Doug Murphy

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Dr. Doug Murphy is a fictional character on the American sitcom Scrubs. He is played by Johnny Kastl.

Profile

Dr. Doug Murphy is a colleague of series characters J.D. and Elliot Reid. A running joke throughout the series is that he is so inept he kills virtually every patient with whom he comes in contact with (e.g., ordering 500,000 milligrams of morphine for a patient). Even his name points to this, as his last name is an allusion to Murphy's Law. Dr. Cox once noted that Doug had "killed so many people that I'm starting to think that he just might be a government operative."

After being the only person in the history of the hospital to repeat his third year of residency, he transferred from internal medicine to pathology. Season 4 reveals that Doug is an expert coroner due to his numerous botched procedures and ineptitude with living patients. His skill at diagnosing cause of death is nearly to the level of a savant, a skill that was discovered by Elliot after trying to save Doug's career. Doug also has several means of death named after him.

This has not prevented him from still making mistakes such as forgetting his gurney, misplacing a dead body or waiting too long to get a patient before rigor mortis sets in (it is also implied in My Words of Wisdom that during one autopsy he left his cell phone in the patient's corpse). He is under the impression that the dead bodies in the morgue are out to get him, after several of them fell on him (leading to him breaking both his feet on more than one occasion). Doug even used to tag people before they were dead. He also has been seen playing Texas Hold'em with dead bodies, and using one as a beverage holder, because it "keeps it cool". In the episode My Big Bird he lost the keys to his Miata in a cadaver. Dr. Cox takes special pleasure in tormenting him, calling him "Nervous Guy" or "Pee Pants". He also once referred to him as "Mr. Murphy" instead of the otherwise earned title of 'Doctor'. He also eats a lot of lollipops, as does the other less-mentioned and un-named hospital Coroner.

Personal Life

He is often seen hanging out with the hospital's lawyer, Ted Buckland, as they both enjoy biking and competing in triathlons. However, after Danni Sullivan makes out with both of them at Turk and Carla's wedding, they have come to blows on several occasions. They were both members of Janitor's "Brain Trust" along with "The Todd", but at the end of season 6, Doug was temporarily replaced by Lloyd, a delivery man.

Behind the scenes

• He does the voicemail message currently for the 916-CALL-TURK phone line.

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Last updated on Sunday March 02, 2008 at 15:01:51 PST (GMT -0800)
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