“Since I was a kid, I've been able to sleep through anything - storms, sirens, you name it. Last night, I didn't sleep. I guess I get a little goofy when I'm nervous. You see, today isn't just any other day. It's my first day.”— J.D.'s Narration

"My First Day" is the pilot episode of Scrubs. J.D., Turk and Elliot begin their internship at Sacred Heart, where they meet the staff of the hospital including nurse Carla Espinosa, Dr. Cox and Chief of Medicine Dr. Kelso. J.D's feud with The Janitor begins.

SynopsisEdit

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Recurring Themes 2.1 Fantasies 2.2 Janitor story 3 Guest Stars 4 Music 5 Quotes 6 Trivia

John "J.D." Dorian, a young doctor fresh out of medical school, rises from bed and heads to Sacred Heart Hospital for his first day of his medical internship. Upon arriving and receiving complicated requests from a nurse, J.D. comes to realize that despite all of his schooling, he doesn't "know jack."

J.D. and Chris Turk, his best friend through college, attend a legal presentation by the hospital's lawyer Ted Buckland. Dr. Robert Kelso, Sacred Heart's Chief of Medicine, enters and tells the interns to think of him as their "safety net." In the break room, J.D. and Turk meet Elliot Reid, another medical intern. Shortly after, J.D. and Elliot meet Dr. Jeffrey Steadman, their resident. J.D. then meets nurse Carla Espinosa while helping push a patient on a gurney. In the patient's room Dr. Perry Cox rudely enters and demands that J.D. place an I.V. in the patient. After failing to do so, Dr. Cox forbids J.D. to talk to him ever again. During rounds, J.D. keeps his secret that he had a nurse perform a routine procedure for him. A tardy Elliot is asked a question by Dr. Kelso and J.D. whispers the answer to her and asks her on a date, which she agrees to. Dr. Cox yells at J.D. during his break that if other doctors find out that the nurses are doing all of his procedures for him, he'll be fired on the spot.

Meanwhile, Turk seems to be having a great first day. He has made a new friend, Todd Quinlan, and he is excited that he was able to reach into a person's body. J.D. comments that surgical interns are like the jocks of the hospital, whereas medical interns are "the chess club."

The next day at rounds, J.D. is lost for an answer to one of Dr. Kelso's questions and looks to Elliot for help, but she steals the spotlight. While working on a patient, Turk tells J.D. that they should move out of the apartment and find new roommates, an idea that J.D. agrees to, but internally hates. J.D. responds to a page about heart failure. As he is sprinting towards the patient's room, he realizes that he is still too nervous to be in charge so he hides in a closet where he finds Elliot hiding as well. J.D. tells her off for back-stabbing him and cancels their date.

Dr. Cox frightens J.D. by telling him that he might kill someone. Elliot complains to Carla that all of the men at the hospital are disrespecting her. Carla tries to be nice about it but Elliot goes on the offensive, attacking Carla about nearly sleeping with Turk in the on-call room. Carla quickly retaliates by saying loudly that Elliot is "out for herself."

J.D. spends his first night on-call that evening. An elderly patient, Mr. Burski, passes away and Nurse Laverne Roberts tells the young intern that it happens to every doctor. The emotional strain of his first night on-call are put to rest the next day when Turk tells him that he actually wants to continue living with him. Shortly after, Dr. Kelso denies a request by J.D. to skip an autopsy and yells at him for it. Kelso mentions that he sees interns as nothing but "a large pair of scrubs". J.D. is shocked, and begins to wonder who the "good guy" in his story is. J.D. is then paged and runs to a room where Dr. Cox is helping a patient. Dr. Cox tells J.D. to insert a catheter. J.D. panics, but Dr. Cox coaches him through the procedure. J.D. then decides he wants Dr. Cox to be his mentor.

As J.D. is finishing his shift, Elliot apologizes. Although he tells himself he can never forgive her, he instantaneously does after she kisses him on the cheek. J.D. then walks towards the hospital's exit, satisfied that he got through his first three days "without looking like a complete idiot."

Recurring ThemesEdit

     More: Fantasies • Flashbacks • J.D.'s girl names • Janitor's pranks and lies

FantasiesEdit

• J.D. and Elliot race through the hospital. J.D. wears a track jersey with "33" on it, and dumps coffee on his face as if it were water.
• Dr. Jeffrey Steadman only says "I'm a tool" instead of talking, and later "I'm a dork."
• J.D. and Elliot appear in a sitcom on the television in the break room, the set happens to be the one from the T.V. show "My Wife and Kids".
• J.D. is a deer in headlights and is hit by a semi-truck after Dr. Kelso asks him a question during rounds.
• Hearing Turk and Carla in the on-call room, he imagines The Todd watching.

  

• Dr. Kelso has a deep voice and flames for eyes.

Janitor story Edit

The Janitor attempts to fix a broken door, and J.D. suggests that it might be broken because somebody might have put a penny inside the door's sliding system. The Janitor immediately wants to pin the blame on J.D., and tells J.D. that there will be trouble if there really is a penny in the door.

Later, The Janitor shows J.D. a penny and tells him "I'm watching you." This is the main event which causes Janitor to start picking on J.D., something not resolved until the end of Season 8.

Guest StarsEdit

• Matt Winston as Dr. Jeffrey Steadman
• Mary Gillis as Mrs. Pratt
• Lynne Maclean as Nurse Kearney
• Jake Fritz as Billy
• Shannon Welles as Old Woman
• Ted Rogers as Mr. Burski

MusicEdit

     ♫ List of music featured in Scrubs

• "Away" by Leroy
• "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick
• "Over Me" by Tricky
• "Please Forgive Me" by David Gray

QuotesEdit

“I know what you're thinking.”— Elliot

“Your butt looks like two pringles hugging.”— J.D.'s Narration

“No you don't.”— J.D.

“Carla, can I ask you a personal question? Do you spray the perfume on or do you just fill your bathtub up at home and splash around in it?”— Dr. Cox

“I smell nice.”— Carla

“The door's broke... fifth time or so it don't open.”— Janitor

“Maybe there's a penny stuck in there.”— J.D.

“Why a penny?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you stick a penny in there?”

“No, I was just making small talk.”

“If I find a penny in there, I'm taking you down.”

TriviaEdit

• The first spoken line on the show is by J.D., and he says "I'm the man". The episode ends with J.D. repeating this line.
• In the first scene, J.D. is wearing a Clone High t-shirt, a former show by Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence.
• This episode was filmed at a hospital in Glendale, California. All other episodes (up to season 8) were filmed at the former North Hollywood Medical Center.
  • The hospital in this episode has since been torn down.
• Nurse Kearney, who J.D. meets in this episode, is never shown again.
• The x-ray with the show's title shown in beginning is turned the wrong way (the heart should be on the right side). This was an intentional mistake put in by creator Bill Lawrence to represent the core idea of the show: young doctors in over their heads.
• If J.D. just got himself and Turk an apartment, where is he living in the beginning of the episode? Where is Turk living? Why does he need a new apartment?

  

• When Turk first meets Elliot, he says "Eeellliiiiooott" and points his finger at her. This alludes to the movie E.T., where the main character, a boy named Elliot, is approached by E.T. in the same way.
• Elliot says that every male in her family is a doctor, and lists her grandfather, father and brother as examples. However, it is later revealed that Elliot has four brothers, not just one, who are all doctors.
• Dr. Cox calls his elderly patient a gomer, which is an actual medical slang term from "The House of God" by Samuel Shem. Gomer stands for "Get Out of My Emergency Room", and is used to reference elderly, demented patients.
• This is the only episode in which Elliot wears glasses.
• In the sitcom fantasy, J.D. and Elliot's son says "You the man!" to J.D.. This is fitting with J.D. saying "I'm the man" in the beginning and ends of the episode.
• In the scene when Dr. Cox and J.D. are in the doctor's lounge, the elderly woman in the wheelchair is not wearing glasses when she is in the foreground, but when the camera angle switches and she is in the background, she is wearing glasses.
• The scene with Dr. Cox and J.D. in the lounge is the scene that actors auditioning for the parts of Dr. Cox and J.D. had to recite.
• The Janitor is similar to Gordy, the janitor in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Gordy is always trying new tricks to get the weasel, just like the Janitor does to J.D..
• The patient in the MRI machine in the scene where Turk decides to move in with J.D. was cast as Lonnie in Season Three.
• This is the only episode where the title theme plays during the end credits.
• The scene where J.D. does the catheter procedure was shown again in "My Urologist" with Kim Briggs edited in.
• Neil Flynn was not intended to be a regular on the show, but because of how well he recited his lines and improvised the line "I'm watching you" he was made a regular, even though he was only allowed to talk to J.D. in season one, because if the show got cancelled, he was going to be just a figment of J.D.'s imagination.
• In this episode, Dr. Cox calls J.D. "J.D." instead of a girl's name.
• At first, Scrubs was pitched to ABC, but it was turned down. It was picked up by NBC, but moved to ABC in the eighth season.
• This episode was nominated for the 2002 Casting Society of America (CSA) Award for Best Casting for TV Comedy Pilot and the 2003 Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Episodic Comedy.
• Special thanks were given to Dr. Jonathan Doris and Dr. Jon Turk, medical experts who (obviously) influenced J.D.'s and Turk's names.

SEASON ONE EPISODES
1. "My First Day" 2. "My Mentor" 3. "My Best Friend's Mistake" 4. "My Old Lady" 5. "My Two Dads" 6. "My Bad" 7. "My Super Ego" 8. "My Fifteen Minutes"	9. "My Day Off" 10. "My Nickname" 11. "My Own Personal Jesus" 12. "My Blind Date" 13. "My Balancing Act" 14. "My Drug Buddy" 15. "My Bed Banter & Beyond" 16. "My Heavy Meddle"	17. "My Student" 18. "My Tuscaloosa Heart" 19. "My Old Man" 20. "My Way or the Highway" 21. "My Sacrificial Clam" 22. "My Occurrence" 23. "My Hero" 24. "My Last Day"
Episodes: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 w • 9