Carol Hathaway

Infobox character
name = Carol Hathaway


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first = September 19, 1994 (Pilot: 24 Hours)
last = May 11, 2000 (Episode: Such Sweet Sorrow)
cause = Moves to Seattle to be with Doug Ross.
nickname =
alias =
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age =
born =
death =
occupation = Nurse manager (1994-2000)
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family =
spouse = Doug Ross
children = Kate and Tess (twin daughters)
and a step-son ("through Doug")
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episode =
portrayer =Julianna Margulies
creator =

Nurse Carol Hathaway is a fictional character on the popular television show "ER" who appeared from 1994 to 2000. She is portrayed by Julianna Margulies.

Career

Carol Hathaway is a registered nurse and was the emergency room nurse manager in Chicago's County General Hospital. She holds a master's degree in nursing. In Season Three she considers medical school but decides against it.

Carol is sensitive towards the lack of recognition the ER nurses experience. She is sometimes hostile to the physician assistants, and once told surgeon Peter Benton in Season One, "Haleh [a staff nurse] may not be able to cross clamp an aorta, but she has over 20 years experience in emergency medicine and if you would step off your pedestal maybe you would realize it's the nurses that make this place run and not you."

In Season Four, Carol funds the ER clinic, getting money from Dr. John Carter's grandmother, Millicent Carter. Carol provides care for thousands for free.

In Season Five, after a fiasco with Doug Ross, a dying child, and an overdose of medication, Carol was forced to step down from her position with the clinic, and step down from being Nurse Manager.

Personal life

Shortly after her character is introduced on the show, she is rushed into hospital after an overdose of barbiturates in a failed suicide attempt. Although she later denies it, the staff suspect that her suicide attempt was brought about by her failed romance with Doug Ross, a womanizing pediatrician also working in the ER. After her recovery, Carol returns to work, where it becomes obvious that while she is still attracted to Doug, she harbours some animosity towards him. Meanwhile, Doug continues to try to win Carol back, and although their friendship is slightly rekindled, Carol keeps Doug at a distance in both professional and private matters.

Later in the first season, Carol becomes engaged to orthopedic surgeon John "Tag" Tagilieri (Rick Rossovich). Doug tries to dissuade her, but Carol decides to go through with the wedding. However, right before they are about to walk down the aisle, Tag tells Carol that he knows she could never love him the way he loves her and decides he can't go through with the wedding, then leaves to explain the situation to their many guests. Prior to this, Carol attempted to adopt an abandoned Russian girl suffering from AIDS, but a background check showing her attempted suicide only months earlier causes her application to be denied.

Carol begins Season Two by purchasing a run-down, rickety house. She later becomes involved with paramedic Ray "Shep" Shepard (Ron Eldard), who moves in with her and helps her renovate her house. Despite a promising start, their relationship is severely strained after Shep goes through a drastic personality change after the death of his work partner. Shep and his partner had decided to enter a burning building to save children who were trapped by the fire. Shep's partner was badly burned and later died in the ICU. Shep becomes abrasive, and despite Carol's attempts to get him professional help to deal with his anger, he refuses. Although Carol loves Shep, she decides that she can't watch him self-destruct and ends their relationship.

In Season Three, Carol suffers severe financial problems. Without Shep's extra income she is unable to afford her house. Things get even worse when a labor dispute arises concerning the re-assignment of her nurses. As nurse manager for the ER, Carol is privy to management decisions, and she finds herself torn between her friends and the hospital administration. During a nurse sickout, Carol accidentally transfuses the wrong blood into a patient. Although it is unclear whether it was the blood or his other injuries that cause his death, Carol blames herself. The administration initially does not punish Carol for this incident and uses it to cast the sickout in a bad light, but she resents the administration's actions and believes she is not being punished sufficiently for her error, so she talks to the press and gets suspended.

During her suspension, Carol is held hostage at gun point during an armed robbery at her local grocery store. She treats several injured people and manages to escape the incident, shaken but unharmed. Carol later takes the MCAT with Doug's assistance and assumes she failed when in fact she did very well, but she opts not to pursue medical school, having only taken the test to prove she was capable. During the last few episodes of Season Three, Carol and Doug become closer and eventually rekindle their relationship.

Their relationship is held up by Carol's insecurities, but soon they make it work. They are trying to have a baby when Doug leaves Chicago in the middle of Season 5, when he is strongly advised to relocate after allegedly teaching a mother how to bypass an automatic pain-medication release device to deliver a lethal dose to her terminally-ill child. Unbeknownst to him, she is pregnant.

Carol delivers twins Tess and Kate on Thanksgiving in Season 6. When Doug learns of the twins' birth, he invites them to come to live with him in Seattle, but Carol cannot decide if it is the right thing to do and attempts to raise their twins alone. She briefly dates Dr. Luka Kovac. Treating a woman dying of end-stage ovarian cancer and helping her family say goodbye moves Carol to reunite her own family, and she abruptly leaves work and flies to Seattle that day to reunite with Doug in the second-to-last episode of Season 6. It is later revealed that Carol sends for her daughters the next day and stays with Doug.

In the Season 14 episode, "Status Quo", Jeanie Boulet mentions Doug and Carol when she returns to the ER. Nurse Haleh Adams states that they are living happily in Seattle and that their daughters are now in third grade.

References