Other hospital personnel include Christine's love interest, Dr. Paul Petrillo; the head nurse, Lenore Ritt; and the chief of staff, Dr. Garrett Braden.
The series was developed from a pilot television film, also titled Nightingales, that was directed by Mimi Leder and originally aired in June 1988.
Field, Walters, Swanson, Bennett, and Jennifer Rhodes (as Effie Gardner) are the only members of the cast to appear in both the film and the series.
[15] The series was described in the Chicago Tribune as portraying nursing students as women who "don't spend much time studying...[but] do hang around in their underwear a lot".
Aaron Spelling briefly revived the show's premise in syndication as the 1995 series University Hospital, with a completely different cast.