Linda Klein

Very few actors can point to the double duty of onscreen nurse and off-screen medical consultant, but that's the case with Linda Klein, a weathered veteran of both these professions. Her work on the medical drama centered on the lives of its interns and their superiors in "Grey's Anatomy," for example, is symptomatic of the way she has conducted herself for the majority of her career. On the one hand, she has played Nurse Linda in more than a dozen episodes beginning in 2005; on the other, she has acted as a medical consultant for twice that many episodes beginning in 2005. The same is true for the plastic surgeon drama "Nip/Tuck," the dramatic examination of a Chicago hospital staff in "Chicago Hope," and the brilliant minded youngster juggling typical teenage perils while being a licensed medical professional that is "Doogie Howser, M.D.," for which she played, respectively, Nurse Linda, Nurse #3, and Nurse Klein. She began her twin career track via a pair of TV movies: the 1983 Shelley Hack vehicle "Cutter to Houston" and the 1988 nurse drama "Nightingales." Klein's steady, focused path has also allowed her to rise to the rank of producer on a number of these medical shows and even led to the opportunity in 1996 to write an episode of "Chicago Hope."