J.D. in Season Five

Season Five

At the beginning of his fifth year, J.D. is living in a hotel after his apartment's ceiling collapsed. As an attending, the same job as Dr. Cox, he is put into a position of responsibility when he has to look after all the new interns. J.D. then starts sneaking into Turk and Carla's apartment, without Carla's knowledge - but not for long as Carla soon finds out, and blames it on J.D.'s inability to move on. Meanwhile, J.D. finds out Dr. Cox has been telling the interns his own way on how to treat patients, which J.D. disagrees with - but Dr. Cox won't even talk to J.D. about it. ("My Intern's Eyes")

Eventually J.D. gains control, rather than Dr. Cox, over his interns and begins building a relationship with them; with method such as group hugs, trust exercises, and even building a house for the homeless together. However, after Dr. Kelso tells him that he will eventually treat them like crap, and Janitor shows J.D. that his interns are all sucking-up to him, J.D. loses it and finally becomes more strict on his interns - just like Dr. Cox advised. ("My Rite of Passage")

("My Day at the Races")

As J.D.'s 30th birthday approaches, he realizes that he has not achieved nearly as much as he was expecting, so accepts the challenge of a triathlon, despite not having trained for the event, but eventually finishes the triathlon in last with the help of Elliot, despite their previous disagreements ("My Day at the Races"). Despite having good control over his interns, he finds out how annoying they can be after being paged in on his day off to help with a minor problem - and he finds it hard to leave the hospital and return home that day because he keeps getting paged by interns. ("My Way Home") A few weeks later, we are shown how much a "thank you" means to J.D. after he chases up on a patient who doesn't thank him for saving his life. ("My Big Bird")

A patient at Sacred Heart then introduces J.D. to her niece, Julie Quinn, who is perfect for him - she is good looking, shares his sense of humour and is a nice person, however she is incredibly clumsy which does cause problems that J.D. struggles to ignore. However, Elliot warns him that he will easily ruin the relationship by saying a silly comment that sounds a lot less romantic than J.D. thinks, and she also tells him not to move to fast with the relationship. She is right about the silly comment, as J.D. goes and tells Julie that she "smells like [his] mum". She is also proved to be right about moving too fast, as J.D. and Julie buy a half-acre block to live in. ("My Half-Acre")

("My Half-Acre")

J.D.'s relationship with Julie Quinn continue well as they live on their new half-acre together, and enjoy and have fun in their relationship. However, J.D. starts getting frustrated with Julie's habit to say "That's so funny" rather than laugh, and Elliot believes that this might be one of the small problems that results in J.D. ending his relationship. As the him and Julie are relaxing, they begin talking about their future - and realize they have very different ideas of what they want it to be like, and decide to end their relationship on that point. However, Elliot points out that instead of them breaking up on a trivial problem (such as Julie saying "that's so funny"), they ended the relationship because of a more serious and legitimate problem. ("Her Story II")

J.D. has more problems as he gets annoyed with Elliot and Keith's love-making. ("My Buddy's Booty") However, J.D. enjoys spending time with his interns and giving all of them a nickname (except Keith - because J.D. still has a grudge against him). However, after a series of mistakes, he soon realizes that his favourite intern, "Cabbage", may not be cut out to be a doctor - and decides the best thing to do is to suggest he finds another profession before he ends up making a more major mistake, or even kills someone. Unfortunately, this backfires as when Cabbage leaves the hospital, he accidentally gives everyone's favourite patient, Patricia Wilk, an infection through a goodbye handshake. ("My Cabbage") J.D. and Dr. Cox then have problems dealing with Mrs. Wilk's declining health, after they realize that her death is imminent - and they both go through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. ("My Five Stages")

("My Urologist")

After finally reaching the stage of "Acceptance", J.D. continues on with his job, and tries to teach everyone else about going "the extra mile" for their patients - something that he prides himself on ("My Extra Mile"). However, a few weeks later, Dr. Cox goes the extra mile to get three patients the donated organs they need, which results in those three patients dying after the organs are found to be infected with rabies ("My Lunch"). Dr. Cox then takes time off work, refusing to speak to anyone because he regrets making the decision which resulted in him killing three patients, but after putting it off, J.D. speaks to him about it and helps Dr. Cox return to his job. ("My Fallen Idol")

After Dr. Cox returns to his job, J.D. starts to get interested in a doctor who he has never noticed before, Kim Briggs, and over time they both fall for each other. However, J.D. is annoyed when he finds out that she refused to perform life-saving surgery because it was too risky for her "stats". However, he realizes that there is definite chemistry between them after she decides to perform the surgery, just because he wanted her to ("My Urologist"). The two of them then go on a series of dates, despite being regularly interrupted by Elliot, but she finally leaves them alone and they spend the night together. Two weeks later, and J.D. finds out Kim is pregnant with his baby. ("My Transition")