10 Greatest Minor Scrubs Characters

Played By – Michael Learned, Appearances – 8 (My Missed Perception, My Big Bird, Her Story II, My Half-Acre, My Buddy’s Booty, My Cabbage, My Five Stages, My Finale)

As is the case with the vast majority of medical shows, patients on Scrubs rarely served as anything other than plot devices, functioning solely as window dressing and as a mechanism to drive the development of the lead characters forward.

Few ever appeared more than once, though there are memorable exceptions such as the manipulative drug addict Sam Thompson (Alexander Chaplin), serial hypochondriac Harvey Korman (Richard Kind) and the troubled Jill Kelly (Nicole Sullivan), whose death in season five’s ‘My Lunch’ is the catalyst to perhaps the most emotional sequence in the entire series, as Dr. Cox melts down and is shown in his rawest state in the wake of three separate recipients of her organs dying in quick succession.

By far the beloved patient has to be Mrs. Wilk, however, the kindly old lady who recurs throughout the first half of season five. Seemingly able to bring out the best in everybody through her playful yet sincere personality, her passing (highly poignant when rewatched during the current global pandemic given that it is visually shown as a result of germ control measures not being properly observed) hits hard.

Played by Walton’s alumni Michael Learned, Mrs. Wilk stands out as a patient who made a sizable impact on the character’s lives, rightfully showing up in the finale for one last hurrah.