Jing-Mei Chen - Season 8

Season 8

During the early part of Season 8, Jing-Mei is having a hard time as an authority figure in the ER. Weaver is pressuring her about being indecisive. In the episode "The Longer You Stay", Jing-Mei and Dr. Dave Malucci make a hasty decision to perform a procedure before checking all necessary tests, ultimately killing the patient. Because of this mistake, and her history as a medical student, the Risk Management staff, Dr. Robert Romano and Dr. Weaver agree to have her resign as Chief Resident and also Weaver fires Dr. Malucci. The board determines that because of her maternity leave, she was not at Attending status at the time of the incident and was not authorized to make the decision for the procedure. Weaver, the Attending on shift, was off campus at the time, and did not answer her pages, which means the procedure was unauthorized. As a result, Jing-Mei quits and tells Weaver to "go to hell".

After the holidays, Jing-Mei returns to County to speak to Dr. Romano about getting her job back, stating that she has sufficient evidence that Weaver was not wearing her pager the night because she had left it in the bathroom stall at Doc Magoo's the restaurant she was at the time while she was off the premises when both Dr. Chen and Dr. Malucci were working on the patient and this helped in the patient's untimely death, which could constitute professional negligence. To avoid lawsuits, the hospital re-hires her as a full-time Attending, much to Weaver's dismay. Their relationship afterward is awkward at best but reaches an accord after both parties impress the other with their professionalism and need to work as comrades while under pressure from a hostile environment such as County.

At the end of Season 8, Jing-Mei begins working with the new Dr. Greg Pratt, who constantly flirts with her, to a mix of condescension and amusement. They are forced to work with each other when the ER is locked down due to a supposed smallpox outbreak.