Doug Ross

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Doug Ross
First appearance	1994
Last appearance	1999
Information
Year of birth	1960/1961
Occupation	Former ED paediatrics attending
Family	son (name unknown), born circa 1986; twin daughters Tess and Kate, born 1999; mother Susan; father Ray dies in season 4
Portrayed by	George Clooney

Dr. Douglas Ross was a fictional medical doctor from the television series ER. He was portrayed by George Clooney.

[edit] Personal life

Doug Ross was raised by his mother, Sarah Ross after his father, Ray Ross, abandoned their family. He revealed how his father came back to his family a few times but was never committed to them. Not much else is known about Doug's past. Despite his rambled personal life, Ross is a dedicated ER pediatrician. He has always been committed to the children and the medicine to help them no matter the rules or consequences. During season 2, Doug rescued a boy trapped in a flooding storm drain during a rainstorm. His heroic efforts were filmed on local television thus making him a star in the media. This even helped him earn back his job at County, when before his supervisor wasn't going to renew his fellowship on account of his disrespect to authority.

During seasons three and four, Ray, Doug's father, tries to reconcile with his estranged son. Doug has difficulty reconnecting with the man who abandoned him and his mom, and was never a dependable figure when he was around. We do see that Ray has made something of himself by owning a very ritzy hotel in Chicago, and Doug does let his guard down a little. Doug gets a phone call one day, to tell him that his father died and that someone needed to pick up the remains and such. He goes to California on a road trip with Dr. Mark Greene to collect his remains. Doug Ross finds out that his father was killed in an automobile accident. Apparently, his father was drunk and driving incredibly fast with his wife in the passenger seat. His car collided with someone elses, and that person also dies. Doug visits the funeral ceremony and tells the wife that he's sorry. When Doug and Mark find the hotel his father was staying in, he finds his father's car and belongings. It turns out that his father had home videos of him and his mother and they watched it. Later on, we find that Carol Hathaway came for Doug and they kiss passionately.

Doug is a womanizer, who has dated and left many women throughout the course of the show; in the first season, it is mentioned that Doug has an eight-year-old son whom he has never met, but nothing further is ever revealed. Doug has an on-again, off-again relationship with Carol Hathaway, the head nurse of the ER at County. He pursued her constantly when she was trying to move on with her life after their horrible break-up (which led to her suicide attempt in the series opener). After a while though, they become a couple and are even engaged. They seem happy, and were also supporting each other in the ER. Doug was always an advocate for his patients, and often broke the rules to help them. Eventually, his attempts to help his patients went too far - leading to reprisals and the closure of Hathaway's clinic - and he decided to leave Chicago for Seattle at the end of Season 5. Carol decided not to go with him to Seattle, but he shared a drink with his best friend, Dr. Mark Greene, before he leaves. Carol is pregnant with his twin girls, named Tess and Kate, and these daughters are born after Doug leaves. He's last seen in the Season 6 episode "Such Sweet Sorrow", in which Hathaway leaves Chicago to reunite with him. She finds him working on his boat behind his house in Washington and the two embrace and kiss. It is later revealed in Season 8 that Hathaway sent for the twins the next day and has been living with Ross in Seattle since. Warner Brothers, the studio which produces ER for NBC, kept Dr. Ross' cameo in "Such Sweet Sorrow" a secret from NBC, which promoted the episode as Carol Hathaway's goodbye, with no mention of Dr. Ross' appearance. In fact, the original version of "Such Sweet Sorrow" that Warner Brothers sent to NBC ended right after the scene where we see Hathaway on the plane to Seattle. At the 11th hour Warner Brothers messengered an "edited" version of the episode to NBC headquarters in New York for broadcast — NBC had no time to preview the episode prior to airing what turned out to be an extended episode in which Clooney appears. NBC was miffed that it was kept in the dark as it lost valuable ad revenue it could have generated if it had aired promos that the episode would mark the return of George Clooney. Clooney cited the fans of the show for his reason as to why he agreed to make the cameo (he wanted Hathaway and Ross' characters to get back together, as most fans always had hoped for). Clooney reportedly only asked to be paid scale for the cameo. The portion of the episode with Clooney was filmed on location at the Perfect Storm set which Clooney was filming at the time.

In the 11th season finale "The Show Must Go On" Dr. Ross was briefly shown in a photograph that was part of a slideshow at Dr. Carter's farewell party.

[edit] Career

In the pilot episode, which takes place on St. Patrick's Day 1994, Dr. Ross is brought into the ER not long before his shift to be "treated" for drunkenness by his longtime friend, Dr. Mark Greene. Throughout the next few seasons, Doug is shown to be compassionate, though not always using the best judgment. As a pediatrician, he deals primarily with children. His love for kids is best seen during darker situations, such as when a child is in danger. His lack of judgment leads to him going as far as to assault abusive parents in the ER.

He is a passionate doctor who puts the welfare of his patients, especially children, above his medical career and life. In one episode Dr. Ross saved a young boy who was drowning and was flown in to County General using a news helicopter. This garnered him much attention and even an award. This event probably saved him from being fired earlier. Doug doesn't handle authority well, even when his best friend, Dr. Mark Greene was his boss.

He tried to do a rapid detox on a baby without the mother's consent. The baby was addicted to drugs thanks to the mother, and Doug wanted to help the baby before its addiction got any worse. This procedure was assisted by Carol, but when the rest of the ER staff found out, Doug was in serious trouble. He was left on probation for 30 days, and was supervised by Dr. Kerry Weaver and Dr. Greene. They had to co-sign his charts.

Dr. Ross strongly vied for a pediatrics attending. While Drs. Greene and Weaver were against it because it wasn't necessary and that the funds needed to go elsewhere, Doug got it.

Dr. Ross eventually resigned in the aftermath of a scandal when he showed a mother how to bypass the lockouts on a Dilaudid dispensing intravenous pump, enabling her to give a lethal dose of medication to her terminally ill son who was in much pain. This event also prompted the closure of Carol's free clinic in the hospital, since it supplied the materials to this mother. As a result, when Doug left, he and Carol are on poor terms until she discovers she's pregnant with Doug's children.

Dr. Doug Ross was written out of the series because Clooney wished to pursue a film career.

[edit] External Links

• Character biography at ER Headquarters
• Bio at TNT.com
• Official ER website at NBC.com

ER
Official NBC website | Quotes
Current characters	Ray Barnett | Tony Gates | Abby Lockhart | Archie Morris | Luka Kovač | Gregory Pratt | Neela Rasgotra | Samantha Taggart
Former characters	Peter Benton | Jeanie Boulet | John Carter | Deb Chen | Elizabeth Corday | Anna Del Amico | Cleo Finch | Michael Gallant | Mark Greene | Carol Hathaway | Lucy Knight | Susan Lewis | Dave Malucci | Robert Romano | Doug Ross | Kerry Weaver
Episodes	List of ER episodes | Pilot
Other reading	Notable guest stars