Sacred Heart Hospital

Sacred Heart Hospital is the setting of the American comedy-drama "Scrubs". The set of Sacred Heart is in the former North Hollywood Medical Center (coord|34|9|28.86|N|118|24|31.22|W), a real decommissioned hospital at 12629 Riverside Drive in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Besides providing the set for Sacred Heart, the hospital also houses many other "Scrubs" sets (such as the apartments of J.D. and Dr. Cox, and the bar), the offices of many of the "Scrubs" crew, and post-production facilities (such as the voice-over studio and editing suite). Since 2007, the TV series Diagnosis X is also filmed in the building; the Sacred Heart Hospital rear entrance ramp, differently dressed, can be seen in several episodes. It is also the hospital used in the popular television series, "Desperate Housewives."

Overview

Sacred Heart is an inner city teaching hospital. During the run of the series, it is run by Chief of Medicine Dr. Robert "Bob" Kelso until his retirement towards the end of Season 7. The Interim Chief of Medicine is Dr. Percival "Perry" Cox.

The hospital is owned by a pharmaceutical company run by Whitaker Chambers, whose son once worked at Sacred Heart as a medical student. Board members and benefactors include Jordan Sullivan, Mr. Summers, Mr. Franks, Mrs. Warner, and Mr. Zerbo.

Sacred Heart translates into French as "Sacré Cœur", famously the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Paris.

Staff at the hospital are mostly of the opinion that it is a very good quality institution. Dr. Kelso once said that he thinks that people choose to be treated there because they see Sacred Heart doctors as professionals, but also because he leaks vicious rumors about competing hospitals to the press. Dr. John "J.D." Dorian once remarked that "Here at Sacred Heart, you get to work with some of the finest doctors in the country." However, this is contrasted numerous times by people referring to it as a "hell-hole", a "dump", or, a " monster which feeds on [their] social lives". Dr. Perry Cox was once named as the finest physician in the city by a local magazine. The hospital's employees have gained the attention of the press on several other occasions too, most notably when J.D. and Dr. Chris Turk resuscitated a local news cameraman and were dubbed as heroes ("My Fifteen Minutes") and when Turk performed a ground-breaking surgery using hypnosis instead of traditional anesthesia ("My Day at the Races"). Sacred Heart is also home to Chet, the world's tallest doctor ("My Clean Break")

Location

The locale of Sacred Heart within the fictional world of "Scrubs" is never revealed on-screen. Cast and crew of the show describe the setting as "San DiFrangeles" – a portmanteau of San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles that is meant to encompass a large part of California. Judy Reyes says, "We were really trying to make it like Anywhere, USA, and I think as the years passed we kind of like gave up on that idea. In some shots you see palm trees." [Audio commentary for "My T.C.W." (disk three, "The Complete Second Season [of] Scrubs" DVD set)] Most of the possible location hints do seem to suggest that the city is in California or the western United States, with only a few hints suggesting a different region and several more seemingly ruling out certain states outside of the western region; for example, JD's RV trip to Tacoma, Washington. Also Sean Kelly, one of Elliot's many boyfriends, worked at SeaWorld, however it is shown that she needed to take a train journey to go meet him there. In the episode where Dr.Cox rides on the ambulance both him and the driver are wearing NJ state EMT patches

References