Sacred Heart Hospital logo

Sacred Heart Hospital is the setting of the American comedy-drama Scrubs. The set of Sacred Heart was formerly based in the former North Hollywood Medical Center (34°9′28.86″N 118°24′31.22″W / 34.1580167°N 118.4086722°W / 34.1580167; -118.4086722), a real decommissioned hospital at 12629 Riverside Drive in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. For the ninth series of Scrubs, the hospital will move to Culver Studios.

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 the hospital used in the popular television series, "Desperate Housewives". The building is also used in the 2001 Jet Li film The One, and in Showtime's new series United States of Tara in 2009.

Season nine of Scrubs, currently being filmed at Culver Studios, will feature a new hospital still known by the same name, and will feature a new, as-of-yet-unreleased blue Sacred Heart logo.^{[citation needed]} The set for Scrubs season nine will also depict a university, Winston University on the same grounds.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 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. His position is filled by 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 (former), Mr. Summers, Mr. Franks, Mrs. Warner, and Mr. Zerbo.

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 "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").

[edit] Location

The location 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."^[1]

[edit] References