Malucci attended medical school in Grenada, and in "Great Expectations," he uses his knowledge of the Caribbean to accurately diagnose a patient with a rare disease called Jamaican Vomiting Sickness because he recognized the symptoms from eating the area's akee fruit.

After performing surgery to save the patient, Elizabeth Corday bluntly tells Malucci the staff considers him a sloppy, lazy physician and that "[none of us] think you're much of a doctor."

Although his sometimes incompetence and abrasive manner were the source of several dramatic events, he was most often used for comic relief due to his offbeat personality and tendency to get pranked, injured, or end up doing odd things like eating cereal out of an Emesis basin (with milk that, he didn't realize, was breast-pumped by Nurse Carol Hathaway).

This got shunted aside once Dave found other staff members to annoy after his repeated flirtations were efficiently shut down (though he was never particularly upset) and Deb entered into a relationship with ICU Nurse Frank Bacon.

Kerry Weaver, the on-duty attending physician during this incident, could not be reached because she had gone across the street to Doc Magoo's and left her pager in the restroom.

Weaver cites several letters of reprimand and two failed rotations on file, promising that even if the hospital chooses not to terminate Malucci, she will ensure he never works in the ER again.

He is mentioned in the episode "Brothers and Sisters", when Dr. Carter tells young resident Michael Gallant that Malucci was reckless and "killed a patient".

Some fans of the show singled out Malucci's inclusion on the wall as a less plausible part of this scene, because his departure took place on such bad terms, and few at the hospital liked him at the time he was fired by Weaver (though Greene and Chen did express some sympathy for him and his situation).