1. Carol Hathaway is a fictional character from the NBC medical drama series ER, portrayed by actress Julianna Margulies.
73 Facts About Carol Hathaway
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Carol Hathaway regularly appeared throughout the series from the pilot episode to her penultimate episode of the show's sixth season.
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Carol Hathaway was mentioned throughout the series and made her final appearance in season fifteen, the show's last season, when she is revealed to have a new career as a transplant coordinator.
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The character of Carol Hathaway was supposed to die by suicide during the pilot episode of ER.
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Carol Hathaway encouraged her to consider waiting for ER producers to call her and not take another job.
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Carol Hathaway has a dry sense of humor and a very dark side to her that she doesn't wear on her sleeve.
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Carol Hathaway ultimately based Hathaway on two nurses, in particular, whom she had observed working at Cook County General Hospital.
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Julianna Margulies has said that, when playing Carol Hathaway, she developed a backstory in her mind that her father's death is the reason that Carol Hathaway became a nurse.
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Margulies has said that she pushed for Carol Hathaway to be represented strongly on ER.
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However, in 2019, Margulies shared that her role as Carol Hathaway is one of the roles she is proudest of having played.
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Carol Hathaway is a registered nurse and is the nurse manager and charge nurse in the emergency room of Chicago's County General Hospital.
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Carol Hathaway is portrayed as a highly skilled trauma nurse.
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Carol Hathaway is tough and sensitive towards the lack of recognition the ER nurses experience.
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In season 3, Carol Hathaway decides to attend pre-med classes at a local community college and eventually takes the MCAT exam.
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When she scores well on the exam, Dr Kerry Weaver spends a day excitedly teaching Carol Hathaway med student tasks, such as how to intubate a patient, which Carol Hathaway does expertly.
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However, by the end of the day, Carol Hathaway decides against becoming a doctor.
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In season 4, Carol Hathaway decides to open a clinic in the ER, but in season 5, she is forced to step down from overseeing the clinic due to a mistake involving Dr Ross.
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Carol Hathaway asks the nurse practitioner that she'd hired to help run the clinic, Lynette, to take over, so that the clinic could continue running without Carol's involvement.
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In Season 15, Carol Hathaway is shown as a transplant coordinator in Seattle.
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Carol Hathaway's mental health is a major plot line and backstory for her character.
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Carol Hathaway feels guilty and fears it had something to do with him.
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Carol Hathaway often uses her experience to connect with others.
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In many other episodes, Carol Hathaway tells her patients and colleagues, when they are in distress, that they have to deal with their feelings and that keeping things inside makes things worse.
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Carol Hathaway often appears emotionally affected when other patients who have attempted suicide come into the ER.
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Haleh asks if Carol Hathaway had written a suicide note like the woman they had worked on.
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Carol Hathaway tells her that she did not leave a note, because she did not know what to say.
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In season two, episode eight, Carol Hathaway cares for another patient who has attempted suicide.
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Carol Hathaway had been working on shift just hours prior, making jokes and seeming like herself.
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Carol Hathaway is close friends with both Dr Lewis and Dr Greene, and the two order aggressive medical care, which results in her miraculously surviving after being comatose for several hours.
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Carol Hathaway tries to make jokes to lighten the mood of her arrival.
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Carol Hathaway tells Dr Greene that her therapist suggested she consider working in a doctor's office instead of the high stress environment of the ER.
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Carol Hathaway meets a patient who reminds her that life is a gift, which she vows to take to heart herself.
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The relationship is tumultuous from the start, since Carol Hathaway cannot commit fully to Tag, and against his wishes, she tries unsuccessfully to adopt a Russian child suffering from AIDS who was abandoned in the ER.
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Carol Hathaway is denied because of her past suicide attempt.
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In season one, episode nine, after giving advice to a patient to be more honest, Carol Hathaway tells Tag that she cheated on him with Doug before her suicide attempt and recently kissed him.
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However, in the next episode, Carol Hathaway is wearing an expensive engagement ring from Tag.
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Carol Hathaway later becomes involved with paramedic Ray "Shep" Shepard, who moves in with her.
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Carol Hathaway covers for him during an investigation where he seriously injures another person.
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Carol Hathaway regrets covering for him, not realizing the gravity of his problems.
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Carol Hathaway takes out a second mortgage on her house.
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Carol Hathaway manages to escape the incident, shaken but unharmed.
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Carol Hathaway is shown taking pre-med classes at a local college, and later takes the MCAT with Doug's encouragement.
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Carol Hathaway assumes she failed, when in fact she did very well.
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Carol Hathaway opens up a free clinic in the ER, backed financially by colleague Dr John Carter's wealthy grandmother.
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Later, horrified at her actions, Carol Hathaway confesses to Doug, who leaves her for a while.
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Carol Hathaway overcomes her insecurities and is finally able to put those demons to rest and commit fully to Doug.
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Carol Hathaway is forced to give up control of her clinic and Doug is forbidden from seeing patients.
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Doug asks Carol Hathaway to come with him, but Carol Hathaway turns him down.
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Carol Hathaway explains that Chicago is her hometown, with her job, family, and friends all in the city.
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Carol Hathaway wants him to stay for her, and emotionally tells him she does not want to wake up without him.
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Carol Hathaway is kicked in the stomach by a child, faced with the need to care for a woman who has an infection that is dangerous to pregnant women, and accidentally exposed to an x-ray.
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Carol Hathaway frequently becomes dizzy and twice nearly faints from low blood pressure.
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Carol Hathaway tells Elizabeth that she is suffering from morning sickness and fatigue.
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In one episode, Carol Hathaway is tending to a newborn baby when its mother has a psychiatric crisis and tries to attack Carol Hathaway for the baby.
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Carol Hathaway looks at the patient's baby, whom she has tried to protect, and realizes that she does want to continue with her own pregnancy.
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However, her labor is equally difficult, with Carol Hathaway collapsing on the staircase of the El train and then suffering from dangerous bleeding during delivery.
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Carol Hathaway is assisted by then-OB nurse Abby Lockhart, as well as by her long-time friend and colleague, Dr Mark Greene, as her birthing coach.
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Carol Hathaway cannot decide if it is the right thing to do; she is still hurt over his abrupt departure a year earlier.
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Carol Hathaway tells Mark that she knows the girls deserve a father.
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Dr Luka Kovac, a new Attending from Croatia who lost his wife and children in the Croatian War of Independence, often helps Carol Hathaway take care of the twins.
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Carol Hathaway is still focused on Doug and seems to send Luka mixed signals.
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In season six, episode twenty-one, treating a woman dying of end-stage ovarian cancer and helping her family say goodbye moves Carol Hathaway to reunite her own family.
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Carol Hathaway becomes emotional when she enters the doctor's lounge and sees a photograph of him smiling with some of the hospital staff before his death.
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Carol Hathaway says that Carol and Doug are still loving Seattle and that their twin daughters are now in third grade.
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Carol Hathaway and Doug are practicing together at the University of Washington Medical Center, where Carol is a transplant coordinator.
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Carol Hathaway was originally supposed to die in the pilot episode of ER, but during test viewings of the show before its official premiere, the character tested well with audiences.
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Carol Hathaway is routinely acknowledged as a character who has inspired generations of medical professionals.
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Carol Hathaway has been ranked many times as one of the best representations of a nurse on television.
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The podcast, hosted by Cynthia Bemis Abrams, observed that the character of Carol Hathaway was often more knowledgeable and skilled than the medical students, and that her high expectations for herself made for a worthwhile story arc.
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In 2022, Entertainment Weekly ranked them 33rd on its list of the 100 Best TV Romances of All Time, with Carol Hathaway noted by the magazine as a nurse who doesn't suffer fools gladly.
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Carol Hathaway was the only cast member to ever win an Emmy Award for ER.
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Carol Hathaway continued to be nominated every year that she portrayed Carol as a series regular on the show.
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Carol Hathaway is mentioned in the Chris Carter book, I Am Death, as the reason for the book's character, Sharon, to become an ER nurse.