Season 6 of ER has only just began to air over here, so I have only seen the first episode. I have been reading many of the comments made about the episode "Be still in my heart"....I can't believe what happens to Carter and Lucy!!. I have half the season to watch before I even see this episode.....I don't want to read the spoilers but the suspense is too great. Besides Carter is my favourite actor and I have to know if he comes out of it alright. Anyway in the first episode Kerry is offered the ER Chief position. It is also said that Mark is "acting chief of the ER" wasn't he always the Chief of the ER???

-- Emma (empatto@hotmail.com), February 14, 2000

Answers

Mark Greene was never Chief of the ER. In Season 1, he was chief resident, but that is something entirely different. As you may recall, when Kerry is first appointed acting chief in Season 4 (episode 2), Mark says that the only problem he would have with the situation was if he had to do it. He supposedly has no interest in administration.

At the start of Season 6, Mark Greene is still an attending physician. Rocket was made Acting Chief when Kerry quit last year, so you may have heard wrong.

-- Emily (emmie610@yahoo.com), February 14, 2000.

Emma,

Please forgive the verbosity of this answer. People say I talk too much and naturally, it carries over to my writing.

Kerry Weaver is being offered the position of Chief of Emergency Medicine. But this is her second go-around at this post. In early Season Four, then-Chief Dr. David Morgenstern suffers an M.I. (heart attack. Weaver is given the title of "Acting Chief of Emergency Services" after an interview with then-Chief of Staff (head-of hospital) Donald Anspaugh. She fills this post with her usual b#$%ch- iness until they finally get around to conducting a National Search to fill the position permanently at the beginning of Season Five.

The position eventually went to Dr. Amanda Lee, from Atlanta. Lee seems an excellent choice at first . . . until she turns out to be a multiple-personality psycho, fatally attracted to Mark Greene. Dr. Anspaugh valiantly tries to juggle both Chief of Staff and Chief of E.R. jobs for a while, but it's obviously too much for one person to handle (he was already too busy, trying to be an administrator AND a surgeon).

In an obvious power grab, "Rocket" Romano offers to "help out" Anspaugh and take over as Interim E.R. Chief. In this capacity, he torments the E.R. staff for the rest of Season Five.

In the episode you just watched, Anspaugh steps down as Chief of Staff, because he wanted to devote more time to actually practicing medicine. That weasel Romano gets the Head Honcho job, and then Kerry finally gets the E.R. Chief job she always lusted after.

Personally, I think this was ridiculous, after last year seeing a "National Search conducted to find top candidates who will bring in grant money" and this year they go : "Hey, you want the job? You got it!". And not just for E.R. Chief, but for the top position in the friggin' hospital too!!!!

As for Mark Greene, I don't remember him ever being "Acting Chief" of the E.R. For the past few seasons, he has been the Senior Attending Physician, meaning he was the Board-Certified doc in the E.R. who has been there the longest. Weaver was also an Attending, but she came in after Greene. Actually he HIRED her, which must make working under her now really suck.

I watch this show WAY too much, can u tell?

-- Dao (ldao@tandberg.com), February 14, 2000.