Braff making rounds on NBC comedy

NEW YORK -- There are many ways that "Scrubs" mirrors the healing profession.

This NBC medical comedy is fast-paced, even crazed. It operates with surgical precision. And like any hospital inpatient, you at home may experience it lying down.

Finally: "Scrubs," though very funny, has its dramatic, even catastrophic moments.

"One of every three patients who's admitted to this place will die here," said John (J.D.) Dorian, a callow intern and the hero of "Scrubs," addressing viewers in an early episode.

Patients do die on "Scrubs." But more often, they survive a comedic regimen that parallels modern medicine more than any viewer would like to believe.

The whole nutty enterprise is seen through the eyes of J.D., who, played by Zach Braff, has a well-meaning but uncertain attitude he exhibits in numerous ways -- by what he does; by his wry monologues second-guessing it; and by fantasy sequences that dramatize his interior conflict.

For instance, his attempt to project confidence to the outside world is seen contradicted by his own self-image as, literally, a deer in the headlights.

"No matter who you are," says Braff, "you can relate to how J.D. wants to put out something that's different from the way he's actually feeling. For most people, there's a constant battle between who you want to be, and who your insecurities are telling you you really are.

"I think, at its core, that's what the show is about."

But its fans may find more. "Scrubs" (which, in its second season, airs 7:30 p.m. Thursdays) represents a social structure most people initially encounter about seventh grade, and never graduate beyond. At Sacred Heart Hospital, there's even a "high school bully" -- the janitor who, for unknown reasons, never misses a chance to terrorize J.D.

Life as high school

Sure, says Braff, life resembles high school no matter what your age or occupation. And if you happen to be a doctor, he adds, "while you're dealing with all those social dynamics, you're also trying to save lives. That's what intensifies it."

But "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence "is really good about modulating things," Braff says. "It's most important to him that viewers trust this world, that they believe it could be real. From there, we can go really broad with the comedy, and at times really dramatic. But at the center, it has to be a real place."

Oddly enough, it IS a real place, or, at least, used to be: "Scrubs" is filmed, and headquartered, in a former Los Angeles-area hospital building.

"The production offices and writers' offices are there," Braff says. "Even the sets that aren't hospital locations, like the apartment and the bar, are built there. And our dressing rooms are converted hospital rooms.

"How many people have died in my dressing room?" he muses. It's the sort of tragicomic thought a show like "Scrubs" would inspire.

Now 27, Braff has come a long way from the East Orange, N.J., community theater where his lawyer dad was a star and 9-year-old Zach "was the mascot to the backstage crew. I thought I was the coolest kid in the world."

He's in a pretty cool spot now. But sipping a Diet Coke in his Soho hotel lobby recently, he blends a drowsy charm with high-rev talk of how success can vanish overnight.

Or even before it happens, as he found out a dozen years ago from his first TV role. He was part of the ensemble for "High," the pilot for a gritty high school drama created by Bruce Paltrow that also starred daughter Gwyneth. But the network killed it before it premiered.

So what has starring in "Scrubs," with its robust ratings and critical acclaim, taught him these days? "It freaks me out to go to hospitals now," he replies.

"My brother and his wife had a baby recently and I went to visit them at Cedars-Sinai. And walking down the halls, I'm like, 'This is weird. I recognize all the characters we have on our show.'