[4] After a brief spell at a free clinic, the character returns to Sacred Heart and becomes a senior attending physician.

In "My Full Moon", she ponders her future career after struggling to deliver the bad news to a patient diagnosed with H.I.V.

She tells Turk that if she were lucky enough to get married and to have enough money to survive without working, she would "walk out of this place and never look back."

When first introduced, Elliot was portrayed as socially awkward and hyper-competitive, but her personality was modified slightly by the second episode.

"[5] She is characterized as a chatterbox who puts her foot in her mouth at every conceivable opportunity (in "My Mentor," she asks an overweight woman, "When's the baby due?"

and accidentally insults Turk's Jehovah's Witness mother by describing people of that faith as "crazed, annoying busybodies").

Her bedside manner (or lack thereof) is part of the reason that Dr. Cox decides to split the role of chief resident between her and the more sensitive J.D.

[7] Elliot is frequently shown telling "inspirational stories" to fellow staff and patients that invariably ended with someone committing suicide.

In the episode "My Fishbowl," she admits that she tried to kill herself as a teenager by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into a lake like her favorite author, Virginia Woolf.

In Season 3, Elliot undergoes a notable transformation; she begins dressing and grooming herself in a more sexually provocative manner and adopts a somewhat more assertive and self-assured personality.

[8] This was the result of a directive from NBC's marketing department, which wanted the show to have a sexier female star for the network's coveted young male demographic.

A short feature on the Season 3 DVD set titled "The New Elliot" explained the reasons for the makeover and the response it engendered from Chalke and the show's writers.

At the start of the series, Elliot was a competitive and independent person until she realized that she needed the help and support of her co-workers.

In an interview, Sarah Chalke said that Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, wanted to avoid a "will they or won't they get together" plot for the series, instead opting for a running gag where they hook up once a year and have "everything blow up in [their] faces and not work out.

and Elliot also have a very close friendship built on their shared experiences as residents at the hospital, similarities in their personalities, and their knowledge of each other's quirks and issues.

realizes that he might still be in love with Elliot after she gets engaged; in the Season 6 finale, "My Point of No Return," they lean in for a kiss after a night of discussing their doubts about their respective relationships.

However, in "My Own Worst Enemy," the Season 7 opener, Elliot realizes she is making a mistake and pulls away, asserting that the almost-kiss had nothing to do with her feelings for J.D.

left the hospital for good, he had a prolonged fantasy (implied to be a flash-forward) that showed him and Elliot getting married and having at least one child together.

After Carla's marriage, the two begin to drift apart, but when they realize it, they vow to work harder on maintaining their friendship.

In "My Heavy Meddle," he convinces Elliot, who had just broken up with J.D., to mend their relationship for the sake of the group dynamic.

He occasionally shows signs of support, however; in "My Blind Date," he relies on her as a replacement "go-to guy" when J.D.

Elliot and the Janitor have a friendly if asymmetric relationship; she views him as a nice hospital employee, while he harbours an intense schoolboy crush on her.

She finally realizes his feelings for her in "My Best Laid Plans," when he confesses them outright and goes on to say that she is the only doctor who treats him like a person.

In Season 6, Elliot gets engaged to fellow Sacred Heart doctor Keith Dudemeister (Travis Schuldt), but breaks it off when she realizes that she does not truly love him.

Elliot starts a sex-only relationship with intern Keith Dudemeister in "My Buddy's Booty," much to J.D.

initially agrees to remain silent, but when Sean and Elliot begin planning to move in together, J.D.

tells Elliot how he feels, prompting her to leave Sean for an ultimately doomed relationship with J.D.

Sean appears again in the Season 8 episode "My Cuz," in a relationship with Kim Briggs (Elizabeth Banks), the mother of J.D.