Elizabeth Corday - Background

Background

First appearing at the opening of season four in the episode "Ambush", Elizabeth Corday is a British surgeon who has moved to Chicago to gain more experience in trauma surgery. We learn in her first episode that she comes from a whole family of surgeons; Corday's grandfather was a surgeon, as is her father and, since there are no boys in her family, she took on that role. In a later episode we learn that her father is a Consultant surgeon at St. Thomas' Hospital, London. Corday's mother (played by Judy Parfitt) is an astrophysicist with whom she has a rather rocky relationship; Corday feels that her mother didn't spend enough time with her as a girl and that she was "raised by nannies and boarding schools", although she finds a more nuanced perspective on things once she becomes a mother herself. Though the two do seem to come to some kind of mutual agreement, the relationship is still strained.

Corday faces many problems in adjusting to the United States. During her first trauma surgery, she completely baffles the rest of the staff by using lots of British terms not used in America - for example, she asks them to "bleep Benton" (page Dr. Peter Benton), order an "FBC" (US term "CBC"), and perform a "tube thoracostomy" (US term "chest tube"). She also introduces herself as "Miss Corday", as is customary for members of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and not "Dr Corday". She nevertheless becomes popular among the other staff, both for her surgical skill and for her personality. She quickly gains a reputation for being unimpressed by status, an example being when she greets one eminent surgeon, Dr. Sam Breedlove, with "I knew you were old but I didn't know you were so short!"

She befriends many of the female ER staff, including Carol Hathaway and Dr. Anna del Amico; and later on Abby Lockhart and Susan Lewis. Despite her arrogant and opinionated exterior, she has a deeply caring side to her - she is there to provide support at critical moments for both staff and patients alike. Despite their long and adversarial history, she supports Robert Romano through the ordeal with the loss of his arm; and similarly she overcomes her deep dislike of Kerry Weaver to be supportive of her following the death of her lover Sandy Lopez, although they never really mend fences and this plays a large part in her exit from County.

Because of the strong ties she has made with Chicago, Corday decides to stay on after her fellowship is terminated, even though this means that she has to repeat her internship in order to get a license to practice in the United States during Season 5. This is a particularly trying time for her - she has to adjust to being at the bottom of the heap after enjoying so long at the top, and on top of that she is supervised initially by Dale Edson - described even by Romano as a weasel. During this time, she makes repeated attempts to become romantically involved with Benton, eventually succeeding. He even agrees to take over as her supervisor after a while. She faces further trouble when, at the end of a 36 hour shift, she makes a non-lethal mistake in calculating how much drug to inject into a patient. Fortunately, this doesn't put her off her stride, and she uses it to campaign for better conditions for junior medical staff. She also amicably ends her romantic relationship with Peter after that. However, the affair ends up haunting her later on when Dr. Maggie Doyle correctly accuses Dr. Romano of sexual harassment after he finds out she was gay and gives her a bad performance review; Elizabeth wants to go on the record to support Maggie's claims, but is forced to back down when Romano reveals he'd known she was dating Peter secretly while he was her supervisor.

After completing her internship at the end of Season 5, at the start of Season 6 Corday is offered the position of Associate Chief of Surgery by newly appointed Chief of Staff Romano, who announces the appointment without even asking her. She takes the job, however, and soon finds herself getting caught up in hospital politics.

In season 6, Corday saves the life of serial rapist and killer who starts to engage her in a series of mind games. When a victim's family wants to learn of their daughter's body's location, the killer manipulates Corday into euthanizing him in exchange for the location. At the last minute, Corday realizes that the killer was afraid of her for the power that she held over him and she spares his life, breaking his will and 'winning the game'.