Scrubs: The 5 Best & 5 Worst Doctors On Call

For eight seasons and then a cursed ninth, Scrubs was a phenomenal show and has held a tonne of rewatchability. To this day, Scrubs is often heralded as perhaps the most accurate medical show out there in terms of a doctor’s life and the inner workings of a hospital. This despite (or probably in spite of) the comedic charm the show carries through every episode.

There are a plethora of doctors who pass through the show and remain as regulars, and there are clear differences in quality between some who work at Sacred Heart. Some of those on call shine, while others kill. So who’s the most reliable doctor on call, and who’s more likely to cause a chain reaction of hijinks on an open body? These are the five best and five worst doctors on Scrubs.

10 BEST: The Todd

Despite being a complete creep and utterly dimwitted, there are so many references to ‘The Todd’ being an outstanding surgeon, both by showing his knowledge and others pointing out his skill.

For a long time, he got shown to be better than Turk. Then later on, The Todd is shown to specialize in plastic surgery and with his affinity for the improvement or enhancements of one’s body parts, there is no doubt that The Todd excelled.

9 WORST: Elliot Reid

This is harsh but also true when talking about the first few seasons of Scrubs. At around Seasons 3 to 4, Elliot becomes a good doctor; she was great, in fact. But soon after, she becomes a private practice doctor and is no longer on call.

Elliot gets too overwhelmed too quickly, she gets too worked up, she spends a lot of the time feeling sorry for herself and also blaming others. She requires nightly studying just to keep up and even then she does not reach the levels of others. Eventually, Elliot becomes a phenomenal doctor but by that time, she is no longer an on-call doctor.

8 BEST: Dr. Kevin Casey

Dr. Kevin Casey technically was not on call at Sacred Heart for long, but he is still an on-call doctor at his other hospital and is an unbelievable doctor.

Despite his almost life-ruining OCD, Kevin Casey is somehow both an outstanding physician and terrific surgeon, showing up pretty much everybody when he arrives at Sacred Heart, including Perry Cox.

7 WORST: Dr. Doug Townshend

Back in his day, Dick Van Dyke’s Doug Townshend was likely a very skilled physician to go alongside his infectious personality that puts a smile on everybody’s face. But when audiences finally get to meet him, he’s basically a walking relic.

He does dangerous procedures on patients, sticks to old and unsafe ways of treating basic conditions, and is too tired to keep up with and learn how to perform modern medicine. It may be safer to listen to him talk about his glory days instead of letting him try to live out new ones.

6 BEST: J.D.

It goes without saying that J.D. is an incredible doctor and had he grown up with his mentor in medicine, he may have gotten further faster.

J.D. is talented in pretty much every aspect of medicine, he cares like nobody else – other than Cox – and goes the extra mile, convincing other doctors, like Turk, to do the same. On top of that, he is an excellent diagnostician, has a breadth of knowledge, and rarely slips up after his first year.

5 WORST: Ed

Played by the brilliant Aziz Ansari, Ed was part of a group of interns who, overall, were not great except for Dr. Mahoney, who stayed on for season nine.

Ed was the worst which sucks because, in actuality, he was probably the best naturally talented doctor out of the group. He just did not care, he put in zero effort into whatever he was doing, and was so lazy he was fired by Dr. Cox after a few episodes.

4 BEST: Turk

Unquestionably the best surgeon in Scrubs, with perhaps only Kevin Casey topping him at a point, best friend of J.D. Chris Turk just gets better and better with every season.

He becomes Chief Of Surgery within the eight seasons of the main show, which is an impressive feat in itself, and as a surgeon goes through every level of the procedure from holding fat flaps to heart transplant surgery.

3 WORST: Cabbage

Jason Cabaggio, more affectionately known as Cabbage, was one of J.D.’s interns at the same time of Keith’s time on the show, and from start to finish was likable, but an abysmal doctor.

He not only got Mrs. Wilk, one of the fans’ favorite patients, killed, but he frequently did basic procedures wrong, and nearly got many people killed. He was simply not cut out to be a doctor and was fired by J.D., later becoming a barista at the hospital café.

2 BEST: Dr. Cox

There is absolutely no denying that for nine seasons of Scrubs, from attending to Chief of Medicine, Dr. Cox is an incredible doctor who always does his very best, which is incidentally better than the rest.

He does make slip-ups and gets in the way of his own medical career on numerous occasions but still, overall, Dr. Cox is the best physician who is consistently employed at Sacred Heart. This applies to when he is an on-call doctor and when he gets the power to make a change and no longer needs to be on-call.

1 WORST: Doug

Dr. Cox may be a predictable top pick, and his ranking could be put up for debate because of Turk, J.D., and Casey (who is better but just not around) are all arguably better doctors. However, there is zero wiggle room and zero surprises when saying Doug Murphy is the absolute worst doctor in Scrubs.

He eventually becomes a great pathologist, but that is because he managed to kill so many people during his short time at Sacred Heart prior that he knew just about every possible cause of death there is. How he managed to keep a job is nothing short of incredible.