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Every workplace has that one person who quietly and efficiently keeps the entire operation running without complaint.
Each shift, she serves as the emergency rooms control center, perpetual pinch hitter, and staff therapist.
She keeps tabs on which providers are seeing which patients.
She jumps in to break up fights.
She offers supportive words to doctors, nurses, and interns whose nerves and emotions are frayed.
She does it with a seemingly boundless capacity to absorb stress.
They were very compassionate, but they knew what to expect.
They love John Wells because he did so much to bring attention to emergency medicine withER.
I was really touched by how emotional they got.
So many of them cried when I asked them about their experience.
One of our actors, Tim Van Pelt hes also a charge nurse, actually.
Hes on set with us every day.
I remember I asked him, What was your best day and what was your worst day?
And he started crying.
When I went and shadowed Kathy, I saw this sense of real knowing and care of their regulars.
We have our Myrna and our Earl and all those people on the show.
She told me about a guy there and what his journey had been like.
I really got to see her relationship to him.
For them to be able to serve everyone, they have to have this kind of emotional efficiency.
She says, No, but I wouldnt give them a sandwich.
Honestly, the actors were so good.
That redheaded couple was amazing.
They made me have to fight to get them to shut up.
So I just went for it and they did not pull it back.
They wanted us to go up to 11.
Weve literally built a continuous emergency department.
None of the walls move.
Some of the glass they can tilt for reflection, but nothing comes apart.
We dont hang lights.
It just creates this constant fluidity.
It really accentuated the fact that we never know whats going on with people.
Just a little kindness at the right time could go a long way.
John and Scott told me Danas mother died when she was 16.
I think shes like Dana from the block, right?
Charge nurses get paid well.
Shes probably elevated her family.
Theres a huge sense of purpose and pride for Dana.
At that stage, you ask yourself, how do you go home?
John and Scott told me that Dana has three daughters.
I have pictures of my own daughter on the set, as my characters granddaughter.
So theyre in danger.
These are gritty, badass, tough ladies.
I based her a little bit on my youngest aunt.
My mothers from a very large Catholic family in New Orleans.
She was kind of a tomboy.
She called my grandmother woman.
My grandmother had this long yellow car with a brown hardtop.
Shes like, Im not driving that bruised banana, woman.
She got her pilots license in her teens.
She was a really kick-ass woman and ultimately, a very serious woman.
I just thought she was everything.
I think Noah wrote 109, in a way, to show how much these nurses do.
Theres so much on their plates.
I can remember one time I was at the ER being tested for something that was way scary.
She calmed me down.
Thats one of the people that Im hoping to shine some light on.
Its really important for me to bring a lot of dignity to these people.
