Doug Ross

Doug Ross
George Clooney as Doug Ross
First appearance	September 19, 1994 (1x01, "24 Hours")
Last appearance	March 12, 2009 (15x19, "Old Times")
Portrayed by	George Clooney
Information
Full name	Douglas Ross
Nickname(s)	Doug, Dougie
Gender	Male
Occupation	Physician
Title	Pediatric Fellow (1994-1998) Pediatric Attending (1998-1999)
Family	Ray Ross (father; deceased) Sarah Ross (mother)
Spouse(s)	Carol Hathaway (wife)
Children	Unnamed child (son, with unnamed woman) Kate Ross (daughter, with Carol) Tess Ross (daughter, with Carol)
Born	1962

Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross is a fictional character from the television series ER, portrayed by George Clooney. George Clooney's removal from the main cast opening credits was in the 16th episode of season 5.

Doug Ross was raised by his mother, Sarah, after his father, Ray, abandoned their family. In Season 1, he revealed to a patient that he had a son, and he tells nurse Wendy that he doesn't know his son's name as he's never seen him. Not much else is known about Doug's past. Despite his jumbled personal life, Ross is a dedicated ER pediatrician. He has always been committed to medicine and children and to helping no matter what the rules or consequences. During Season 2, Doug rescued a boy trapped in a flooding storm drain during a rainstorm. His heroic efforts were filmed on local television, making him a media star. This event helped him earn back his job at County, because his supervisor in pediatrics originally wasn't going to renew his fellowship on account of his disrespect to authority.

During Season 2, Ray, Ross' father, tries to reconcile with his estranged son. Ross has difficulty reconnecting with the man who abandoned him and his mother. Ray owns a ritzy hotel in Chicago, and Doug lets his guard down a little, but is disappointed when his father offers to take him to a Chicago Bulls game and then stands him up. Ross later reveals the reason that he and his mother were abused by his father. Doug later has an affair with Ray's girlfriend, a woman who Ray stole money from, but ends the relationship when it becomes clear she has a lot of problems.

Ross is a womanizer who dates and leaves many women throughout the course of the show. His womanizing days come to an abrupt end after a one-night stand with an epileptic woman who hides her condition and dies in the ER. Ross never knew her name until after she dies, after which he stops dating for a while until he gets back together with Carol Hathaway, the head nurse of the ER at County.

Warner Bros. Television, the studio which produces ER for NBC, kept Dr. Ross' cameo in "Such Sweet Sorrow" a secret from NBC, which promoted the episode as Carol Hathaway's goodbye, with no mention of Ross' appearance. The original version of "Such Sweet Sorrow" that Warner Bros. sent to NBC ended after the scene where we see Hathaway on the plane to Seattle. At the 11th hour, Warner Bros. messengered an "edited" version of the episode to NBC headquarters in New York for broadcast — NBC had no time to preview the episode prior to airing the extended episode in which Clooney appears. NBC was miffed that it was kept in the dark as it could have generated valuable ad revenue if it had aired promos that the episode marked the return of George Clooney. Clooney cited the fans of the show for his reason for making the cameo (he wanted Hathaway and Ross's characters to get back together, which many fans hoped for). Clooney reportedly only asked to be paid scale for the cameo.