as the reason behind every slight or reprimand.
* MalignedMixedAncestry: Against ''herself''. It's implied that the reason for her hypersensitivity about race issues is compensation for being of mixed race and having grown up in the suburbs.
* OfficialCouple: With Benton.
* PluckyGirl: Even when she's faced with the possibility of contracting AIDS from an HIV-positive patient in the Season 7 finale, she continues to work and save other patients during a multi-trauma.
* PutOnABus: After Season 8. Unlike most examples here, she doesn't return.

[[folder:Dave Malucci]]
!!'''Dave Malucci'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/erik_palladino_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ErikPalladino

* AbusiveParents: Implied, given his reaction to them.
* AntiHero: Malucci, unlike most of the others, was a character very difficult to call an overall good or bad person, with a number of check marks in both categories balancing each other out. Ultimately it is left to the viewers to decide for themselves the kind of man and doctor he was.
* AscendedExtra: Spent his first few episodes credited as a guest star before being added to the opening credits.
* BrutalHonesty: Doles it out and receives it frequently. The latter most notably from Corday in one of his earlier appearances:
-->'''Elizabeth''': "Do you want to know the staff's opinion of you? You're lazy, sloppy, and your careless attitude towards your responsibilities as a physician endangers lives, as witnessed today. In short, none of us thinks you're much of a doctor."
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Deconstructed. He's initially presented as a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Doug: brash, impulsive, problems with authority, womanizing, etc. Eventually, however, he's way out of his league -- he makes numerous mistakes, is warned by Elizabeth that "[[BrutalHonesty none of us thinks you're much of a doctor]]" (unlike Doug, Malucci is considerably dumber than the other doctors and also much lazier), and is finally fired both when his misdiagnosis kills a patient and when he's caught having sex with a paramedic while on duty.
* ButtMonkey: Usually the butt of the joke, mockery and comedy of the seasons he was in. Most evident when he stupidly drinks Carol's breast milk from the fridge when he uses it for his cereal without bothering checking.
* CasanovaWannabe: Played with. Hits on practically every woman in sight, many of whom reject him. Even the woman he's caught having sex in an ambulance with blew him off initially. That said he does show up for Mark and Corday's wedding with two women as his dates, and has various women coming to the hospital searching for him, with him hiding from them and making excuses.
* ConfirmedBachelor: Unlike most of the rest of the cast, he never has an outright love interest who is part of the main cast, preferring to womanize.
* CunningLinguist: Speaks Spanish. Makes sense, considering he went to medical school in Grenada.
* DownerEnding: Whether the viewer believes he deserved it or not. Dave and Jing-Mei attempt to perform a procedure that ends up killing a patient, after they are unable to reach Kerry for her approval or presence, their supervisor, because she was off consulting with a detective over her missing mother when she should have been at the hospital and left her beeper at Doc Magoo's in the process. Despite Malucci's often highly questionable professionalism and at times jerkass qualities, he is scapegoated for losing the patient despite being the lowest ranking of the three so [[ManipulativeBitch Kerry]] can cover her own ass from the fallout, throwing him and Jing-Mei under the bus, and Kerry soon fires him not for having sex with a paramedic on duty, but because [[EvilIsPetty she simply didn't like him]] and was looking for any excuse to do so. [[AmbiguousSituation This is despite him possibly having a child he is trying to support]]. He points out how little she ever cared to ask him about his life or get to know him and delivers a long overdue spiteful rant to her in retaliation. Malucci is last seen clearing out his locker and [[DeathGlare glowering silently]] at Kerry, before departing County, career in tatters, and never being seen again, and only remembered negatively afterwards. The only silver lining to his story being Kerry eventually losing her KarmaHoudini status and being fired as well.
* DumbassHasAPoint: On several occasions. Case in point, with the exception of the homophobic slur that he caps it off with, his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that he gives to Kerry is dead-on accurate.
* DumbJock: A doctor variant. Attended medical school in Grenada because he did poorly in college and on his [=MCATs=].
* {{Foil}}: To Romano and Doug. Like Romano, he's brash and rude, like Doug, he's impulsive and a womanizer, but unlike either, he lacks the consistency and respect for his colleagues that make him worth having around.
* HandsomeLech: A downplayed example. A good looking guy with an often arrogant, abrasive personality who hit on just about every non patient woman at the hospital with a pulse, but would back down any time he was turned down instead of pursuing it further. He generally knew when it was time to turn down the seductiveness.
* HiddenDepths:
** Claims to have a kid, although this may have been an appeal to Kerry's emotions.
** He actually proved to be a pretty decent doctor on the rare occasions that he got his act together and stopped goofing off.
** He was also self-aware enough to admit that his college years were basically just a party, and that his MCAT score was so low, he was forced to go to medical school in Grenada, which he jokingly refers to as "the Harvard of the Carribbean."
** Cared a great deal about his patients and did his best to help them, even when uncomfortable with the situation, such as trying to advise a gay young man to leave his abusive AIDS infected boyfriend, or at least use protection so he doesn't get it too. He even risked his own life to help out a Hispanic couple who were being preyed on by drug dealers.
** Despite their animosity, he attempted to fix Kerry's car when it broke down in front of the hospital, showing he had some mechanic skills as well.
** Liked to play hockey during his free time outside of the hospital.
** Despite his accidentally killing a patient, he tried to save the patient and was scapegoated for the entire thing and fired at the first opportunity by [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Kerry]] who had screwed up in the first place by misplacing her beeper, thus not being there to approve of the attempt or oversee it.
* IdiotBall: Despite knowing full well that Kerry is out for blood due to his part in accidentally killing a patient, Malucci sneaks off to have sex with a gorgeous paramedic. Kerry catches him and subsequently fires him. That said, Kerry was out for his head regardless, and would have found a reason to get him fired and scapegoated for the loss of the patient somehow.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Arguably this or JerkWithAHeartOfJerk, depending on the viewer's interpretation of him. He has his moments of care and kindness, especially towards patients, is enthusiastic and outgoing, and even assaults a man who raped his daughter. A good example of this was when [[ConscienceMakesYouGoBack he went back, retrieved]] and recited a message he had dictated from a wife over the phone to her dying husband after initially throwing the message away because the man died before Malucci could recite it to him.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Unlike his predecessor Doug, there is seemingly less beneath Malucci's philandering, arrogant, DumbJock exterior, at times more interested in learning and practicing new medical techniques than he is with the feelings of the patients. Or he talks too much at the worst time, says the wrong thing or displays BrutalHonesty. He's even fired in part for having sex in an ambulance while on duty, and one of his few moments of depth (see above) being in his very last episodes.
* KickTheDog: He claims to have a child to support. Kerry fires him anyway. Later, Malucci's last mention on the series was Carter telling Gallant that he was reckless and killed a patient.
* MonsterClown: He has some unresolved fear of clowns.
* NervesOfSteel: What he lacks in manners and common sense he doesn't lack in courage and determination, always ready to throw down if need be, or charge to the scene of an accident after roping in Carter to help him, and even ready to risk his life to protect patients from criminals outside the hospital.
* NosyNeighbor: Shortly after joining the staff, he interrogates everyone about why Kerry limps. He finally admits it's none of his business after she confronts him about it, but still fails to learn his lesson--one year later, he does exactly the same thing regarding the paternity of Jing-Mei's baby.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Dave finds out drug dealers have been pretending to be a pharmacy to prey on a Hispanic couple he and Cleo are treating, he angrily storms out of the hospital, and off screen he goes to the fake pharmacy, pretends to be someone in need of their help and retrieves evidence to take them down to protect the couple, getting physically attacked in the process but escaping back to County with the evidence for the police.
* PapaWolf: Demonstrated in full when he tries to assault a father who raped his daughter, and might actually be a father if his claims to Kerry are true, his reaction lending further credence to this claim.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 8. Unlike most examples here, he doesn't return.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In part this was the reason for his departure. Although Kerry made it plain she would pull out all stops to keep Malucci out of the ER, she didn't have the outright authority to unilaterally fire him for sleeping with a paramedic while on his break, it was a matter for the disciplinary board, and not an especially grievous, fireable offense, as pointed out by Malucci and Greene to her. By this point however, as she keeps pressing and impeding him, Malucci [[RageBreakingPoint finally decides he has had more than enough]] of [[BadBoss Kerry]] and tells her and the job to go to hell, storming out of the hospital instead of taking it to the board or fighting for the job as Jing-Mei later does for hers.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: He makes his first appearance in the second episode of Season 6.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Like Luka, Malucci was given many of Doug's characteristics--brashness, impulsiveness, problems with authority, an antagonistic relationship with Kerry, and a once-mentioned but never explained kid, along with a BerserkButton reaction to {{Abusive Parent}}s that likely stem from his own experiences. To the point where ''his'' fan board nickname was "Doug Ross, Jr."
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: With [[TheRival Jing-Mei]], [[BadBoss Kerry]], and [[ByronicHero Benton]] especially.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasted only a little over two seasons and got very little CharacterDevelopment.

[[folder:Abby Lockhart]]
!!'''Abigail "Abby" Marjorie Wyczenski Lockhart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maura_tierney_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MauraTierney

* AbusiveParents: Subverted. While her mother may not have been willfully abusive or neglectful, it's still clear that Abby's childhood was hell thanks to her mother's UsefulNotes/BipolarDisorder, a mental illness that she consciously chose not to seek help for.
-->'''Maggie''': I never asked to be sick!\\
'''Abby''': You never tried to get better!
%%* TheAlcoholic
* AscendedExtra: In her first appearance, she was an OB nurse at Carol's birth. Not long after, she appeared in the ER as a medical student, and was later transferred to be an ER nurse after being forced to drop out of medical school.
* BettyAndVeronica: From Seasons 7-9, she's the Archie to Luka's Betty and Carter's Veronica. Luka comes from the war-torn Croatia; he's always a NiceGuy towards both his colleagues and patients throughout his tenure on the show, as well as a good mentor to the medical students, interns, and residents; and he helps and defends Abby whenever she's in trouble -- such as when Kerry yells at her for putting in a chest tube despite her being a nurse in Season 7, and when her neighbor Brian brutally beats her for convincing his wife Joyce to leave him in Season 8. Carter comes from an incredibly wealthy family; he TookALevelInJerkass after his stabbing and continues to do so for a long time; he constantly inserts himself into Luka and Abby's first relationship out of jealousy, giving off EntitledToHaveYou vibes towards Abby in the process; and, when he does date Abby in Season 9, he tries to change and fix her, which she explicitly tells him she doesn't appreciate, as she feels she isn't broken.
* BrokenBird: Her rough childhood and disasterous first marriage has left her very cynical about life and love.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Displays this twice in Season 8. She's a complete bitch to and about Luka's new girlfriend Nicole, even though she and Luka have broken up. She's similarly nasty to and about Susan whenever she sees her with Carter, even though she and Carter haven't even been together yet.
* DeadpanSnarker: Has her moments. Most notably as a nurse and occasionally after she has Joe.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything, Abby finally gets her happy ending with Luka.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. She had one during her first marriage out of fear of putting a child through the same hell she went through, or the child itself being mentally ill. But played straight when she gets pregnant by Luka, despite still having the same fears.
* HappilyMarried: Zig-zagged with Luka. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Neela.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* JadeColoredGlasses: A deeply snarky, unpleasant mannered and bitter woman quite often, especially in later appearances.
* KickTheDog: In "300 Patients", Neela pleads with Abby to end her alcoholism relapse. The following conversation ensues:
-->'''Abby:''' You know what, Neela? Sometimes, you are such a child!\\
'''Neela:''' Stop it. I'm trying to help you.\\
'''Abby:''' Well, I don't need it, really!\\
'''Neela:''' You've got to stop this. Think about...Joe, think about Luka, you have to--\\
'''Abby:''' And I really don't expect you to even begin to understand this.\\
'''Neela:''' Well, if you love them, you'll do something--\\
'''Abby:''' If I love them?!\\
''[{{Beat}}]''\\
'''Neela:''' Please...I'm your friend--\\
'''Abby:''' Are you really about to lecture me on love, with your track record?\\
'''Neela:''' Don't.\\
'''Abby:''' Because I'm thinking, right now, Ray is ''really'' wishing he didn't meet ''you''!
* TheMasochismTango: She outright calls her and her mother's interactions "The dance we do"--she shows up in the beginning stages of mania, swearing that things are going to be different, but eventually going completely off the wall and causing chaos, then disappearing for months before turning up again, this time in a depressed phase, possibly to the point of being suicidal. Despite how miserable the whole thing makes Abby, it's obvious that she can't bring herself to get out of it.
* MoralityPet: She is one of a scant handful of her colleagues at County that Kerry Weaver even seems to ''like'', let alone trust, but their relationship is genuinely warm and kind.
* MyBiologicalClockIsTicking: Why she goes ahead with having Luka's baby, despite her misgivings about the child possibly being bipolar.
* OfficialCouple: With Luka.
* OffTheWagon: Comes up now and again, which leads into her cheating on Luka in the process.
* ParentalSubstitute: Was this to her own mother and brother whenever her mother was in a manic or depressive state.
* PutOnABus: Near the very beginning of the final season ("The Book of Abby"), she leaves the ER to be with Luka and Joe in Boston. She makes one final return in "Shifting Equilibrium" via [[TheCameo phone call]] in order to reassure Neela on the latter's last day working at County General.
* ReallyGetsAround: It's implied that she slipped into this kind of behavior whenever she was drinking. Chuny at one point teasingly calls Abby "The ER Slut".
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Aside from his good looks, the reason why Abby develops feelings for Luka, her main love interest, is because he defended her from Kerry and took responsibility when he allowed her to put in a chest tube in a patient, despite her being a nurse at the time, during a multi-trauma and the staff was very limited. Later that night, she spontaneously kisses him and ignites their romantic relationship after he tells her that she's a good nurse and could be a great doctor.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She replaced Lucy as the "bumbling and clueless" medical student for a bit after the latter's death. Then, though their personalities and backgrounds were vastly different, she replaced Carol as the token nurse character and love interest of Luka once the latter left. Interestingly, when Abby first appeared on the show, she was precisely at the point Carol would have been in her medical studies had she decided to go to medical school.

[[folder:Frank Martin]]
!!'''Frank Martin'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/troy_evans_er_promo.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/TroyEvans

* AscendedExtra: Debuted all the way back in the {{Pilot}} as a cop.
* BigEater: Oh boy. This led to his heart attack.
* DeadpanSnarker: ''A lot''. Sometimes this was combined with his {{Jerkass}} behaviour, other times it was his method of communicating.
* FriendToAllChildren: Does make some snarky remarks about the staff's kids behind their back, but is shown to be more patient and concerned for their health and wellbeing compared to other patients.
* TheGenerationGap: Was implied to be the reason behind his jerkass behaviour. The further along the series went, he became less of a {{Jerkass}}.
* HiddenDepths:
** It was later revealed that he had a wife and a daughter with what looked like Downs Syndrome and was also a war veteran.
** His reaction to the deaths or injuries of various staff members (Mark, Gallant, Jerry, Pratt) reveals that, despite his gruff demeanor, he genuinely likes and respects his coworkers.
** He's also a very good cook, as indicated when he gives Catherine a recipe when she's debating what to prepare for her visiting in-laws.
** Goes all out to give Neela a nice going-away party (themed as a Bollywood performance!) so he can apologize to her for the bigoted comments he made about her ethnicity and nationality when she first joined the staff.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's initially a {{Jerkass}}, but he gets better after his heart attack.

!!Introduced in Season 8
[[folder:Michael Gallant]]
!!'''Michael Gallant'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sharif_atkins_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/SharifAtkins

* AdvertisedExtra: He was promoted to the main cast shortly after his first appearance. If anything, the series made ''less'' use out of him after promoting him than before.
* BackForTheDead: His final episode features his brutal death by a roadside bomb, ''in the opening scene''.
* CommutingOnABus: In Seasons 11 and 12 until he died.
* DownerEnding: Killed suddenly in Iraq from a roadside bomb, leaving Neela a bereaved widow and his friends and family back home devastated.
* FirstLove: To Neela.
* FourthDateMarriage: He and Neela express a mutual interest in each other in Season 10, but he gets shipped off to Iraq before he ever officially asks her out. From then on, [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship takes place via letters and e-mails]]. It's not known if they ever even ''had'' a proper date before he returns on leave and proposes to her, with them marrying that same day. This is acknowledged when, a month after they've married and they argue over his wanting to return to Iraq and her not wanting him to, Neela admits to her dismay, "I love you, but I still don't ''know'' you."
* GoodLookingPrivates: Whenever we'd see him in uniform.
%%* KilledMidSentence
* MeaningfulName: Gallant, obviously. To the point where his final episode is named after him--"The Gallant Hero and the Tragic Victor".
* NiceGuy: Along with Luka, he was one of the kindest and most helpful characters on the show.
* PutOnABus: After Season 10.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Blue to Pratt's Red. Pratt is more rude and impulsive, while Gallant is kind and by the book.
* TooHappyToLive: Mentions his wife Neela and how much he's looking forward to going home and seeing her not five seconds before the truck he's riding in is blown up, killing him.
%%* TookALevelInBadass
%%* WideEyedIdealist

[[folder:Greg Pratt]]
!!'''Gregory "Greg" Pratt'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mekhi_phifer_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MekhiPhifer

* AscendedExtra: He appeared in four episodes towards the end of Season 8, before being promoted to the main cast in Season 9.
* CharacterDevelopment: Started out very impulsive and egotistical. By his tenure's end, he'd become an excellent teacher and was about to be named ER Chief.
* DownerEnding: Despite his impressive CharacterDevelopment over the years, Pratt ends up dying a horrific, bloody death from an explosion at the beginning of the final season, surrounded by his friends, co workers and brother, before he was able to propose to his girlfriend, radiologist Dr. Bettina [=DeJesus=], as he had been planning to, and after he was just about to finally be named the ER Chief after his years of dedicated hard work.
* MeaningfulName: He ''is'' a bit of a prat, after all.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the Season 12 finale, after Gallant dies and Ray reveals that he's been trying to contact Neela, his main love interest and Gallant's widow, Pratt gently persuades Ray to give her some space and not complicate things. In "A House Divided", Pratt tries to give Ray advice on how to sort things out with Neela. However, Ray reminds him that he already took the senior doctor's advice before by giving her a lot of time and space, but in doing so, she started dating Gates instead.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 8 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Red to Gallant's Blue. Later on the Blue to Morris' Red.
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Died at the ''final season'' premiere.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** He shares a few characteristics with Malucci, being introduced in the same season the latter departed. He starts out as a brash, arrogant resident who often flirts with women, including sharing a tension with Jing-Mei, and has issues with his supervisors. However, unlike Malucci, Pratt stuck around County long enough to undergo a good deal of CharacterDevelopment, eventually becoming an ER Attending and would have become the ER Chief if he lived. This similarity is {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Carter at one point.
** Starting in Season 11, he has some traits in common with Doug--with whom, incidentally, Malucci also shared some traits--particularly regarding the drama with his DisappearedDad and their strained relationship, and with his efforts to be promoted at the ER in the final two seasons.
* TooHappyToLive: Was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Bettina and had just been named the new ER chief when he was killed.

!!Introduced in Season 10
[[folder:Neela Rasgotra]]
!!'''Neela Rasgotra'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/parminder_nagra_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ParminderNagra

* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Subverted and Defied. She and Gallant contact each other as much as they can throughout [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship]], and both are able to resist cheating on each other, although they nearly came close to doing so--he with one of his coworkers in Iraq, she with Ray's bandmate Bret. After she realizes she's in love with Ray, she moves out of their apartment to remain faithful to Gallant.
%%* BewareTheQuietOnes
* CharacterDevelopment: Goes from a shy neophyte, to confident physician, to even more confident surgeon.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: In "Blood Relations", she suffers from this while stuck in a hyperbaric chamber with a baby who has carbon monoxide poisoning.
* CommutingOnABus: Officially departs the ER in the antepenultimate episode, but manages to make brief appearances in the final two episodes.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ray tended to bring this out of her, before and during the time they were roommates.
* DudeMagnet: Her love interests include Gallant, Gates, Brenner, and finally Ray. Not to mention Dubenko's crush on her, medical student Mae Lee Park's crush on her, Bret's and Nick's (Ray's former bandmates) crushes on her, and Pratt's flirtation with her that led to his break-up with Jing-Mei.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything she went through, she finally gets her happy ending with Ray.
* HerHeartWillGoOn: While affected by Gallant's death at the end of Season 12, she does continue to engage in relationships afterwards, with Gates, Brenner, and Ray.
* HeroicBSOD: She has one so bad after being notified of Gallant's death that she turns around and picks up two charts to go back to work, as if nothing happened.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Abby.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LethalChef: According to Ray, her cookies are "[[BrutalHonesty the worst cookies ever made in the history of baking]]." Frank, Chuny and Morris agree with him, although they're more polite about their opinions.
* NaiveNewcomer: Takes on the role of the "hapless medical student" for the show in Season 10. She gradually grows out of it over the next year.
* OfficialCouple: With Ray.
* OneTrueLove: Ray. Neela's other relationships all fail for different reasons--with Gallant, it was because they barely knew each other, as well as his returning to Iraq despite her not wanting him to, which led to his death; with Gates, it was his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah; and with Brenner, it was his inability to open up to her about anything. In stark contrast, her relationship with Ray is open and honest; she enjoys spending time with him and is genuinely happy around him; and even when she dated other guys, she sought ''him'' out for advice instead of them, proving she holds a deep trust in him.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Goes from merely "cute" when she first joins the staff to positively drop-dead gorgeous by the time she leaves.
* SheCleansUpNicely: In "The Human Shield", she arrives at the hospital in a LittleBlackDress in preparation for Gallant's return.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** She shares a few characteristics with Carol, most notably in their love lives. Both married--or, in Carol's case, ''almost'' married--their first on-screen boyfriends, Tag and Gallant. Both of their second boyfriends, Shep and Gates, are paramedics. Both only briefly dated their third boyfriends, Luka and Brenner. Finally, both left County General to reunite with their fourth and final boyfriends, Doug and Ray.
** She also shares a few characteristics with Lucy, most notably in their career paths. Both start off as a bumbling and clueless medical student. Also, both have an uneven rotation in the ER, but excel in a different medical field--for Lucy, it was Psychiatry, and had she lived, she would have been given a position as a Psych resident at County; for Neela, it was Surgery, and she ends her tenure at County as a great surgeon.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: She leaves a bottle of wine at Abby's apartment, which Abby later drinks after ''very'' stressful day and subsequently relapses.

[[folder:Sam Taggart]]
!!'''Samantha "Sam" Taggart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_cardellini_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/LindaCardellini

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Played Straight with her ex-husband Steve and final boyfriend Gates. Inverted with Luka.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Is furious when she sees that Luka has hooked up with the woman he had a fling with while in Africa, even though she herself told him she wanted to take a break. She later gets pissy when Neela develops a short-lived crush on him. A few years later, while dating Gates, she does the same thing--breaks up with him outright, but gets angry when he begins dating someone else.
* CrimeOfSelfDefense: An assistant district attorney fully intends to prosecute her for murdering her ex-husband, ignoring that said ex-husband was not only a dangerous felon, but one who had committed several more serious felonies (escaping prison, several counts of assault with a deadly weapon/attempted murder, kidnapping, and rape) in the span of a day or so. Luckily for Sam, by this point she's been hired as a private nurse for a ''very'' wealthy man who is a big contributor to the district attorney's re-election campaigns, and he casually mentions (read: threatens) to the ADA that he'll be having dinner with the DA later in the week, and wonders if prosecuting Sam is really worth it (the implication being the DA hadn't even been informed yet).
* DeadpanSnarker: One of her defining character traits.
-->'''Angry Patient:''' (''banging chair against window'') Hey! You listening?!\\
'''Sam:''' Sir, please don't do that.\\
'''Angry Patient:''' Why?! You gonna do something about it?!\\
'''Sam:''' No.\\
'''Security Guard:''' (''tackles Angry Patient'')\\
'''Sam:''' But ''he'' will.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Proceeds to take a needle of a sedative from Morris, jumps in and proceeds to inject the sedative into a mentally disturbed guy who was being incredibly aggressive.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: By the time she saved the money for an abortion, she couldn't work up the nerve to go through with it.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MamaBear: Don't mess with Alex or else she will come after you.
* TheMurderAfter: She kills Steve when he falls asleep after raping her.
* OfficialCouple: With Gates.
* RapeAsDrama: When her ex-husband escapes from prison (nearly killing both Jerry and Luka in the process), he also kidnaps Alex and Sam. While they're hiding out, he rapes Sam, who has to stay quiet since Alex is sleeping nearby. The entire scene is shot ''very'' uncomfortably.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She shares some characteristics with Carol. Both are the token nurse character of their respective eras; Carol from Seasons 1-6, Sam from Seasons 10-15. Both have a DisappearedDad. Finally, both have a temporary relationship with Luka, who grows close to them partially because he gets along with, and helps them take care of, their respective children.
* TeenPregnancy: She had her son Alex at age 15. Unlike most teen pregnancies though, Sam and her son are fairly level-headed.
* WifeBasherBasher: Punches out an abusive boyfriend when he not only calls the girl a slut, he grabs Sam's arm, arguably making her actions self-defense.

[[folder:Archie Morris]]
!!'''Archibald "Archie" Morris'''
[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scott_grimes_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ScottGrimes

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character throughout Seasons 10 and 11 before becoming a main cast member in Season 12.
* CharacterDevelopment: Probably the most extensive in the show's history. Started out as an annoying, bumbling, incompetent fool who no one liked. Ended as one of the best doctors in the hospital whom everyone respected.
-->'''Carter''': [[SoProudOfYou Looks like you followed my advice, Archie]].\\
'''Morris''': How's that?\\
'''Carter''': [[ArcWords You set the tone]].
* TheConfidant: Abby {{Lampshade|Hanging}}s that, by the end of the series, he's become a trustworthy person to come to when it for sharing one's issues. This is reinforced later when Catherine reveals her history with County General to him--she had brought her son there for treatment and he had died there--and Brenner confides to him about getting molested as a child.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his initial shock at suddenly meeting four children who are biologically his from his sperm donations in the early 1990's, he quickly adjusts to meeting his kids and is very kind, enthusiastic, fond and paternal towards them right away for the short time he got to know them, wanting to get to know them better.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LadykillerInLove: He's something of a party animal...who finds himself falling head over heels in love with police detective Claudia Diaz in the final season. While they aren't engaged by the time the series ends, Morris makes it clear that that's where he sees their relationship going, and Claudia agrees with him.
* OfficialCouple: With Claudia Diaz.
* PluckyComicRelief: In the first few years of his tenure. Downplayed later on as he becomes more competent and his comedic lines appear less and less.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 10 and 11 before being added to the main cast in Season 12.
* SecretKeeper: Two in the final season. He is the only one in the department to know that Cathreine Bansfield lost her son in the very ER she now oversees, and he is the one who Simon Brenner opens up to about his abusive past.
* TheStoner: In Season 10. He gets better.
* TookALevelInBadass: Went from a lazy stoner who needed his friends help to get through a shift and was forced to stay as a doctor by his father to someone Catherine Bansfield herself described as one of the best doctors in the ER. A sign of his development is how he was assigned to perscribe triage for a group of injured workman in the closing moments of the final episode, showing his growth in terms of skill and character.
* TookALevelInKindness: Went from a disinterested doctor who couldn't care less about his patients and who was oblivious to how much everyone in the ER disliked him, into a thoughtful,caring confidant that multiple characters opened up to.
* YouAreInCommandNow: When Carter is PutOnABus in the Season 11 finale to reunite with Kem, he instructs Morris to "set the tone", just as Mark had told him in "Orion in the Sky".

!!Introduced in Season 11
[[folder:Ray Barnett]]
!!'''Ray Barnett'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shane_west_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ShaneWest

* AbusiveParents: A BerserkButton for him. In a deleted scene from Season 12, it's implied, but not explicitly stated, that he had a stepfather who suffered from substance abuse. In "Split Decisions", he threatens Zoe's father after he learns that the man beat her. In "A House Divided", he becomes angry with a man who mistreated his stepson, and he tells Kerry that the man reminded him of someone he used to know.
* AfraidOfNeedles: In "Shot in the Dark", he's nervous about getting the flu shot, as he has a "thing about needles," and tells Abby to give him the shot when he's not expecting it. She does so just as he's leaving after his shift.
* AnArmAndALeg: He has both of his legs amputated after getting run over by a truck. He later has them replaced with prosthetics.
* BettyAndVeronica:
** In Season 12, he's the Veronica to Gallant's Betty for Neela's Archie: Gallant's a military doctor and devoted to Neela, while Ray's a part-time rock musician and a womanizer. Despite Neela and [[LadykillerInLove Ray]] falling in love, she chooses to remain faithful to her husband Gallant.
** In Season 13, he's the Betty to Gates' Veronica for Neela's Archie: [[CharacterDevelopment Ray's a serious third-year resident]] who's honest with everyone, while Gates is an arrogant ER intern who constantly lies to save his own neck. Despite Neela initially choosing Gates because she was OnTheRebound from losing Gallant, she quickly becomes miserable in the relationship. During Luka and Abby's wedding, Neela breaks up with Gates and chooses Ray...right before the latter gets run over by a truck.
** Also in Season 13, he's the Archie for Neela's Betty and Katey's Veronica: Neela's a serious surgical intern who tries to separate her personal life from her professional life, while Katey's an incompetent medical student who doesn't mind that everyone--''especially'' Neela--is aware of her relationship with Ray. Despite dating Katey, Ray doesn't actually care about her because he already chose Neela in Season 12, and [[OperationJealousy he only dates Katey because he's jealous of Neela's relationship with Gates]].
** In the final season, he's the Betty to Brenner's Veronica for Neela's Archie: Ray has come to terms with his accident and enjoys working in the physical medicine and rehabilitation field to help fellow amputees and handicapped patients, while Brenner can't come to terms with his abusive childhood and prefers sleeping around over being an efficient Attending. Despite briefly dating Brenner, Neela already chose Ray at the end of Season 13, and she leaves [[DidNotGetTheGirl Brenner]] to be with Ray.
* ButtMonkey: Goes through a bit of trouble, culminating in him losing both of his legs near the end of his tenure as a main cast member. Fortunately, things get better for him when he returns in the final season.
* TheCasanova: Much like his predecessor Doug, he attracts a lot of women, mainly groupies, and is successful in getting them into his bed. However, he's nicer than the usual archetype, as he doesn't take advantage of them nor does he discard them so callously.
* ChickMagnet: Throughout the three seasons where he's a main character.
* CommutingOnABus: After being absent in Season 14, he reappears throughout the final season, far more well-adjusted than he had been in the past, and reignites his relationship with Neela. In the antepenultimate episode, she leaves Chicago to be with him in Baton Rouge, and the penultimate episode reveals that they're living together again.
* DisappearedDad: Both his biological father and stepfather are mentioned but never shown on-screen. He speaks fondly of his biological father in "Quintessence of Dust", telling one of his patients that his father got him into music and loved the blues. He doesn't feel the same way about his stepfather, though.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Towards Neela. He tries to [[DefiedTrope Defy]] this by telling her that he's sick of waiting for her to choose him over Gates. However, it's still Played Straight--after Neela loses interest in Gates due to his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah, and after Katey breaks up with him because she knows he only has eyes for Neela, Ray admits that he believes his commitment and patience in waiting for Neela to reciprocate his feelings will win her heart.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything he went through, he finally gets his happy ending with Neela.
* FriendToAllChildren: He's very good at interacting with child patients or children of patients, and encourages them to open up to him fairly easily.
* HopelessSuitor: For Neela in Seasons 12 and 13.
* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Following the accident that results in the amputation of both of his legs. When he returns to Chicago for a visit in the final season, he's been fitted with prosthetics and is living as normal a life as possible and has used his injuries to focus his medical practice on those in similar situations.
* LadykillerInLove: He hooks up with groupies and "hot" women and claims to like them, but he doesn't genuinely care about them. In stark contrast, he outright confesses and shows that he's truly fallen in love with Neela.
* MrFanservice: Getting introduced as part-time doctor and part-time rock musician meant that this was inevitable.
* OfficialCouple: With Neela.
* OneHeadTaller: He's 6', while his main love interest Neela is 5'2".
* OneTrueLove: Neela. With other women, he'd state that he merely ''liked'' them, or comment on how "hot" they were, or talk about how great the sex was, all of which are superficial, and he never wanted to be serious with any of them. Conversely, Neela is the only woman he confesses his ''love'' to, he wants to take her out on dates rather than immediately jumping into bed with her, and he indicates to Pratt that he's thought about settling down with her.
* PutOnABus: After Season 13.
* SecondLove: To Neela, after Gallant.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He shares a lot of characteristics with Doug. He's initially brash and impulsive and has issues with authoritative figures like Susan and Kerry prior to his CharacterDevelopment. He has a BerserkButton for AbusiveParents that originated from his own experiences. He has a great rapport with children. He's a handsome and charming stud in and out of the hospital. Finally, despite his constant dalliances with groupies and "hot" women, he genuinely falls in love with Neela, who herself shares a few characteristics with Doug's true love Carol.

!!Introduced in Season 12
[[folder:Tony Gates]]
!!'''Anthony "Tony" Gates'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_stamos_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/JohnStamos

* AbusiveParents: He was raised by an alcoholic father. He is none too pleased when his father shows up midway through Season 13.
* AscendedExtra: He appeared in two episodes in Season 12. He became a regular in the following season.
* BerserkButton: It's not a good idea to talk about Meg's death in front of him.
* ChickMagnet: His love interests include Meg, Neela, hospital chaplain Julia, Dr. Daria Wade, and finally Sam.
* CockFight: With Ray over Neela in Season 13, culminating in a fight at Luka and Abby's wedding.
* LoveTriangle: He and Ray compete for Neela's affections throughout Season 13. She breaks up with Gates after he and Ray fight at Luka and Abby's wedding, and in the Season 13 finale, she reveals to Ray that she's chosen him over Gates. While Ray initially doesn't want to deal with Neela following his accident, they reconcile and get together in the final season, during which Gates had already moved on to having feelings for Sam, effectively ending the Love Triangle.
* MrFanservice: One of the more sexual characters in the show's last few seasons. A fair amount of his subplots deal with him romancing Neela and then Sam.
* OfficialCouple: With Sam.
* PapaWolf: To Sarah.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a guest character in Season 12 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a lot of Doug's characteristics. He's TallDarkAndHandsome, a ChickMagnet, and a PapaWolf. He's brash and impulsive, and has issues with authority, to the point where he's explicitly called a "cowboy" by his supervisor Pratt, similar to how Doug was called the same thing by his supervisor Kerry. He has a BerserkButton for {{Abusive Parent}}s that stem from his own experiences. After other relationships come and go, he genuinely falls in love with the token nurse character, Sam, who herself shares some traits with Carol.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: As to be expected for someone played by John Stamos. He takes over for Luka in this position after the latter starts CommutingOnABus.
* WhatTheHellHero: Is given this by Sam when he lets Alex out of the house against Sam's orders and Alex ends up in a serious car accident. It leads to the destruction of their relationship that lasts until the final episode.

!!Introduced in Season 14
[[folder:Simon Brenner]]
!!'''Simon Brenner'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simon_brenner_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/DavidLyons

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character towards the end of Season 14. He became a regular in the final season.
* BelligerentSexualTension: After weeks of being at each other's throats, he and Neela get into a full-fledged shouting match, which of course culminates in them going at it.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: In the final two seasons, he falls for Neela and they even briefly become a couple. However, throughout their short relationship, Neela remains in love with Ray, and she leaves both Brenner and County General to be with Ray in Baton Rouge.
* EvilBrit: More like "{{Jerkass}} Aussie", but the gist is the same.
* LadykillerInLove: His womanizing ways are established from his first scene, but he falls in love with Neela.
* {{Nepotism}}: To the point of being either a StealthPun--he's Donald Anspaugh's nephew (nepotism comes from the Latin word "''nepos''", which means..."nephew")--or a literal example of {{Nephewism}}.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 14 before being added to the main cast the following (final) season.
* RapeAsBackstory: His BerserkButton reaction to a pedophile patient leads to him confessing to Morris in "Age of Innocence" that he was molested by one of his mother's boyfriends.
* ReallyGetsAround: His ''first'' scene is of him [[AThreesomeIsHot waking up in bed with two women]], and his womanizing reputation is well established afterwards.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a few of Doug's characteristics, namely an abusive past that influences his good (anger about abused children) and bad (sleeping around) behavior.

!!Introduced in Season 15
[[folder:Catherine Banfield]]
!!'''Catherine "Cate" Banfield'''
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_bassett_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AngelaBassett

* BlackBossLady: Not afraid to put people in their place, often with a properly stern expression.
* BrokenBird: Catherine and her husband were devastated by the death of their son. The two were estranged from one another due to the trauma of it for a fair amount of time, though they manage to reunite by the final season.
-->'''Catherine''': I'm not sure why I've done anything I've done since that day. Why'd I not leave my apartment for almost two years? Then I see the news about the tsunami, and I fly to a place 10,000 miles away. Why'd I do that? Why'd I come back? Why did my son have leukemia? I never understood any of it.\\
'''Morris''': I--I'm sorry for your loss. I...I don't really know what to say.\\
'''Catherine''': When your parents are gone, you're an orphan. When your spouse dies, you're a widow or widower. But when you lose your baby...there's no word for that.
* ChekhovsGunman: Her son was one of Mark's last few patients.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Highlighted with her and Morris' interactions. While at the start, there is some friction due to her firmness and his resentment at a stranger taking Pratt's place so soon after his death, by the time of "Heal Thyself", Catherine is able to open up to him about her son's death and Morris looks at her in a different light.
* DueToTheDead: Mark Greene's heroic- if ultimately futile efforts- to save her son have a lasting impact on her years later. As such, she accepts Carter back in the ER after he reveals to her that he knew Greene, and it is shown that the fact that Rachel is his daughter may influence her decision to accept her in the ER.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite her son supposedly being one of Mark's last patients, she was nowhere to be seen in Season 8.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: She makes her first appearance in the second episode of the final season, following Pratt's death in the first episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Bossy, abrasive, takes charge, and takes no nonsense? Sounds a lot like either Kerry Weaver or Angela Hicks.

!!Introduced in Season 3
[[folder:Anna Del Amico]]
!!'''Anna Del Amico'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maria_bello_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MariaBello

* AscendedExtra: Appeared in the last three episodes of Season 3 before becoming a main cast member in Season 4.
* HatesRichPeople: Comes across as this after her bitter complaints about the difficulties of making ends meet caused Carter to lie and pretend to be a fellow "struggling student" so that she would like him better. When the truth finally comes out, they're both angry - he feels that he was right to lie because she would never have given him a fair chance if she'd known, and she feels mocked and gaslighted by someone who isn't just well off but ''extremely rich'' deliberately lying to her to win her confidence. For her this just reaffirms how callous "the rich" are about the feelings of "the little people".
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Had a sanctimonious attitude towards rich people, probably stemming from insecurities about growing up poor.
* {{Jerkass}}: Downplayed. She had a number of unsympathetic qualities and moments in her brief time on the show, including a serious chip on her shoulder against Carter for the 'crime' of [[HatesRichPeople being wealthy]] and not flaunting it, how she treated [[BreakoutCharacter Doug]], including how upset she got over something as mild as [[StrawFeminist how he addressed her]]. She also took a stand for medical ethics vs Carter, who didn't want to [[PayEvilUntoEvil waste perfectly good blood]] on a rapist and mutilator of elderly women and a murderer when he was finally caught and brought in, an emotional issue where many viewers were likely to take Carter's side, ethics be damned. And later on, after all the tension with [[DidNotGetTheGirl Carter]], she takes off to be with her drug addicted ex-boyfriend again.
%%* MsFanservice
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 3 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* PutOnABus: After Season 4. Unlike most examples here, she doesn't return.
* RedHerring: As a pediatrician, there was speculation that she'd been brought on to be a new girlfriend for Doug--indeed, she initially seems very attracted to him. Only for Doug to reconcile with Carol as had been hinted at for weeks and Anna to be a love interest for Carter instead.
* StrawFeminist:
** She tended to react to everything Doug said as though it was an attack or an advance, even though he was either just being friendly (asking her if she wanted something to eat after they'd both been on the streets looking for a runaway) or just offering his years of experience (offering to do a testicular exam on a patient because he might be uncomfortable with a woman doctor). Kerry seems to agree with her claim that Doug is threatened by women, but of course Kerry had been brow-beating and annoying him about publishing his thesis for his fellowship and just couldn't see that Doug (or anyone else for that matter) simply didn't want her help.
** Nor it did occur to Kerry that Doug's problem was simply with ''her'', given her abrasive personality and their constant clashes and nothing to do with her gender.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Basically rips Doug's head off when he calls her by her first name rather than "Dr. Del Amico" in front of a patient. Keeps doing it even though he apologizes and assures her that he meant nothing improper, "I call Mark (a male doctor) by his first name all the time." And this after when they first met she insisted Doug call her Anna after he refers to her as "Dr. Del Amico".
* UnresolvedSexualTension: With Carter.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasted only a season and a bit and never returned.

!!Introduced in Season 4
[[folder:Elizabeth Corday]]
!!'''Elizabeth "Lizzie" Corday'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alex_kingston_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlexKingston

* BittersweetEnding: Elizabeth decides to [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight perform a technically illegal]] surgery at Carter's request to transfer the organ of an HIV infected man to another infected man in dire need of it, saving his life, and is reamed out for it and [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder betrayed by Kerry]], who gives little support to her and informs her there is no possibility of future tenure or promotion for her at County. Simultaneously, she is being gradually phased out and replaced by Dubenko, who Kerry also brought in, ignoring Corday's misgivings about him. In the end she sadly admits to Carter that she has been fooling herself since coming back to County after [[TheLostLenore Mark's death]], that she had no more place at County, and she leaves Chicago with Ella to return to England for a time. Though later on they return to America and she becomes Chief of Trauma Surgery at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, meeting Neela about a job she is applying for, and as seen in the finale remains on good terms with a number of the old County staff, and is still quite a part of her stepdaughter Rachel Greene's life.
* TheBusCameBack: Twice in the final season.
* ClingyJealousGirl: When Susan returns. Granted, she has a slight point, as Mark loved Susan passionately enough to race to Union Station to tell her so and then had a small breakdown when she left.
* FieryRedhead: She's a strong-willed redhead, although she starts showing a gentler side after developing a relationship with Mark.
* GoodBadGirl: Very openly sexual in her conversation and behavior, especially when first introduced.
%%* HerHeartWillGoOn
* HeroicBSOD:
** Elizabeth treated a patient from Zambia who suffered from back pain, caused by a herniated disc. The patient didn't want open back surgery and Elizabeth had planned to go on a trip with Mark that evening so she suggested a less invasive procedure instead. The patient ended up paralyzed after leaking cerebral-spinal fluid and he sues Elizabeth for malpractice. The case eventually gets settled because the patient decided to sue the manufacturer of the surgical equipment instead, but Elizabeth continued to blame herself for the incident (even though the reason he was paralyzed in the first place is because one of the waldoes wouldn't grip the bone fragment in his spine) and promptly spent weeks avoiding the OR at all costs
** Elizabeth has a breakdown during her wedding, making known her fear that Mark's tumour will return and her fear of him being hurt or ending up dead. Both of these fears end up being realised.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Is pissy about Mark and Susan working together, even though they were never actually romantically involved and even though every day she works side-by-side with her ex-lover Benton.
** She also chastises a fellow surgeon who asks her to speed up an operation because he wants to go to a ball game, when she herself rushed through an operation because she wanted to leave for a romantic weekend with Mark, permanently crippling the patient (to be fair, it could be that it's because of this error that she's lecturing the other doctor).
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Her mother and father are both scientists. Her father is a surgeon, her mother is a physicist.
* MamaBear: When Rachel asks if there's anything she can do to make up for nearly killing Ella with an ecstasy tablet, Elizabeth, ill with flu, fixes Rachel with her sunken, bloodshot eyes and says, "You can leave."
* OfficialCouple: With Mark.
* OneTrueLove: Mark. Elizabeth's relationships before and after Mark all fail for one reason or another, in the latter case probably because of [[TheLostLenore her love for Mark]]. When Benton asks her if she's seeing anybody in the series finale (seven years after Mark's death), she says that she's become far more focused on raising her daughter and working on her career.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 11.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Mark did manage to give her a daughter, Ella, and spend the first year of her life with her--long enough to hear her say her first words and, in a deleted scene from "On the Beach", see her learn to walk--before he finally succumbs to cancer.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Inverted. She's confused when someone refers to Benton, a surgeon, as "Dr. Benton" and needs to adjust to being called "Dr. Corday", rather than "Miss", as she was back in England.[[note]]Due to the way medical training evolved in England, British surgeons are called "Mr" or "Miss" rather than "Dr" after qualifying as board-certified surgeons, while physicians who don't specialise in surgery continue to be called "Dr".[[/note]]

[[folder:Robert Romano]]
!!'''Robert "Rocket" Romano'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paul_mccrane_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/PaulMcCrane

* AlliterativeName: Combined with his nickname "Rocket", he has a triple alliterative name.
* AnArmAndALeg: He loses an arm to a helicopter rotor.
* AscendedExtra: Made frequent appearances during Seasons 4 and 5 before being bumped up to series regular status in Season 6.
* AtLeastIAdmitIt: For all his numerous flaws, as Cleo called him, "a racist, sexist, elitist jackass," there was no denying that he never once hid the fact that he was a colossal egomaniac who couldn't be trusted and whose primary concern was himself.
* BackForTheFinale: Like with Mark Greene, he makes one last appearance in the series during its final season after being killed off in Season 10 thanks to the flashback sequence in "Heal Thyself". Despite it amounting to more or less a [[TheCameo cameo appearance]], it delivers what fans would expect from Romano, having him badger Greene in a forward and insensitive way about his cancer treatments while showing through his actions and facial gestures that he was genuinely worried about Greene's condition.
* BeardOfSorrow: He sports this after he loses his arm in a helicopter accident.
* BornUnlucky: Comes up often for him, especially the circumstances of his death.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He just wouldn't be able to keep his job if he wasn't very good at it. He pulls some outrageous stunts, says and does things that would be considered completely inappropriate, almost no one likes him and he tries his very best to alienate the one person (Elizabeth) that does.
* DeadpanSnarker: On steroids. His insults were frequently works of art.
* DownerEnding: From the moment he loses his arm until his death is a [[TraumaCongaLine series of worsening]] traumas and fortune for him, ending with a helicopter being dropped on him. Even in death Kerry posthumously insults him, along with many others, with nobody but Corday seeming to mourn him and Neela expressing her pity for his fate.
* DrJerk: Among the worst of them.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: For a character with such an extensive history on the show[[note]]By Season 10, the only main characters who had been around longer than him were Carter, Kerry, Elizabeth, Jing-Mei and Susan. Even then, the latter two had been PutOnABus respectively during Seasons 1 and 3 and only returned after Romano had been made a main cast member[[/note]], he suffers a pretty ignoble (though memorable) death when a helicopter falls squarely on top of him, a full year ''after'' a separate helicopter had torn one of his arms off.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: A episode that took place near Mother's Day had him enthusiastically describing the elaborate plans that he had for his mother, much to the shock of the other staff members.
-->'''Romano''': Bet you didn't even think I ''had'' a mother, did you?\\
'''Haleh''': Can't imagine what she's like.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Although there was a ''considerable'' gap in the hierarchy between him and Lucy in Season 6--he was Chief of Staff, while she was a fourth-year medical student--he seemed to genuinely like her, probably due to his oft-stated quality of only respecting people who stood up to him, which she had no trouble doing. When she's murdered midway through the season, he's very distraught by her death.
** Despite constantly locking horns with Kerry, he never forcibly outed her when she confessed to him about being a lesbian, citing that it's her business and does not involve workplace politics.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Is genuinely angry and disgusted at many of the dishonest stunts Kerry pulls.
* {{Flanderization}}: When he first appeared his bad traits were relatively low-key. The more often he appeared, the worse and more exaggerated he got.
* HatesEveryoneEqually: He's a bigot, yes, but he seems to have just as much disdain for those who are white/male/heterosexual as those who aren't.
-->''(to Elizabeth)'' "I know most people don't like me. That's fine. ''I'' don't like most people."
* HeroicBSOD: After his arm is reattached and he realizes he might never regain full mobility, then after he realizes it can't be saved and needs to be amputated for good, effectively ending his surgical career.
* HiddenDepths:
** Adores his dogs, studies martial arts (as evidenced by him showing up at work in such a uniform), is a member of the Polar Bear Club (he mentions it to Susan in one Season 8 episode and a deleted scene [[FanDisservice shows him in a Speedo]] having taken one of the elderly members to the ER) and knows sign language.
** He is also the only one to tell Elizabeth to go back to Mark. This is especially a touching scene because Elizabeth was probably the only woman he had genuine above-the-belt feelings for, and yet he told her to go back to her husband instead of attempting to use her moment of weakness to his advantage.
** His devastation at the realization that he might never be able to perform surgery again--a fear that comes true--reveals that for all his {{Jerkass}} ways, he genuinely loves his job and being able to help people.
* HopelessSuitor: For Elizabeth.
* InsufferableGenius: Comes up frequently.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Frequently. He may be an absolute a-hole, but when it comes to medical ethics and procedure, when he turns on the blasters, he's usually right. He would lash out against people for their incompetence and, in one case, illegal behavior. During a major rush of patients, he found Morris smoking pot. He ripped the younger doctor out of the bathroom stall and put him at the entrance desk, telling Morris to not move until he came back. The punishment never happened primarily because in a short time Romano would be killed by the chopper, no one realizing this, and [[KarmaHoudini Morris]] never telling anyone why Romano told him to stay still.
* KindheartedCatLover: Rushes his own dog into surgery because he refused to trust her welfare to "some poodle surgeon."
* LonelyFuneral: Romano was so disliked that Elizabeth was the only one to show up at his funeral.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** When he has to operate on his MoralityPet Lucy Knight, he actually stops being a {{Jerkass}} for a few hours and even manages a genuine FriendshipMoment with Elizabeth.
** For all his faults, he is normally kind to child patients. But when he is moved sideways (or in his view, demoted) to become head of the ER, he even starts acting belligerently toward them.
* PetTheDog: However rare they were, his NiceGuy moments were genuine. Even some of his supposedly {{Jerkass}} moments revealed that he was actually doing someone a favor--assisting a heavily pregnant Elizabeth with surgery, giving Benton time off to spend with his son, concern for the ailing Mark. Plus, the literal examples with his beloved animals, as well as his genuine fondness for Lucy.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The first thing he does when introduced is ask Benton why he doesn't have NWordPrivileges when Creator/ChrisRock does.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 4 and 5 before being added to the main cast from Seasons 6-10.
* ProperlyParanoid: In Season 10, he rides the elevator up to the hospital helipad with Neela to drop off a patient's watch that had been left behind. However, seeing the helicopter ready to take off triggers flashbacks to the loss of his arm from the year before, and he quickly gives the watch to Neela before heading back down himself. He turns out to have been completely justified in his fears, as the helicopter starts to fly out of control shortly after taking off due to the strong winds. If he had stayed on the roof, he may well have been impaled by some debris just like the doctor left behind with Neela was. Unfortunately, Romano dies anyway when he takes a walk outside in the hospital parking lot to clear his head, as the helicopter ends up crashing right on top of him.
* ShoutOut: When he's in the OR he wears a bandana with rockets on it. Whether the bandana or the nickname came first is never specified. He also has a model Saturn V rocket in his office, which he says is a gift from a former girlfriend.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Romano has been seen with some very attractive girlfriends.
* VillainRespect: The way to get Romano's respect is to stand up to him. Greene, Benton and Corday learn this; Lucy Knight is simply never fazed by him in the first place. He also comes to respect Luka a bit more upon his return from working in Africa, approving of his improved methods for clearing triage, and remarking he should send all the staff to spend some time working there too, though Luka having saved his life after losing his arm may have played a part in the respect.

[[folder:Cynthia Hooper]]
!!'''Cynthia Hooper'''
->'''Played By''': Creator/MariskaHargitay

* ButtMonkey: She has trouble keeping her shit together.
* TheMcCoy: She's overly emotional, and it often affects her work.
* NaiveNewcomer: She's introduced as having just moved to Chicago, and her inexperience as a hospital desk clerk lands her in hot water with several of the staff, most notably Carol.
* RomanticFalseLead: She and Mark briefly become an item, but she breaks up with him once she realizes he doesn't love her.

!!Introduced in Season 5
[[folder:Lucy Knight]]
!!'''Lucy Knight'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kellie_martin_er_promo.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"At the beginning of every day, I've been grateful that I'm walking in here on my own choosing, and not carried in on some gurney. And at the end of the day, if I've helped just one person, it's been worth it."'']]
->'''Played By''': Creator/KellieMartin

* AudienceSurrogate: Brought in because Carter, the previous audience surrogate, was now a fairly experienced and accomplished doctor.
* BelligerentSexualTension: She and Carter fight. A lot. They end up making out in "The Storm, Part 1", but it never goes any further--Creator/NoahWyle was adamantly opposed to the relationship, feeling that it was improper, as Carter was a second-year resident while Lucy was a third-year medical student and therefore Carter's subordinate, and out-of-character for Carter.
* CharacterDevelopment: Despite her brief time on the show, she went from being a bumbling, clueless medical student to a very competent one who would no doubt have been an excellent physician.
* CousinOliver: It was explicitly stated that she was brought on to bring some new blood to the now five-year old series.
%%* TheCutie
* DistaffCounterpart: As an inexperienced third-year medical student, she was all but stated to be a female version of Season 1-Carter.
* DownerEnding: Her young life, growing friendships and brief but promising medical career are cut suddenly and shockingly short when she is stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient, after Carter kept blowing her off over the patient and not listening to her recommendations, her death devastating the entire staff. To add insult to injury, it is revealed shortly after her death that she had matched at County, and would have become a Psych resident if she had lived.
* KillTheCutie: Lucy is stabbed multiple times by a patient in the middle of a psychotic break on Valentine's Day. She doesn't survive despite the best efforts of the staff.
* MoralityPet: For Romano.
* NaiveNewcomer: She begins as this. She gradually grows out of it.
* ShipTease: With Carter in Season 5, culminating in a kiss, but apart from that it didn't develop much further, due to Noah Wyle not wanting a relationship between the two characters. Occasionally in Season 6, her interactions with Luka showed signs of this, but nothing came of it, as she was soon KilledOffForReal.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasts only a season and a half. Despite the professional development that Lucy undergoes, the audience never gets to know much about her personally.

!!Introduced in Season 6
[[folder:Luka Kovač]]
!!'''Luka Kovač'''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/goran_visnijic_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/GoranVisnjic

* AmbiguousDisorder: He has bouts of what appears to be clinical depression several times throughout his time on the show, but it's never officially diagnosed and the only time he appears to be seeking help, it turns out he's confiding in a prostitute. He also appears to suffer from PTSD as well.
* BerserkButton: Wife-beaters, child-abusers, just AssholeVictim patients in general.
* TheCasanova: Like Mark, Luka had never been with anyone other than his first wife Danijela before he started seeing other women. Unlike Mark, Luka actually knows how to charm them.
* ChickMagnet: Especially during his bachelor era from Season Eight to Season Ten.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Likely because he was unable to save his own family during the war, he develops this, often to his detriment--he takes a waitress from his favorite bar under his wing, blithely ignoring all signs that she's a thief and a liar.
* CommutingOnABus: Throughout Season 14. Notably, Goran Višnjić does not appear on the DVD cover for the season, but is first-billed as a member of the main cast in all of the episodes he appears in (7 out of 19). InUniverse, Luka spends most of it off-screen in Croatia to be with his dying father, occasionally appearing to see Abby and their son Joe. He eventually returns to Chicago full-time, only to spend time away from Abby when she reveals that she cheated on him. He forgives her in the season finale, and turns up one final time in the third episode of Season 15 for them to depart County General together.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: The pain, guilt and loss of his wife, son and daughter during the war in Croatia hangs like a cloud over Luka for most of the series.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: Despite growing tension with Carol and how good he was to her and her daughters, along with a shared kiss, she ultimately reconciles with Doug and departs County with the twins to be a family with him in Seattle, devastating Luka, who was finally starting to move on from his grief over his wife with her help.
** Also his initial relationship with Abby who was distant and growing closer to Carter at the time, and his relationship with Sam. Ultimately subverted with Abby as she and Luka get back together after she breaks up with Carter and he breaks up with Sam.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Frequently suffers from this in his professional and romantic lives alike, despite how capable and caring he is.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything Luka went through both before and during the series, he eventually got a happy ending with Abby and their son.
* HappilyMarried:
** He was this to Danijela in the past, which is why he suffered a HeroicBSOD upon her death and the deaths of their two children.
** Zig-zagged with Abby. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: Comes up frequently with him, especially early on with the similarly passionate about his patients Benton and later on with Pratt.
* HeroicBSOD: Plenty of these for him too, most of which seem to happen just as things are getting better for him--he starts to recover from the loss of Danijela and their two children Jasna and Marko by falling in love with Carol; despite briefly dating, Carol leaves him to reunite with Doug. He starts to recover from ''this'' by dating Abby, then he kills a mugger attacking them. One even happens out of nowhere then gets even worse after he almost kills a co-worker in a car accident.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: He's 6'4", while his main love interest Abby is 5'3".
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: The reason he breaks up with Abby the first time. He bends over backwards to try and make her happy, but she's always miserable and content with being so. It gets to the point where they have a fight, he says a lot of things he didn't mean, and they break up.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MagneticHero: A capable, charismatic, passionate arguer and take charge leader when required to be, with the most stand out example being when he convinced Kerry to let him bend the rules to treat a dying Croatian boy at County, convinced Corday to perform the surgery for him and a number of others to assist with the case, saving the boy's life in the end.
* MrFanservice: Of the TallDarkAndHandsome variety.
* NiceGuy: He went through some dark periods, but for the most part managed to remain this since his arrival on the show, his introduction showing it with his kindness towards a frightened little girl, comforting her while her mother was recovering from her injuries.
* OfficialCouple: With Abby.
* SadisticChoice: Played with. In his past he had to choose between saving his wife or his daughter, carrying one away to look for help or get to a hospital when both were gravely injured after their apartment was shelled. Luka was unable to choose between them, to leave either, and both ended up dying, no help coming for them, something that causes him no shortage of grief years later.
* SayYourPrayers: He did this in one episode while in the Congo, but winds up living through it. Subverted since the praying saves him--the rebels holding him think he's a priest and [[EvenEvilHasStandards shooting priests is the one thing they won't do]].
* ShellShockedVeteran: He lost his first wife and two children in the Yugoslav wars. Quite a lot of his behavior can be attributed to HeroicBSOD. It's also implied that he has some slight PTSD.
* ShipTease: With no shortage of female characters to various degrees over the years.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: A brooding hunk who is good with kids, with allusions to a mysterious, tragic past and a not-so-secret longing for Carol? He was referred to as "Euro Ross" on many other fan boards (his resemblance to Doug didn't help much to dispel this). A period of promiscuity for him pretty much cinched it. Not to mention the fact that he falls in love with and eventually marries Carol's effective replacement Abby.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Like Doug it comes up often from the female staff, patients and women outside the hospital. A housewife who was [[SkewedPriorities suffering from a stroke]] even had a number of thoughts about him for this while she was paralyzed and he was treating her.
%%* TroubledButCute
* UnexpectedVirgin: During a scene where several other characters are discussing when they lost their virginity, he admits that his first time was on his wedding night, because his wife was religious and they married young.
* UnresolvedSexualTension: With Carol. Especially bad as from his side of things, developing feelings for her was an indication that he was recovering from the deaths of his wife and children.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Actor Goran Višnjić was 27 during his first year on the show. He easily could have passed for 40 and was immediately shown to be an authority figure (already an Attending) in the ER. Which also makes this a case of either PlayingGertrude or ImprobableAge, as there's no way he'd be an Attending so young.

[[folder:Cleo Finch]]
!!'''Cleo Finch'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/michael_michele_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MichaelMichele

* ClingyJealousGirl: Gets pissy about going to Mark and Elizabeth's wedding, even though Benton and Elizabeth broke up ''three years before''.
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: To Doug. She's his opposite in practically every way, right down to their race and gender, except for being a skilled and dedicated pediatrician just like he was.
* DistaffCounterpart: To Benton. Her aloof, reserved personality is very similar to his.
* FlatCharacter: As she never served any purpose but to be Benton's African-American girlfriend, she got zero individual storylines and we learned very little about her during her two years on the show.
* HappilyMarried: To Benton.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Her few scenes with Elizabeth indicate that she disapproves of the fact that Elizabeth and Benton once had a relationship, even though Cleo herself is the product of such a union.
* MalcolmXerox: For a while, tended to see racism as the reason behind every slight or reprimand.
* MalignedMixedAncestry: Against ''herself''. It's implied that the reason for her hypersensitivity about race issues is compensation for being of mixed race and having grown up in the suburbs.
* OfficialCouple: With Benton.
* PluckyGirl: Even when she's faced with the possibility of contracting AIDS from an HIV-positive patient in the Season 7 finale, she continues to work and save other patients during a multi-trauma.
* PutOnABus: After Season 8. Unlike most examples here, she doesn't return.

[[folder:Dave Malucci]]
!!'''Dave Malucci'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/erik_palladino_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ErikPalladino

* AbusiveParents: Implied, given his reaction to them.
* AntiHero: Malucci, unlike most of the others, was a character very difficult to call an overall good or bad person, with a number of check marks in both categories balancing each other out. Ultimately it is left to the viewers to decide for themselves the kind of man and doctor he was.
* AscendedExtra: Spent his first few episodes credited as a guest star before being added to the opening credits.
* BrutalHonesty: Doles it out and receives it frequently. The latter most notably from Corday in one of his earlier appearances:
-->'''Elizabeth''': "Do you want to know the staff's opinion of you? You're lazy, sloppy, and your careless attitude towards your responsibilities as a physician endangers lives, as witnessed today. In short, none of us thinks you're much of a doctor."
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Deconstructed. He's initially presented as a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Doug: brash, impulsive, problems with authority, womanizing, etc. Eventually, however, he's way out of his league -- he makes numerous mistakes, is warned by Elizabeth that "[[BrutalHonesty none of us thinks you're much of a doctor]]" (unlike Doug, Malucci is considerably dumber than the other doctors and also much lazier), and is finally fired both when his misdiagnosis kills a patient and when he's caught having sex with a paramedic while on duty.
* ButtMonkey: Usually the butt of the joke, mockery and comedy of the seasons he was in. Most evident when he stupidly drinks Carol's breast milk from the fridge when he uses it for his cereal without bothering checking.
* CasanovaWannabe: Played with. Hits on practically every woman in sight, many of whom reject him. Even the woman he's caught having sex in an ambulance with blew him off initially. That said he does show up for Mark and Corday's wedding with two women as his dates, and has various women coming to the hospital searching for him, with him hiding from them and making excuses.
* ConfirmedBachelor: Unlike most of the rest of the cast, he never has an outright love interest who is part of the main cast, preferring to womanize.
* CunningLinguist: Speaks Spanish. Makes sense, considering he went to medical school in Grenada.
* DownerEnding: Whether the viewer believes he deserved it or not. Dave and Jing-Mei attempt to perform a procedure that ends up killing a patient, after they are unable to reach Kerry for her approval or presence, their supervisor, because she was off consulting with a detective over her missing mother when she should have been at the hospital and left her beeper at Doc Magoo's in the process. Despite Malucci's often highly questionable professionalism and at times jerkass qualities, he is scapegoated for losing the patient despite being the lowest ranking of the three so [[ManipulativeBitch Kerry]] can cover her own ass from the fallout, throwing him and Jing-Mei under the bus, and Kerry soon fires him not for having sex with a paramedic on duty, but because [[EvilIsPetty she simply didn't like him]] and was looking for any excuse to do so. [[AmbiguousSituation This is despite him possibly having a child he is trying to support]]. He points out how little she ever cared to ask him about his life or get to know him and delivers a long overdue spiteful rant to her in retaliation. Malucci is last seen clearing out his locker and [[DeathGlare glowering silently]] at Kerry, before departing County, career in tatters, and never being seen again, and only remembered negatively afterwards. The only silver lining to his story being Kerry eventually losing her KarmaHoudini status and being fired as well.
* DumbassHasAPoint: On several occasions. Case in point, with the exception of the homophobic slur that he caps it off with, his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that he gives to Kerry is dead-on accurate.
* DumbJock: A doctor variant. Attended medical school in Grenada because he did poorly in college and on his [=MCATs=].
* {{Foil}}: To Romano and Doug. Like Romano, he's brash and rude, like Doug, he's impulsive and a womanizer, but unlike either, he lacks the consistency and respect for his colleagues that make him worth having around.
* HandsomeLech: A downplayed example. A good looking guy with an often arrogant, abrasive personality who hit on just about every non patient woman at the hospital with a pulse, but would back down any time he was turned down instead of pursuing it further. He generally knew when it was time to turn down the seductiveness.
* HiddenDepths:
** Claims to have a kid, although this may have been an appeal to Kerry's emotions.
** He actually proved to be a pretty decent doctor on the rare occasions that he got his act together and stopped goofing off.
** He was also self-aware enough to admit that his college years were basically just a party, and that his MCAT score was so low, he was forced to go to medical school in Grenada, which he jokingly refers to as "the Harvard of the Carribbean."
** Cared a great deal about his patients and did his best to help them, even when uncomfortable with the situation, such as trying to advise a gay young man to leave his abusive AIDS infected boyfriend, or at least use protection so he doesn't get it too. He even risked his own life to help out a Hispanic couple who were being preyed on by drug dealers.
** Despite their animosity, he attempted to fix Kerry's car when it broke down in front of the hospital, showing he had some mechanic skills as well.
** Liked to play hockey during his free time outside of the hospital.
** Despite his accidentally killing a patient, he tried to save the patient and was scapegoated for the entire thing and fired at the first opportunity by [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Kerry]] who had screwed up in the first place by misplacing her beeper, thus not being there to approve of the attempt or oversee it.
* IdiotBall: Despite knowing full well that Kerry is out for blood due to his part in accidentally killing a patient, Malucci sneaks off to have sex with a gorgeous paramedic. Kerry catches him and subsequently fires him. That said, Kerry was out for his head regardless, and would have found a reason to get him fired and scapegoated for the loss of the patient somehow.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Arguably this or JerkWithAHeartOfJerk, depending on the viewer's interpretation of him. He has his moments of care and kindness, especially towards patients, is enthusiastic and outgoing, and even assaults a man who raped his daughter. A good example of this was when [[ConscienceMakesYouGoBack he went back, retrieved]] and recited a message he had dictated from a wife over the phone to her dying husband after initially throwing the message away because the man died before Malucci could recite it to him.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Unlike his predecessor Doug, there is seemingly less beneath Malucci's philandering, arrogant, DumbJock exterior, at times more interested in learning and practicing new medical techniques than he is with the feelings of the patients. Or he talks too much at the worst time, says the wrong thing or displays BrutalHonesty. He's even fired in part for having sex in an ambulance while on duty, and one of his few moments of depth (see above) being in his very last episodes.
* KickTheDog: He claims to have a child to support. Kerry fires him anyway. Later, Malucci's last mention on the series was Carter telling Gallant that he was reckless and killed a patient.
* MonsterClown: He has some unresolved fear of clowns.
* NervesOfSteel: What he lacks in manners and common sense he doesn't lack in courage and determination, always ready to throw down if need be, or charge to the scene of an accident after roping in Carter to help him, and even ready to risk his life to protect patients from criminals outside the hospital.
* NosyNeighbor: Shortly after joining the staff, he interrogates everyone about why Kerry limps. He finally admits it's none of his business after she confronts him about it, but still fails to learn his lesson--one year later, he does exactly the same thing regarding the paternity of Jing-Mei's baby.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Dave finds out drug dealers have been pretending to be a pharmacy to prey on a Hispanic couple he and Cleo are treating, he angrily storms out of the hospital, and off screen he goes to the fake pharmacy, pretends to be someone in need of their help and retrieves evidence to take them down to protect the couple, getting physically attacked in the process but escaping back to County with the evidence for the police.
* PapaWolf: Demonstrated in full when he tries to assault a father who raped his daughter, and might actually be a father if his claims to Kerry are true, his reaction lending further credence to this claim.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 8. Unlike most examples here, he doesn't return.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In part this was the reason for his departure. Although Kerry made it plain she would pull out all stops to keep Malucci out of the ER, she didn't have the outright authority to unilaterally fire him for sleeping with a paramedic while on his break, it was a matter for the disciplinary board, and not an especially grievous, fireable offense, as pointed out by Malucci and Greene to her. By this point however, as she keeps pressing and impeding him, Malucci [[RageBreakingPoint finally decides he has had more than enough]] of [[BadBoss Kerry]] and tells her and the job to go to hell, storming out of the hospital instead of taking it to the board or fighting for the job as Jing-Mei later does for hers.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: He makes his first appearance in the second episode of Season 6.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Like Luka, Malucci was given many of Doug's characteristics--brashness, impulsiveness, problems with authority, an antagonistic relationship with Kerry, and a once-mentioned but never explained kid, along with a BerserkButton reaction to {{Abusive Parent}}s that likely stem from his own experiences. To the point where ''his'' fan board nickname was "Doug Ross, Jr."
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: With [[TheRival Jing-Mei]], [[BadBoss Kerry]], and [[ByronicHero Benton]] especially.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasted only a little over two seasons and got very little CharacterDevelopment.

[[folder:Abby Lockhart]]
!!'''Abigail "Abby" Marjorie Wyczenski Lockhart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maura_tierney_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MauraTierney

* AbusiveParents: Subverted. While her mother may not have been willfully abusive or neglectful, it's still clear that Abby's childhood was hell thanks to her mother's UsefulNotes/BipolarDisorder, a mental illness that she consciously chose not to seek help for.
-->'''Maggie''': I never asked to be sick!\\
'''Abby''': You never tried to get better!
%%* TheAlcoholic
* AscendedExtra: In her first appearance, she was an OB nurse at Carol's birth. Not long after, she appeared in the ER as a medical student, and was later transferred to be an ER nurse after being forced to drop out of medical school.
* BettyAndVeronica: From Seasons 7-9, she's the Archie to Luka's Betty and Carter's Veronica. Luka comes from the war-torn Croatia; he's always a NiceGuy towards both his colleagues and patients throughout his tenure on the show, as well as a good mentor to the medical students, interns, and residents; and he helps and defends Abby whenever she's in trouble -- such as when Kerry yells at her for putting in a chest tube despite her being a nurse in Season 7, and when her neighbor Brian brutally beats her for convincing his wife Joyce to leave him in Season 8. Carter comes from an incredibly wealthy family; he TookALevelInJerkass after his stabbing and continues to do so for a long time; he constantly inserts himself into Luka and Abby's first relationship out of jealousy, giving off EntitledToHaveYou vibes towards Abby in the process; and, when he does date Abby in Season 9, he tries to change and fix her, which she explicitly tells him she doesn't appreciate, as she feels she isn't broken.
* BrokenBird: Her rough childhood and disasterous first marriage has left her very cynical about life and love.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Displays this twice in Season 8. She's a complete bitch to and about Luka's new girlfriend Nicole, even though she and Luka have broken up. She's similarly nasty to and about Susan whenever she sees her with Carter, even though she and Carter haven't even been together yet.
* DeadpanSnarker: Has her moments. Most notably as a nurse and occasionally after she has Joe.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything, Abby finally gets her happy ending with Luka.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. She had one during her first marriage out of fear of putting a child through the same hell she went through, or the child itself being mentally ill. But played straight when she gets pregnant by Luka, despite still having the same fears.
* HappilyMarried: Zig-zagged with Luka. They go through a lot of strife, but by the end of the series they're in a good place.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Neela.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 6 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* JadeColoredGlasses: A deeply snarky, unpleasant mannered and bitter woman quite often, especially in later appearances.
* KickTheDog: In "300 Patients", Neela pleads with Abby to end her alcoholism relapse. The following conversation ensues:
-->'''Abby:''' You know what, Neela? Sometimes, you are such a child!\\
'''Neela:''' Stop it. I'm trying to help you.\\
'''Abby:''' Well, I don't need it, really!\\
'''Neela:''' You've got to stop this. Think about...Joe, think about Luka, you have to--\\
'''Abby:''' And I really don't expect you to even begin to understand this.\\
'''Neela:''' Well, if you love them, you'll do something--\\
'''Abby:''' If I love them?!\\
''[{{Beat}}]''\\
'''Neela:''' Please...I'm your friend--\\
'''Abby:''' Are you really about to lecture me on love, with your track record?\\
'''Neela:''' Don't.\\
'''Abby:''' Because I'm thinking, right now, Ray is ''really'' wishing he didn't meet ''you''!
* TheMasochismTango: She outright calls her and her mother's interactions "The dance we do"--she shows up in the beginning stages of mania, swearing that things are going to be different, but eventually going completely off the wall and causing chaos, then disappearing for months before turning up again, this time in a depressed phase, possibly to the point of being suicidal. Despite how miserable the whole thing makes Abby, it's obvious that she can't bring herself to get out of it.
* MoralityPet: She is one of a scant handful of her colleagues at County that Kerry Weaver even seems to ''like'', let alone trust, but their relationship is genuinely warm and kind.
* MyBiologicalClockIsTicking: Why she goes ahead with having Luka's baby, despite her misgivings about the child possibly being bipolar.
* OfficialCouple: With Luka.
* OffTheWagon: Comes up now and again, which leads into her cheating on Luka in the process.
* ParentalSubstitute: Was this to her own mother and brother whenever her mother was in a manic or depressive state.
* PutOnABus: Near the very beginning of the final season ("The Book of Abby"), she leaves the ER to be with Luka and Joe in Boston. She makes one final return in "Shifting Equilibrium" via [[TheCameo phone call]] in order to reassure Neela on the latter's last day working at County General.
* ReallyGetsAround: It's implied that she slipped into this kind of behavior whenever she was drinking. Chuny at one point teasingly calls Abby "The ER Slut".
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Aside from his good looks, the reason why Abby develops feelings for Luka, her main love interest, is because he defended her from Kerry and took responsibility when he allowed her to put in a chest tube in a patient, despite her being a nurse at the time, during a multi-trauma and the staff was very limited. Later that night, she spontaneously kisses him and ignites their romantic relationship after he tells her that she's a good nurse and could be a great doctor.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She replaced Lucy as the "bumbling and clueless" medical student for a bit after the latter's death. Then, though their personalities and backgrounds were vastly different, she replaced Carol as the token nurse character and love interest of Luka once the latter left. Interestingly, when Abby first appeared on the show, she was precisely at the point Carol would have been in her medical studies had she decided to go to medical school.

[[folder:Frank Martin]]
!!'''Frank Martin'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/troy_evans_er_promo.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/TroyEvans

* AscendedExtra: Debuted all the way back in the {{Pilot}} as a cop.
* BigEater: Oh boy. This led to his heart attack.
* DeadpanSnarker: ''A lot''. Sometimes this was combined with his {{Jerkass}} behaviour, other times it was his method of communicating.
* FriendToAllChildren: Does make some snarky remarks about the staff's kids behind their back, but is shown to be more patient and concerned for their health and wellbeing compared to other patients.
* TheGenerationGap: Was implied to be the reason behind his jerkass behaviour. The further along the series went, he became less of a {{Jerkass}}.
* HiddenDepths:
** It was later revealed that he had a wife and a daughter with what looked like Downs Syndrome and was also a war veteran.
** His reaction to the deaths or injuries of various staff members (Mark, Gallant, Jerry, Pratt) reveals that, despite his gruff demeanor, he genuinely likes and respects his coworkers.
** He's also a very good cook, as indicated when he gives Catherine a recipe when she's debating what to prepare for her visiting in-laws.
** Goes all out to give Neela a nice going-away party (themed as a Bollywood performance!) so he can apologize to her for the bigoted comments he made about her ethnicity and nationality when she first joined the staff.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's initially a {{Jerkass}}, but he gets better after his heart attack.

!!Introduced in Season 8
[[folder:Michael Gallant]]
!!'''Michael Gallant'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sharif_atkins_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/SharifAtkins

* AdvertisedExtra: He was promoted to the main cast shortly after his first appearance. If anything, the series made ''less'' use out of him after promoting him than before.
* BackForTheDead: His final episode features his brutal death by a roadside bomb, ''in the opening scene''.
* CommutingOnABus: In Seasons 11 and 12 until he died.
* DownerEnding: Killed suddenly in Iraq from a roadside bomb, leaving Neela a bereaved widow and his friends and family back home devastated.
* FirstLove: To Neela.
* FourthDateMarriage: He and Neela express a mutual interest in each other in Season 10, but he gets shipped off to Iraq before he ever officially asks her out. From then on, [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship takes place via letters and e-mails]]. It's not known if they ever even ''had'' a proper date before he returns on leave and proposes to her, with them marrying that same day. This is acknowledged when, a month after they've married and they argue over his wanting to return to Iraq and her not wanting him to, Neela admits to her dismay, "I love you, but I still don't ''know'' you."
* GoodLookingPrivates: Whenever we'd see him in uniform.
%%* KilledMidSentence
* MeaningfulName: Gallant, obviously. To the point where his final episode is named after him--"The Gallant Hero and the Tragic Victor".
* NiceGuy: Along with Luka, he was one of the kindest and most helpful characters on the show.
* PutOnABus: After Season 10.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Blue to Pratt's Red. Pratt is more rude and impulsive, while Gallant is kind and by the book.
* TooHappyToLive: Mentions his wife Neela and how much he's looking forward to going home and seeing her not five seconds before the truck he's riding in is blown up, killing him.
%%* TookALevelInBadass
%%* WideEyedIdealist

[[folder:Greg Pratt]]
!!'''Gregory "Greg" Pratt'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mekhi_phifer_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MekhiPhifer

* AscendedExtra: He appeared in four episodes towards the end of Season 8, before being promoted to the main cast in Season 9.
* CharacterDevelopment: Started out very impulsive and egotistical. By his tenure's end, he'd become an excellent teacher and was about to be named ER Chief.
* DownerEnding: Despite his impressive CharacterDevelopment over the years, Pratt ends up dying a horrific, bloody death from an explosion at the beginning of the final season, surrounded by his friends, co workers and brother, before he was able to propose to his girlfriend, radiologist Dr. Bettina [=DeJesus=], as he had been planning to, and after he was just about to finally be named the ER Chief after his years of dedicated hard work.
* MeaningfulName: He ''is'' a bit of a prat, after all.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the Season 12 finale, after Gallant dies and Ray reveals that he's been trying to contact Neela, his main love interest and Gallant's widow, Pratt gently persuades Ray to give her some space and not complicate things. In "A House Divided", Pratt tries to give Ray advice on how to sort things out with Neela. However, Ray reminds him that he already took the senior doctor's advice before by giving her a lot of time and space, but in doing so, she started dating Gates instead.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 8 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* RedOniBlueOni: The Red to Gallant's Blue. Later on the Blue to Morris' Red.
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Died at the ''final season'' premiere.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** He shares a few characteristics with Malucci, being introduced in the same season the latter departed. He starts out as a brash, arrogant resident who often flirts with women, including sharing a tension with Jing-Mei, and has issues with his supervisors. However, unlike Malucci, Pratt stuck around County long enough to undergo a good deal of CharacterDevelopment, eventually becoming an ER Attending and would have become the ER Chief if he lived. This similarity is {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Carter at one point.
** Starting in Season 11, he has some traits in common with Doug--with whom, incidentally, Malucci also shared some traits--particularly regarding the drama with his DisappearedDad and their strained relationship, and with his efforts to be promoted at the ER in the final two seasons.
* TooHappyToLive: Was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Bettina and had just been named the new ER chief when he was killed.

!!Introduced in Season 10
[[folder:Neela Rasgotra]]
!!'''Neela Rasgotra'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/parminder_nagra_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ParminderNagra

* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Subverted and Defied. She and Gallant contact each other as much as they can throughout [[LongDistanceRelationship their relationship]], and both are able to resist cheating on each other, although they nearly came close to doing so--he with one of his coworkers in Iraq, she with Ray's bandmate Bret. After she realizes she's in love with Ray, she moves out of their apartment to remain faithful to Gallant.
%%* BewareTheQuietOnes
* CharacterDevelopment: Goes from a shy neophyte, to confident physician, to even more confident surgeon.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: In "Blood Relations", she suffers from this while stuck in a hyperbaric chamber with a baby who has carbon monoxide poisoning.
* CommutingOnABus: Officially departs the ER in the antepenultimate episode, but manages to make brief appearances in the final two episodes.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ray tended to bring this out of her, before and during the time they were roommates.
* DudeMagnet: Her love interests include Gallant, Gates, Brenner, and finally Ray. Not to mention Dubenko's crush on her, medical student Mae Lee Park's crush on her, Bret's and Nick's (Ray's former bandmates) crushes on her, and Pratt's flirtation with her that led to his break-up with Jing-Mei.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything she went through, she finally gets her happy ending with Ray.
* HerHeartWillGoOn: While affected by Gallant's death at the end of Season 12, she does continue to engage in relationships afterwards, with Gates, Brenner, and Ray.
* HeroicBSOD: She has one so bad after being notified of Gallant's death that she turns around and picks up two charts to go back to work, as if nothing happened.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Abby.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LethalChef: According to Ray, her cookies are "[[BrutalHonesty the worst cookies ever made in the history of baking]]." Frank, Chuny and Morris agree with him, although they're more polite about their opinions.
* NaiveNewcomer: Takes on the role of the "hapless medical student" for the show in Season 10. She gradually grows out of it over the next year.
* OfficialCouple: With Ray.
* OneTrueLove: Ray. Neela's other relationships all fail for different reasons--with Gallant, it was because they barely knew each other, as well as his returning to Iraq despite her not wanting him to, which led to his death; with Gates, it was his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah; and with Brenner, it was his inability to open up to her about anything. In stark contrast, her relationship with Ray is open and honest; she enjoys spending time with him and is genuinely happy around him; and even when she dated other guys, she sought ''him'' out for advice instead of them, proving she holds a deep trust in him.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Goes from merely "cute" when she first joins the staff to positively drop-dead gorgeous by the time she leaves.
* SheCleansUpNicely: In "The Human Shield", she arrives at the hospital in a LittleBlackDress in preparation for Gallant's return.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** She shares a few characteristics with Carol, most notably in their love lives. Both married--or, in Carol's case, ''almost'' married--their first on-screen boyfriends, Tag and Gallant. Both of their second boyfriends, Shep and Gates, are paramedics. Both only briefly dated their third boyfriends, Luka and Brenner. Finally, both left County General to reunite with their fourth and final boyfriends, Doug and Ray.
** She also shares a few characteristics with Lucy, most notably in their career paths. Both start off as a bumbling and clueless medical student. Also, both have an uneven rotation in the ER, but excel in a different medical field--for Lucy, it was Psychiatry, and had she lived, she would have been given a position as a Psych resident at County; for Neela, it was Surgery, and she ends her tenure at County as a great surgeon.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: She leaves a bottle of wine at Abby's apartment, which Abby later drinks after ''very'' stressful day and subsequently relapses.

[[folder:Sam Taggart]]
!!'''Samantha "Sam" Taggart'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_cardellini_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/LindaCardellini

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Played Straight with her ex-husband Steve and final boyfriend Gates. Inverted with Luka.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Is furious when she sees that Luka has hooked up with the woman he had a fling with while in Africa, even though she herself told him she wanted to take a break. She later gets pissy when Neela develops a short-lived crush on him. A few years later, while dating Gates, she does the same thing--breaks up with him outright, but gets angry when he begins dating someone else.
* CrimeOfSelfDefense: An assistant district attorney fully intends to prosecute her for murdering her ex-husband, ignoring that said ex-husband was not only a dangerous felon, but one who had committed several more serious felonies (escaping prison, several counts of assault with a deadly weapon/attempted murder, kidnapping, and rape) in the span of a day or so. Luckily for Sam, by this point she's been hired as a private nurse for a ''very'' wealthy man who is a big contributor to the district attorney's re-election campaigns, and he casually mentions (read: threatens) to the ADA that he'll be having dinner with the DA later in the week, and wonders if prosecuting Sam is really worth it (the implication being the DA hadn't even been informed yet).
* DeadpanSnarker: One of her defining character traits.
-->'''Angry Patient:''' (''banging chair against window'') Hey! You listening?!\\
'''Sam:''' Sir, please don't do that.\\
'''Angry Patient:''' Why?! You gonna do something about it?!\\
'''Sam:''' No.\\
'''Security Guard:''' (''tackles Angry Patient'')\\
'''Sam:''' But ''he'' will.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Proceeds to take a needle of a sedative from Morris, jumps in and proceeds to inject the sedative into a mentally disturbed guy who was being incredibly aggressive.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: By the time she saved the money for an abortion, she couldn't work up the nerve to go through with it.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* MamaBear: Don't mess with Alex or else she will come after you.
* TheMurderAfter: She kills Steve when he falls asleep after raping her.
* OfficialCouple: With Gates.
* RapeAsDrama: When her ex-husband escapes from prison (nearly killing both Jerry and Luka in the process), he also kidnaps Alex and Sam. While they're hiding out, he rapes Sam, who has to stay quiet since Alex is sleeping nearby. The entire scene is shot ''very'' uncomfortably.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She shares some characteristics with Carol. Both are the token nurse character of their respective eras; Carol from Seasons 1-6, Sam from Seasons 10-15. Both have a DisappearedDad. Finally, both have a temporary relationship with Luka, who grows close to them partially because he gets along with, and helps them take care of, their respective children.
* TeenPregnancy: She had her son Alex at age 15. Unlike most teen pregnancies though, Sam and her son are fairly level-headed.
* WifeBasherBasher: Punches out an abusive boyfriend when he not only calls the girl a slut, he grabs Sam's arm, arguably making her actions self-defense.

[[folder:Archie Morris]]
!!'''Archibald "Archie" Morris'''
[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scott_grimes_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ScottGrimes

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character throughout Seasons 10 and 11 before becoming a main cast member in Season 12.
* CharacterDevelopment: Probably the most extensive in the show's history. Started out as an annoying, bumbling, incompetent fool who no one liked. Ended as one of the best doctors in the hospital whom everyone respected.
-->'''Carter''': [[SoProudOfYou Looks like you followed my advice, Archie]].\\
'''Morris''': How's that?\\
'''Carter''': [[ArcWords You set the tone]].
* TheConfidant: Abby {{Lampshade|Hanging}}s that, by the end of the series, he's become a trustworthy person to come to when it for sharing one's issues. This is reinforced later when Catherine reveals her history with County General to him--she had brought her son there for treatment and he had died there--and Brenner confides to him about getting molested as a child.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his initial shock at suddenly meeting four children who are biologically his from his sperm donations in the early 1990's, he quickly adjusts to meeting his kids and is very kind, enthusiastic, fond and paternal towards them right away for the short time he got to know them, wanting to get to know them better.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Only debuted in Season 10 but is one of the most recognizable characters in the show.
* LadykillerInLove: He's something of a party animal...who finds himself falling head over heels in love with police detective Claudia Diaz in the final season. While they aren't engaged by the time the series ends, Morris makes it clear that that's where he sees their relationship going, and Claudia agrees with him.
* OfficialCouple: With Claudia Diaz.
* PluckyComicRelief: In the first few years of his tenure. Downplayed later on as he becomes more competent and his comedic lines appear less and less.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 10 and 11 before being added to the main cast in Season 12.
* SecretKeeper: Two in the final season. He is the only one in the department to know that Cathreine Bansfield lost her son in the very ER she now oversees, and he is the one who Simon Brenner opens up to about his abusive past.
* TheStoner: In Season 10. He gets better.
* TookALevelInBadass: Went from a lazy stoner who needed his friends help to get through a shift and was forced to stay as a doctor by his father to someone Catherine Bansfield herself described as one of the best doctors in the ER. A sign of his development is how he was assigned to perscribe triage for a group of injured workman in the closing moments of the final episode, showing his growth in terms of skill and character.
* TookALevelInKindness: Went from a disinterested doctor who couldn't care less about his patients and who was oblivious to how much everyone in the ER disliked him, into a thoughtful,caring confidant that multiple characters opened up to.
* YouAreInCommandNow: When Carter is PutOnABus in the Season 11 finale to reunite with Kem, he instructs Morris to "set the tone", just as Mark had told him in "Orion in the Sky".

!!Introduced in Season 11
[[folder:Ray Barnett]]
!!'''Ray Barnett'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shane_west_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/ShaneWest

* AbusiveParents: A BerserkButton for him. In a deleted scene from Season 12, it's implied, but not explicitly stated, that he had a stepfather who suffered from substance abuse. In "Split Decisions", he threatens Zoe's father after he learns that the man beat her. In "A House Divided", he becomes angry with a man who mistreated his stepson, and he tells Kerry that the man reminded him of someone he used to know.
* AfraidOfNeedles: In "Shot in the Dark", he's nervous about getting the flu shot, as he has a "thing about needles," and tells Abby to give him the shot when he's not expecting it. She does so just as he's leaving after his shift.
* AnArmAndALeg: He has both of his legs amputated after getting run over by a truck. He later has them replaced with prosthetics.
* BettyAndVeronica:
** In Season 12, he's the Veronica to Gallant's Betty for Neela's Archie: Gallant's a military doctor and devoted to Neela, while Ray's a part-time rock musician and a womanizer. Despite Neela and [[LadykillerInLove Ray]] falling in love, she chooses to remain faithful to her husband Gallant.
** In Season 13, he's the Betty to Gates' Veronica for Neela's Archie: [[CharacterDevelopment Ray's a serious third-year resident]] who's honest with everyone, while Gates is an arrogant ER intern who constantly lies to save his own neck. Despite Neela initially choosing Gates because she was OnTheRebound from losing Gallant, she quickly becomes miserable in the relationship. During Luka and Abby's wedding, Neela breaks up with Gates and chooses Ray...right before the latter gets run over by a truck.
** Also in Season 13, he's the Archie for Neela's Betty and Katey's Veronica: Neela's a serious surgical intern who tries to separate her personal life from her professional life, while Katey's an incompetent medical student who doesn't mind that everyone--''especially'' Neela--is aware of her relationship with Ray. Despite dating Katey, Ray doesn't actually care about her because he already chose Neela in Season 12, and [[OperationJealousy he only dates Katey because he's jealous of Neela's relationship with Gates]].
** In the final season, he's the Betty to Brenner's Veronica for Neela's Archie: Ray has come to terms with his accident and enjoys working in the physical medicine and rehabilitation field to help fellow amputees and handicapped patients, while Brenner can't come to terms with his abusive childhood and prefers sleeping around over being an efficient Attending. Despite briefly dating Brenner, Neela already chose Ray at the end of Season 13, and she leaves [[DidNotGetTheGirl Brenner]] to be with Ray.
* ButtMonkey: Goes through a bit of trouble, culminating in him losing both of his legs near the end of his tenure as a main cast member. Fortunately, things get better for him when he returns in the final season.
* TheCasanova: Much like his predecessor Doug, he attracts a lot of women, mainly groupies, and is successful in getting them into his bed. However, he's nicer than the usual archetype, as he doesn't take advantage of them nor does he discard them so callously.
* ChickMagnet: Throughout the three seasons where he's a main character.
* CommutingOnABus: After being absent in Season 14, he reappears throughout the final season, far more well-adjusted than he had been in the past, and reignites his relationship with Neela. In the antepenultimate episode, she leaves Chicago to be with him in Baton Rouge, and the penultimate episode reveals that they're living together again.
* DisappearedDad: Both his biological father and stepfather are mentioned but never shown on-screen. He speaks fondly of his biological father in "Quintessence of Dust", telling one of his patients that his father got him into music and loved the blues. He doesn't feel the same way about his stepfather, though.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Towards Neela. He tries to [[DefiedTrope Defy]] this by telling her that he's sick of waiting for her to choose him over Gates. However, it's still Played Straight--after Neela loses interest in Gates due to his constant lying and issues with Meg and Sarah, and after Katey breaks up with him because she knows he only has eyes for Neela, Ray admits that he believes his commitment and patience in waiting for Neela to reciprocate his feelings will win her heart.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: After everything he went through, he finally gets his happy ending with Neela.
* FriendToAllChildren: He's very good at interacting with child patients or children of patients, and encourages them to open up to him fairly easily.
* HopelessSuitor: For Neela in Seasons 12 and 13.
* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Following the accident that results in the amputation of both of his legs. When he returns to Chicago for a visit in the final season, he's been fitted with prosthetics and is living as normal a life as possible and has used his injuries to focus his medical practice on those in similar situations.
* LadykillerInLove: He hooks up with groupies and "hot" women and claims to like them, but he doesn't genuinely care about them. In stark contrast, he outright confesses and shows that he's truly fallen in love with Neela.
* MrFanservice: Getting introduced as part-time doctor and part-time rock musician meant that this was inevitable.
* OfficialCouple: With Neela.
* OneHeadTaller: He's 6', while his main love interest Neela is 5'2".
* OneTrueLove: Neela. With other women, he'd state that he merely ''liked'' them, or comment on how "hot" they were, or talk about how great the sex was, all of which are superficial, and he never wanted to be serious with any of them. Conversely, Neela is the only woman he confesses his ''love'' to, he wants to take her out on dates rather than immediately jumping into bed with her, and he indicates to Pratt that he's thought about settling down with her.
* PutOnABus: After Season 13.
* SecondLove: To Neela, after Gallant.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He shares a lot of characteristics with Doug. He's initially brash and impulsive and has issues with authoritative figures like Susan and Kerry prior to his CharacterDevelopment. He has a BerserkButton for AbusiveParents that originated from his own experiences. He has a great rapport with children. He's a handsome and charming stud in and out of the hospital. Finally, despite his constant dalliances with groupies and "hot" women, he genuinely falls in love with Neela, who herself shares a few characteristics with Doug's true love Carol.

!!Introduced in Season 12
[[folder:Tony Gates]]
!!'''Anthony "Tony" Gates'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_stamos_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/JohnStamos

* AbusiveParents: He was raised by an alcoholic father. He is none too pleased when his father shows up midway through Season 13.
* AscendedExtra: He appeared in two episodes in Season 12. He became a regular in the following season.
* BerserkButton: It's not a good idea to talk about Meg's death in front of him.
* ChickMagnet: His love interests include Meg, Neela, hospital chaplain Julia, Dr. Daria Wade, and finally Sam.
* CockFight: With Ray over Neela in Season 13, culminating in a fight at Luka and Abby's wedding.
* LoveTriangle: He and Ray compete for Neela's affections throughout Season 13. She breaks up with Gates after he and Ray fight at Luka and Abby's wedding, and in the Season 13 finale, she reveals to Ray that she's chosen him over Gates. While Ray initially doesn't want to deal with Neela following his accident, they reconcile and get together in the final season, during which Gates had already moved on to having feelings for Sam, effectively ending the Love Triangle.
* MrFanservice: One of the more sexual characters in the show's last few seasons. A fair amount of his subplots deal with him romancing Neela and then Sam.
* OfficialCouple: With Sam.
* PapaWolf: To Sarah.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a guest character in Season 12 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a lot of Doug's characteristics. He's TallDarkAndHandsome, a ChickMagnet, and a PapaWolf. He's brash and impulsive, and has issues with authority, to the point where he's explicitly called a "cowboy" by his supervisor Pratt, similar to how Doug was called the same thing by his supervisor Kerry. He has a BerserkButton for {{Abusive Parent}}s that stem from his own experiences. After other relationships come and go, he genuinely falls in love with the token nurse character, Sam, who herself shares some traits with Carol.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: As to be expected for someone played by John Stamos. He takes over for Luka in this position after the latter starts CommutingOnABus.
* WhatTheHellHero: Is given this by Sam when he lets Alex out of the house against Sam's orders and Alex ends up in a serious car accident. It leads to the destruction of their relationship that lasts until the final episode.

!!Introduced in Season 14
[[folder:Simon Brenner]]
!!'''Simon Brenner'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simon_brenner_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/DavidLyons

* AscendedExtra: He was a recurring character towards the end of Season 14. He became a regular in the final season.
* BelligerentSexualTension: After weeks of being at each other's throats, he and Neela get into a full-fledged shouting match, which of course culminates in them going at it.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: In the final two seasons, he falls for Neela and they even briefly become a couple. However, throughout their short relationship, Neela remains in love with Ray, and she leaves both Brenner and County General to be with Ray in Baton Rouge.
* EvilBrit: More like "{{Jerkass}} Aussie", but the gist is the same.
* LadykillerInLove: His womanizing ways are established from his first scene, but he falls in love with Neela.
* {{Nepotism}}: To the point of being either a StealthPun--he's Donald Anspaugh's nephew (nepotism comes from the Latin word "''nepos''", which means..."nephew")--or a literal example of {{Nephewism}}.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 14 before being added to the main cast the following (final) season.
* RapeAsBackstory: His BerserkButton reaction to a pedophile patient leads to him confessing to Morris in "Age of Innocence" that he was molested by one of his mother's boyfriends.
* ReallyGetsAround: His ''first'' scene is of him [[AThreesomeIsHot waking up in bed with two women]], and his womanizing reputation is well established afterwards.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has a few of Doug's characteristics, namely an abusive past that influences his good (anger about abused children) and bad (sleeping around) behavior.

!!Introduced in Season 15
[[folder:Catherine Banfield]]
!!'''Catherine "Cate" Banfield'''
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_bassett_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AngelaBassett

* BlackBossLady: Not afraid to put people in their place, often with a properly stern expression.
* BrokenBird: Catherine and her husband were devastated by the death of their son. The two were estranged from one another due to the trauma of it for a fair amount of time, though they manage to reunite by the final season.
-->'''Catherine''': I'm not sure why I've done anything I've done since that day. Why'd I not leave my apartment for almost two years? Then I see the news about the tsunami, and I fly to a place 10,000 miles away. Why'd I do that? Why'd I come back? Why did my son have leukemia? I never understood any of it.\\
'''Morris''': I--I'm sorry for your loss. I...I don't really know what to say.\\
'''Catherine''': When your parents are gone, you're an orphan. When your spouse dies, you're a widow or widower. But when you lose your baby...there's no word for that.
* ChekhovsGunman: Her son was one of Mark's last few patients.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Highlighted with her and Morris' interactions. While at the start, there is some friction due to her firmness and his resentment at a stranger taking Pratt's place so soon after his death, by the time of "Heal Thyself", Catherine is able to open up to him about her son's death and Morris looks at her in a different light.
* DueToTheDead: Mark Greene's heroic- if ultimately futile efforts- to save her son have a lasting impact on her years later. As such, she accepts Carter back in the ER after he reveals to her that he knew Greene, and it is shown that the fact that Rachel is his daughter may influence her decision to accept her in the ER.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite her son supposedly being one of Mark's last patients, she was nowhere to be seen in Season 8.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: She makes her first appearance in the second episode of the final season, following Pratt's death in the first episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Bossy, abrasive, takes charge, and takes no nonsense? Sounds a lot like either Kerry Weaver or Angela Hicks.

!!Introduced in Season 2
[[folder:Kerry Weaver]]
!!'''Kerry Weaver'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/laura_innes_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/LauraInnes

* AcademicAlphaBitch: A doctor equivalent. She's beautiful and brilliant, but has an ego the size of a small country and will do whatever she thinks is necessary to advance her own achievements and position in the hospital's hierarchy. She sarcastically refers to ''herself'' as an AlphaBitch in one episode.
* AdvertisedExtra: After she was made Chief of Staff in Season 10.
%%* AllLesbiansWantKids
* AmbitionIsEvil: The show tended to present her as this from the beginning even when she equally tried to help others with their careers (pressing Susan to present research, making suggestions to Mark and covering for him with Anspaugh, etc). She appeared to expect everyone else to be as driven as she was; they saw her as heartless because she cared about advancement.
* ArchEnemy: Although she made many enemies over the years, with various characters able to hold the title at different seasons, [[ObstructiveBureaucrat she]] and [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight Doug Ross]] were this the longest, during most of his time on the show, and even before County when [[NoodleIncident they worked at another hospital together]].
* AscendedExtra: Spent a year as a recurring character in Season 2 before being advanced to the main cast in Season 3. Later DemotedToExtra in Seasons 10-13.
* BadBoss: Downplayed earlier on. This becomes more noticeable as the series goes on, with her handling of residents and situations, and being more concerned with looking out for herself than her responsibilities as Chief.
* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: More fair than she is expected to be, at times, though mostly earlier on.
* BenevolentBoss: In the earlier seasons while serving as ER Chief, she could be quite nice and helpful to her subordinates who were in need. Prime examples being in dealing with Jeanie's HIV status and Carol's pregnancy. [[TookALevelInJerkass Unfortunately, she grew out of it]].
* BadassBureaucrat: While serving as ER Chief, anyways. It's repeatedly shown that without her there to keep things on track, the ER will quickly fall apart.
* BrokenBird: Despite her tough exterior there have been numerous instances where she has demonstrated herself to be really fragile underneath.
* BrokenPedestal: Frequently became this to the few people who liked and trusted her. In particular, Jing-Mei, who she mentored on her way to becoming Chief Resident before screwing her over to avoid taking any blame for a patient's death.
* TheBusCameBack: Twice in the final season.
* CaneFu: Has no qualms about wielding her crutch as a weapon, if necessary.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Her modus operandi was basically to pretend to be someone's friend/ally before screwing them over in order to save herself. This was so prevalent that one of her victims outright said "I knew she was capable of this, I just didn't think she'd do it to me."
* CripplingOverspecialization: What is ultimately her downfall. She spent so much time gunning for the Chief spot and managing the bureaucracy of the hospital, that when she screwed up and was demoted back down to the ER her medical skills had become rusty, and come the next budget cuts, [[LaserGuidedKarma she wasn't considered worth the price of keeping around any longer]].
* CunningLinguist: Knows Spanish, Swahili, and ASL.
* DeadpanSnarker: Kerry's wit is desert-dry and devastating, and often outright funny.
* FairWeatherFriend: She repeatedly proved herself to be this the moment she realized that supporting someone would be detrimental to her--she screwed over Mark to become ER Chief, she ditched her girlfriend Kim when the latter was falsely accused of sexual harassment, and she allowed Jing-Mei, her protegé, to take the sole blame for a patient's death so that she herself would incur no punishment.
* FieryRedhead: Whatever her numerous flaws, no one could call her a wimp or a pushover.
* FriendToAllChildren: Consistently interacted very well with kids, despite her inability to get along with anyone else.
* {{Gayngst}}: During her relationship with Kim, where she was so terrified of anyone finding out that she would barely even speak to her while at work, and at the beginning of her relationship with Sandy, where she ran and hid to avoid being seen while out on a date. She worked this pretty hard during her coming out storyline. Already a fiercely private person, she became so terrified of anyone finding out about her lesbian relationship with psychiatrist Kim Legaspi that she would barely even speak to the woman when they were at work, and when Kim was accused of sexual harassment, pretty much ditched her in order to keep their relationship secret. She did a similar thing with her next girlfriend, running and hiding to avoid being seen by her coworkers while out on a date, but the woman shows up at the hospital and forcibly kisses her in front of everyone, outing her, and putting an end to her timidity.
* GeniusCripple: She is a superb emergency physician who uses a cane thanks to congenital hip dysplasia and has an IQ of 145. She is also, by ''far'', the most academically gifted of the ER doctors, and if ''anyone'' can be counted on to know their stuff, it's her.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: From the moment she joins the staff until she leaves, she's in a position of authority--Chief Resident in Season 2, ER Attending in Seasons 3-5 and 13, ER Chief in Seasons 6-9, and finally Chief of Staff in Seasons 10-13. And nearly everyone hates her the entire time because of her power-hungry and controlling ways.
* HandicappedBadass: Kerry walks with the aid of a crutch for the majority of the series, but is in no way impeded in helping her fellow doctors in emergency situations. In one episode, she assists in the arrest of a schizophrenic patient who had killed med student Lucy Knight and seriously injured Dr. John Carter by tripping him with her crutch. A few episodes after this, she uses the crutch to beat her way through a crowd of brawling High School footballers to help Malucci, who had been knocked unconscious in the chaos. Later, in Season 8, she leaps into a crashed ambulance, surrounded by fallen power lines, in a pouring thunderstorm, to deliver an injured pregnant woman's baby ''via an emergency C-section''. Also, she's everybody's boss for a significant chunk of the series.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: She's an excellent doctor and a superb administrator, but practically everyone in the ER has a contentious relationship with her because of her focus on unpopular administrative policies as well as a talent for patronizing and otherwise annoying the staff.
* HeelRealization: After Mark dies and she realizes that she made his life miserable by always trying to make everything into a competition when, "the man just wanted to do his job and go home." Sadly, she forgets this due to AesopAmnesia.
* HeroicBSOD: One of the most epic in the series. She was allowed to scrub in and observe while Corday and Anspaugh operated on Sandy, and thus has a front row seat to everything going wrong. When blood actually begins ''backing up into Sandy's endotracheal tube'', she quietly tells the surgeons "You can stop. She's gone." She's later shown staring blankly into space while sitting at Sandy's bedside, breaking down completely after asking Elizabeth how she had coped with Mark's death. Her reaction is so heartbreaking that, for all the friction between the two, Elizabeth embraces and tries to comfort her.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Countless instances of her criticizing people for doing things she had done or would do herself. She also made sure anyone who screwed up was punished as severely as possible while acting like her own mistakes were no big deal. A few standout examples:
** Made Doug's life hell and tried to sabotage Doug's career advancement because he was such a cowboy, and yet almost as soon as he leaves she tries to circumvent a standing DNR order (because she thought the woman was her biological mother). Then months later hounds Mark for doing the same thing, having the gall to insinuate that Mark isn't being objective because of the recent death of ''his'' mother, even though in this case, the patient had explicitly rescinded her DNR, telling Mark that she didn't want to die just yet. And a few months after that, she blasts Carol and Luka for doing almost the same thing she did--doing an end-run around a DNR order so that a dying woman could have a few more minutes with her family.
** In "A Hole in the Heart", Kerry rants to Dr. Anspaugh about how Doug has violated every hospital policy regarding patient care to detox a baby from methadone and wants him fired. [[ImmediateSelfContradiction Immediately after that]], Kerry asks Dr. Anspaugh to violate hospital policy to name her Chief of Emergency Medicine without conducting a formal hiring process.
** Pulls out all the stops to make sure Jing-Mei and Malucci are severely punished for their part in a patient's death--firing the latter and suspending the former, yet is just as vigilant in making sure that she herself incurs no punishment, even though as their supervisor, she bore the ultimate responsibility.
** Pleads with her ex-lover Kim to fight Romano's efforts at firing her (because she's a lesbian)--while she herself continues to keep her mouth shut. Kim herself chides her for her hypocrisy.
** Hemmed and hawed about reporting her Alzheimer's stricken mentor, but instantly reported Mark for his aphasia after his brain tumor surgery.
* HypocriteHasAPoint: After a patient dies in part to his actions, Malucci is fired by Kerry for irresponsibility when he sleeps with a paramedic in her ambulance while on duty. Although Kerry, as Malucci's supervisor, should have kept a closer eye on him, and had left her pager at Doc Magoo's, leaving Malucci and Jing-Mei unable to reach her, Malucci's behavior is indeed unbefitting of that of a doctor.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Her constant strive to be promoted at work as well as her general tendency to overachieve and over-do things is probably a reaction to her congenital hip dysplasia and her mistaken belief that her birth mother gave her up because of it. As a result, Kerry constantly tries to prove that she's not inferior by trying to be better at her job than everyone else.
* InspectorJavert: There were times when she was downright fanatical in her insistence that people adhere to rules and policy, not believing in making the slightest of allowances for any reason.
* ItsAllAboutMe:
** Has a bad habit of this whenever things get tough. When her girlfriend Kim Legaspi is investigated for sexually harassing/assaulting a patient, the woman comes to her, clearly looking for some compassion and support. Kerry's only reaction is to ask if she's told anyone about their relationship, which she wants to keep secret, fearing that their homophobic supervisor Romano will find some contrived reason to fire her. Kerry promptly spends the rest of the episode doing everything she can think of to make sure that the relationship remains a secret, to the point where she refuses to even ''look'' at Kim, much less say a single word in her defense, lest it make anyone suspect that they're involved. When Kim--now hurt, angry, and fed-up--dumps her, Kerry ''still'' doesn't get it, accusing Kim of not considering ''her'' feelings in the whole mess.
** When she, Jing-Mei, and Malucci are under investigation for the death of a patient, she makes it abundantly clear to the hospital TPTB that she's looking out for herself, ensuring that the latter two take all the blame.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** One of her defining traits, especially when it comes to the ER budget. She might be an ass, but it's not her fault that the hospital doesn't have the money for more vital equipment.
--->"Mark, just because something's my idea doesn't make it a ''bad'' idea."
** She once overheard a medical student trying to find the drug "Obecalp" in the big book of drugs, as a doctor prescribed it to a patient. Quickly realizing, and informing the student, that it is "Placebo" backwards, she stops the student and goes to rip the doctor a new one for this foolish behavior. Not only is he misleading the patients whose son might need real help by this, if something ''does'' happen then the doctor has opened the hospital up to major litigation.
** She's also rightfully pissed off at her girlfriend Sandy when the woman outs her in front of ER staff by planting a ForcefulKiss on her. It's not Sandy's place to decide that Kerry should be out of the closet.
** Whenever she's in disagreement with anyone in the early seasons, she's almost always ''right'', just so ''annoying'' in her delivery that everyone resents her anyway. Even the ridiculous idea about changing the way cases were up on the board - she was completely correct that it was a breach of patient privacy.
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Her double-dealing almost always puts her at the head of the pack, until toward the end of the show she finally made the mistake that cost her her career: her newest hire Victor Clemente, though a genuinely talented doctor, was also an extremely violent paranoid schizophrenic. She's out the door midway through Season 13. [[AlasPoorVillain It's still really sad]].
* LaserGuidedKarma: Fired for having what were considered by the hospital board to be subpar medical skills that made her not worth keeping around, similar to what she did to Malucci when she blasted him in front of the staff as a mediocre doctor and scapegoated and fired him for a patient's death that was her responsibility. She was also fired by Luka, the very man she hired as an Attending in the first place, and who she had initally tried to put in the firing line to cover her ass again over the Victor Clemente situation and evade responsibility again. And in a bit of meta karma, both men were SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute characters for her original nemesis Doug Ross, whom she had long been trying to undermine and get rid of even before they worked together at County.
* LipstickLesbian: Of the "chapstick" variety. Short-haired and abrasive, but very pretty and when she's not at work, she's rather feminine.
* LovableTraitor: She will knife anyone in the back in the name of "hospital policy" and yet we still feel sorry for her when she doesn't get what she wants.
* MoralityPet: Jeanie Boulet, John Carter, and Abby Lockhart, whom she does have genuine, warm relationships with. Also, her love for Sandy and their son Henry.
* MysteriousPast: She was on the show for eleven years and it took ''ten'' of those years to find out why she needed a crutch to walk. We never learned much else about her otherwise, other than that she was adopted, spent time in Africa as a child, and previously worked with Doug at another hospital (though even this fails to explain why there was always so much animosity between them, and all that was ever referenced was they didn't get along).
-->'''Mark:''' Doug, you did part of your residency with Kerry Weaver, didn't you?\\
'''Doug:''' Our paths crossed.\\
'''Mark:''' What's she like?\\
'''Doug:''' Ever see ''[[Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest Cuckoo's Nest]]''?
* NeverMyFault: She never once acknowledges that the reason everyone disliked her was because of the way she treated people, as well as dumping the blame for a patient's death onto Jing-Mei and Malucci, the two doctors who treated him, conveniently ignoring the fact that as their supervisor, she should have been there to correct their errors instead of off-site handling personal business. When Jing-Mei confronts her about this, she has the nerve to take it even further, implying that she was completely justified in what she did because of Jing-Mei's mistakes.
* NiceGuysFinishLast: She proves this repeatedly as she angles her way into positions of authority while engaging in ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, BaitAndSwitchTyrant and NeverMyFault. She started out as Chief Resident in the ER, eventually started running the ER, even though Mark had more seniority and had more respect, eventually becoming Chief of Staff of the entire hospital. Though this leaves her with few allies, the loathing of many, and ultimately her arrogance and ambition for the top spot proves her undoing, but ironically it is only her diverging from this ruthless belief that brings her down. When she makes a mistake hiring Victor Clemente, she finally decides to do the right thing and confess to it instead of throwing Luka under the bus to protect herself as she initially intended to and had done to others over the years, and is demoted for it back down to the ER. Because [[CripplingOverspecialization she spent so much time as Chief and a bureaucrat and not honing her medical skills daily]], she becomes considered not worth the financial cost of keeping around and is fired for it by Luka in hospital budget cuts.
* NoBisexuals: Kerry spent the first five seasons of her run on the show as a confirmed heterosexual, having been previously married and depicted with two different male paramours (the African guy and Dr. Ellis in seasons 2 and 4 respectively). Then along came Kim Legaspi, and Kerry went from confused to closeted to Token Lesbian in ten episodes.
* NotGoodWithPeople: While no one would deny she's a superb physician with, surprisingly, an excellent bedside manner, no one likes her much either. It's very telling that despite probably being the most qualified applicant, she's consistently passed over for the ER Chief position and has to resort to underhanded methods to get the job--namely, backstabbing Mark by reneging on her promise to fight Romano's appointment as Chief of Staff.
* ThePeterPrinciple: With each promotion, she proved herself unworthy of them, at least to the audience. Thanks to her NeverMyFault tendencies, and the fact that she was such a RulesLawyer when it came to subordinates that she was more than willing to find and highlight their mistakes over her own, she was rarely ever called out for this, and just kept moving up. Finally it came back to bite her in Season 13, and she lost her job.
* PetTheDog: Could be genuinely compassionate with her patients when necessary.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 2 before being added to the main cast from Seasons 3-13.
* PutOnABus: Midway through Season 13.
* RedheadsAreUncool: Nagging, officious, hypocritical, ''hyper''critical, control freak, etc.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: More like a Second ''Season'' Introduction. She's the show's second-longest running character after Carter, but she didn't join the show until the Season 2 premiere.
* SugarAndIcePersonality:
** Will often do something to prove to one of the the characters that she is genuinely a kind person underneath. For example, she demonstrates to Doug that she's actually very caring when it comes to children, she keeps Jeanie's HIV status a secret and then actively campaigns to keep her on staff when it's revealed, she lets Carter live in her basement and actually somewhat takes on the role of surrogate mother to him. However, she then follows up by doing something cold or horrible to them, making sure no one ever gets close to her.
** Whatever her ''many'' flaws, her passionate dedication to her patients is always visible -- she will unhesitatingly put herself at risk to help them, even in incredibly dangerous situations.
* SweepsWeekLesbianKiss: Twice. Unlike most examples, however, this wasn't just a ratings grab, but rather part of a larger arc involving Kerry coming to terms with her sexuality. Both of the women she kissed appeared again.
* TinyTyrannicalGirl: She's 5'4", and the higher the position she held, the more tyrannical she became.
* TooHappyToLive: She and her wife Sandy are blissfully happy, having just had a baby boy named Henry and comfortably settled into their domestic routine... when Sandy is fatally injured in a fire.
* TookALevelInJerkass: The show impressively manages to avoid the {{Flanderization}} it didn't with Romano while showing her realistically become an even worse person over the years.
* UngratefulBastard: In S4E15 "Exodus," after Kerry is sidelined by being exposed to Benzine, John Carter rises to the occasion and leads the ER in feats above and beyond the call of duty, managing to save practically every patient and staff member save for a single, aging patient who was likely not to survive anyway. Rather than praise Carter for stepping up to the plate, Kerry is more interested in stealing focus and downplaying his efforts, instead presenting the task as a "team" effort from administration- i.e. herself, who spent most of it passed out, incoherent, or recovering. She never even bothers to thank or congratulate John for his efforts, perfectly in line with the ItsAllAboutMe post made earlier.
* UptightLovesWild: Her and her girlfriends, Kim Legaspi and Sandy Lopez, upon her coming out of the closest. Aside from their carefree, fun-loving personalities clashing with her prim and proper one, they were also comfortable and open with their sexuality while Kerry acted downright terrified to even be seen with them in public, at one point literally hiding to avoid running into two of her coworkers while out on a date.
* VillainousBreakdown: Downplayed. She initially doesn't take the revocation of her KarmaHoudiniWarranty well.

!!Introduced in Season 3
[[folder:Anna Del Amico]]
!!'''Anna Del Amico'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maria_bello_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/MariaBello

* AscendedExtra: Appeared in the last three episodes of Season 3 before becoming a main cast member in Season 4.
* HatesRichPeople: Comes across as this after her bitter complaints about the difficulties of making ends meet caused Carter to lie and pretend to be a fellow "struggling student" so that she would like him better. When the truth finally comes out, they're both angry - he feels that he was right to lie because she would never have given him a fair chance if she'd known, and she feels mocked and gaslighted by someone who isn't just well off but ''extremely rich'' deliberately lying to her to win her confidence. For her this just reaffirms how callous "the rich" are about the feelings of "the little people".
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Had a sanctimonious attitude towards rich people, probably stemming from insecurities about growing up poor.
* {{Jerkass}}: Downplayed. She had a number of unsympathetic qualities and moments in her brief time on the show, including a serious chip on her shoulder against Carter for the 'crime' of [[HatesRichPeople being wealthy]] and not flaunting it, how she treated [[BreakoutCharacter Doug]], including how upset she got over something as mild as [[StrawFeminist how he addressed her]]. She also took a stand for medical ethics vs Carter, who didn't want to [[PayEvilUntoEvil waste perfectly good blood]] on a rapist and mutilator of elderly women and a murderer when he was finally caught and brought in, an emotional issue where many viewers were likely to take Carter's side, ethics be damned. And later on, after all the tension with [[DidNotGetTheGirl Carter]], she takes off to be with her drug addicted ex-boyfriend again.
%%* MsFanservice
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Season 3 before being added to the main cast the following season.
* PutOnABus: After Season 4. Unlike most examples here, she doesn't return.
* RedHerring: As a pediatrician, there was speculation that she'd been brought on to be a new girlfriend for Doug--indeed, she initially seems very attracted to him. Only for Doug to reconcile with Carol as had been hinted at for weeks and Anna to be a love interest for Carter instead.
* StrawFeminist:
** She tended to react to everything Doug said as though it was an attack or an advance, even though he was either just being friendly (asking her if she wanted something to eat after they'd both been on the streets looking for a runaway) or just offering his years of experience (offering to do a testicular exam on a patient because he might be uncomfortable with a woman doctor). Kerry seems to agree with her claim that Doug is threatened by women, but of course Kerry had been brow-beating and annoying him about publishing his thesis for his fellowship and just couldn't see that Doug (or anyone else for that matter) simply didn't want her help.
** Nor it did occur to Kerry that Doug's problem was simply with ''her'', given her abrasive personality and their constant clashes and nothing to do with her gender.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Basically rips Doug's head off when he calls her by her first name rather than "Dr. Del Amico" in front of a patient. Keeps doing it even though he apologizes and assures her that he meant nothing improper, "I call Mark (a male doctor) by his first name all the time." And this after when they first met she insisted Doug call her Anna after he refers to her as "Dr. Del Amico".
* UnresolvedSexualTension: With Carter.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasted only a season and a bit and never returned.

!!Introduced in Season 4
[[folder:Elizabeth Corday]]
!!'''Elizabeth "Lizzie" Corday'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alex_kingston_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlexKingston

* BittersweetEnding: Elizabeth decides to [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight perform a technically illegal]] surgery at Carter's request to transfer the organ of an HIV infected man to another infected man in dire need of it, saving his life, and is reamed out for it and [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder betrayed by Kerry]], who gives little support to her and informs her there is no possibility of future tenure or promotion for her at County. Simultaneously, she is being gradually phased out and replaced by Dubenko, who Kerry also brought in, ignoring Corday's misgivings about him. In the end she sadly admits to Carter that she has been fooling herself since coming back to County after [[TheLostLenore Mark's death]], that she had no more place at County, and she leaves Chicago with Ella to return to England for a time. Though later on they return to America and she becomes Chief of Trauma Surgery at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, meeting Neela about a job she is applying for, and as seen in the finale remains on good terms with a number of the old County staff, and is still quite a part of her stepdaughter Rachel Greene's life.
* TheBusCameBack: Twice in the final season.
* ClingyJealousGirl: When Susan returns. Granted, she has a slight point, as Mark loved Susan passionately enough to race to Union Station to tell her so and then had a small breakdown when she left.
* FieryRedhead: She's a strong-willed redhead, although she starts showing a gentler side after developing a relationship with Mark.
* GoodBadGirl: Very openly sexual in her conversation and behavior, especially when first introduced.
%%* HerHeartWillGoOn
* HeroicBSOD:
** Elizabeth treated a patient from Zambia who suffered from back pain, caused by a herniated disc. The patient didn't want open back surgery and Elizabeth had planned to go on a trip with Mark that evening so she suggested a less invasive procedure instead. The patient ended up paralyzed after leaking cerebral-spinal fluid and he sues Elizabeth for malpractice. The case eventually gets settled because the patient decided to sue the manufacturer of the surgical equipment instead, but Elizabeth continued to blame herself for the incident (even though the reason he was paralyzed in the first place is because one of the waldoes wouldn't grip the bone fragment in his spine) and promptly spent weeks avoiding the OR at all costs
** Elizabeth has a breakdown during her wedding, making known her fear that Mark's tumour will return and her fear of him being hurt or ending up dead. Both of these fears end up being realised.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Is pissy about Mark and Susan working together, even though they were never actually romantically involved and even though every day she works side-by-side with her ex-lover Benton.
** She also chastises a fellow surgeon who asks her to speed up an operation because he wants to go to a ball game, when she herself rushed through an operation because she wanted to leave for a romantic weekend with Mark, permanently crippling the patient (to be fair, it could be that it's because of this error that she's lecturing the other doctor).
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Her mother and father are both scientists. Her father is a surgeon, her mother is a physicist.
* MamaBear: When Rachel asks if there's anything she can do to make up for nearly killing Ella with an ecstasy tablet, Elizabeth, ill with flu, fixes Rachel with her sunken, bloodshot eyes and says, "You can leave."
* OfficialCouple: With Mark.
* OneTrueLove: Mark. Elizabeth's relationships before and after Mark all fail for one reason or another, in the latter case probably because of [[TheLostLenore her love for Mark]]. When Benton asks her if she's seeing anybody in the series finale (seven years after Mark's death), she says that she's become far more focused on raising her daughter and working on her career.
* PutOnABus: Partway through Season 11.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Mark did manage to give her a daughter, Ella, and spend the first year of her life with her--long enough to hear her say her first words and, in a deleted scene from "On the Beach", see her learn to walk--before he finally succumbs to cancer.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Inverted. She's confused when someone refers to Benton, a surgeon, as "Dr. Benton" and needs to adjust to being called "Dr. Corday", rather than "Miss", as she was back in England.[[note]]Due to the way medical training evolved in England, British surgeons are called "Mr" or "Miss" rather than "Dr" after qualifying as board-certified surgeons, while physicians who don't specialise in surgery continue to be called "Dr".[[/note]]

[[folder:Robert Romano]]
!!'''Robert "Rocket" Romano'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paul_mccrane_er_promo.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/PaulMcCrane

* AlliterativeName: Combined with his nickname "Rocket", he has a triple alliterative name.
* AnArmAndALeg: He loses an arm to a helicopter rotor.
* AscendedExtra: Made frequent appearances during Seasons 4 and 5 before being bumped up to series regular status in Season 6.
* AtLeastIAdmitIt: For all his numerous flaws, as Cleo called him, "a racist, sexist, elitist jackass," there was no denying that he never once hid the fact that he was a colossal egomaniac who couldn't be trusted and whose primary concern was himself.
* BackForTheFinale: Like with Mark Greene, he makes one last appearance in the series during its final season after being killed off in Season 10 thanks to the flashback sequence in "Heal Thyself". Despite it amounting to more or less a [[TheCameo cameo appearance]], it delivers what fans would expect from Romano, having him badger Greene in a forward and insensitive way about his cancer treatments while showing through his actions and facial gestures that he was genuinely worried about Greene's condition.
* BeardOfSorrow: He sports this after he loses his arm in a helicopter accident.
* BornUnlucky: Comes up often for him, especially the circumstances of his death.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He just wouldn't be able to keep his job if he wasn't very good at it. He pulls some outrageous stunts, says and does things that would be considered completely inappropriate, almost no one likes him and he tries his very best to alienate the one person (Elizabeth) that does.
* DeadpanSnarker: On steroids. His insults were frequently works of art.
* DownerEnding: From the moment he loses his arm until his death is a [[TraumaCongaLine series of worsening]] traumas and fortune for him, ending with a helicopter being dropped on him. Even in death Kerry posthumously insults him, along with many others, with nobody but Corday seeming to mourn him and Neela expressing her pity for his fate.
* DrJerk: Among the worst of them.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: For a character with such an extensive history on the show[[note]]By Season 10, the only main characters who had been around longer than him were Carter, Kerry, Elizabeth, Jing-Mei and Susan. Even then, the latter two had been PutOnABus respectively during Seasons 1 and 3 and only returned after Romano had been made a main cast member[[/note]], he suffers a pretty ignoble (though memorable) death when a helicopter falls squarely on top of him, a full year ''after'' a separate helicopter had torn one of his arms off.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: A episode that took place near Mother's Day had him enthusiastically describing the elaborate plans that he had for his mother, much to the shock of the other staff members.
-->'''Romano''': Bet you didn't even think I ''had'' a mother, did you?\\
'''Haleh''': Can't imagine what she's like.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Although there was a ''considerable'' gap in the hierarchy between him and Lucy in Season 6--he was Chief of Staff, while she was a fourth-year medical student--he seemed to genuinely like her, probably due to his oft-stated quality of only respecting people who stood up to him, which she had no trouble doing. When she's murdered midway through the season, he's very distraught by her death.
** Despite constantly locking horns with Kerry, he never forcibly outed her when she confessed to him about being a lesbian, citing that it's her business and does not involve workplace politics.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Is genuinely angry and disgusted at many of the dishonest stunts Kerry pulls.
* {{Flanderization}}: When he first appeared his bad traits were relatively low-key. The more often he appeared, the worse and more exaggerated he got.
* HatesEveryoneEqually: He's a bigot, yes, but he seems to have just as much disdain for those who are white/male/heterosexual as those who aren't.
-->''(to Elizabeth)'' "I know most people don't like me. That's fine. ''I'' don't like most people."
* HeroicBSOD: After his arm is reattached and he realizes he might never regain full mobility, then after he realizes it can't be saved and needs to be amputated for good, effectively ending his surgical career.
* HiddenDepths:
** Adores his dogs, studies martial arts (as evidenced by him showing up at work in such a uniform), is a member of the Polar Bear Club (he mentions it to Susan in one Season 8 episode and a deleted scene [[FanDisservice shows him in a Speedo]] having taken one of the elderly members to the ER) and knows sign language.
** He is also the only one to tell Elizabeth to go back to Mark. This is especially a touching scene because Elizabeth was probably the only woman he had genuine above-the-belt feelings for, and yet he told her to go back to her husband instead of attempting to use her moment of weakness to his advantage.
** His devastation at the realization that he might never be able to perform surgery again--a fear that comes true--reveals that for all his {{Jerkass}} ways, he genuinely loves his job and being able to help people.
* HopelessSuitor: For Elizabeth.
* InsufferableGenius: Comes up frequently.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Frequently. He may be an absolute a-hole, but when it comes to medical ethics and procedure, when he turns on the blasters, he's usually right. He would lash out against people for their incompetence and, in one case, illegal behavior. During a major rush of patients, he found Morris smoking pot. He ripped the younger doctor out of the bathroom stall and put him at the entrance desk, telling Morris to not move until he came back. The punishment never happened primarily because in a short time Romano would be killed by the chopper, no one realizing this, and [[KarmaHoudini Morris]] never telling anyone why Romano told him to stay still.
* KindheartedCatLover: Rushes his own dog into surgery because he refused to trust her welfare to "some poodle surgeon."
* LonelyFuneral: Romano was so disliked that Elizabeth was the only one to show up at his funeral.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** When he has to operate on his MoralityPet Lucy Knight, he actually stops being a {{Jerkass}} for a few hours and even manages a genuine FriendshipMoment with Elizabeth.
** For all his faults, he is normally kind to child patients. But when he is moved sideways (or in his view, demoted) to become head of the ER, he even starts acting belligerently toward them.
* PetTheDog: However rare they were, his NiceGuy moments were genuine. Even some of his supposedly {{Jerkass}} moments revealed that he was actually doing someone a favor--assisting a heavily pregnant Elizabeth with surgery, giving Benton time off to spend with his son, concern for the ailing Mark. Plus, the literal examples with his beloved animals, as well as his genuine fondness for Lucy.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The first thing he does when introduced is ask Benton why he doesn't have NWordPrivileges when Creator/ChrisRock does.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Introduced as a RecurringCharacter in Seasons 4 and 5 before being added to the main cast from Seasons 6-10.
* ProperlyParanoid: In Season 10, he rides the elevator up to the hospital helipad with Neela to drop off a patient's watch that had been left behind. However, seeing the helicopter ready to take off triggers flashbacks to the loss of his arm from the year before, and he quickly gives the watch to Neela before heading back down himself. He turns out to have been completely justified in his fears, as the helicopter starts to fly out of control shortly after taking off due to the strong winds. If he had stayed on the roof, he may well have been impaled by some debris just like the doctor left behind with Neela was. Unfortunately, Romano dies anyway when he takes a walk outside in the hospital parking lot to clear his head, as the helicopter ends up crashing right on top of him.
* ShoutOut: When he's in the OR he wears a bandana with rockets on it. Whether the bandana or the nickname came first is never specified. He also has a model Saturn V rocket in his office, which he says is a gift from a former girlfriend.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Romano has been seen with some very attractive girlfriends.
* VillainRespect: The way to get Romano's respect is to stand up to him. Greene, Benton and Corday learn this; Lucy Knight is simply never fazed by him in the first place. He also comes to respect Luka a bit more upon his return from working in Africa, approving of his improved methods for clearing triage, and remarking he should send all the staff to spend some time working there too, though Luka having saved his life after losing his arm may have played a part in the respect.

[[folder:Cynthia Hooper]]
!!'''Cynthia Hooper'''
->'''Played By''': Creator/MariskaHargitay

* ButtMonkey: She has trouble keeping her shit together.
* TheMcCoy: She's overly emotional, and it often affects her work.
* NaiveNewcomer: She's introduced as having just moved to Chicago, and her inexperience as a hospital desk clerk lands her in hot water with several of the staff, most notably Carol.
* RomanticFalseLead: She and Mark briefly become an item, but she breaks up with him once she realizes he doesn't love her.

!!Introduced in Season 5
[[folder:Lucy Knight]]
!!'''Lucy Knight'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kellie_martin_er_promo.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"At the beginning of every day, I've been grateful that I'm walking in here on my own choosing, and not carried in on some gurney. And at the end of the day, if I've helped just one person, it's been worth it."'']]
->'''Played By''': Creator/KellieMartin

* AudienceSurrogate: Brought in because Carter, the previous audience surrogate, was now a fairly experienced and accomplished doctor.
* BelligerentSexualTension: She and Carter fight. A lot. They end up making out in "The Storm, Part 1", but it never goes any further--Creator/NoahWyle was adamantly opposed to the relationship, feeling that it was improper, as Carter was a second-year resident while Lucy was a third-year medical student and therefore Carter's subordinate, and out-of-character for Carter.
* CharacterDevelopment: Despite her brief time on the show, she went from being a bumbling, clueless medical student to a very competent one who would no doubt have been an excellent physician.
* CousinOliver: It was explicitly stated that she was brought on to bring some new blood to the now five-year old series.
%%* TheCutie
* DistaffCounterpart: As an inexperienced third-year medical student, she was all but stated to be a female version of Season 1-Carter.
* DownerEnding: Her young life, growing friendships and brief but promising medical career are cut suddenly and shockingly short when she is stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient, after Carter kept blowing her off over the patient and not listening to her recommendations, her death devastating the entire staff. To add insult to injury, it is revealed shortly after her death that she had matched at County, and would have become a Psych resident if she had lived.
* KillTheCutie: Lucy is stabbed multiple times by a patient in the middle of a psychotic break on Valentine's Day. She doesn't survive despite the best efforts of the staff.
* MoralityPet: For Romano.
* NaiveNewcomer: She begins as this. She gradually grows out of it.
* ShipTease: With Carter in Season 5, culminating in a kiss, but apart from that it didn't develop much further, due to Noah Wyle not wanting a relationship between the two characters. Occasionally in Season 6, her interactions with Luka showed signs of this, but nothing came of it, as she was soon KilledOffForReal.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasts only a season and a half. Despite the professional development that Lucy undergoes, the audience never gets to know much about her personally.