Do You Think Them Lovely?

Scrubs focuses on the unique point of view of its main character and narrator, Dr. John Michael "J.D." Dorian (Zach Braff) for the first eight seasons, with season nine being narrated by the new main character Lucy Bennett. Most episodes feature multiple story lines thematically linked via voice-overs done by Braff. According to Bill Lawrence, "What we decided was, rather than have it be a monotone narration, if it's going to be Zach's voice, we're going to do everything through J.D.'s eyes. It opened up a visual medium that those of us as comedy writers were not used to." In every episode J.D. has many comical daydreams as well as many "situation comedy" style lines, which are often a result of improvisation. At the end of most episodes, J.D. summarizes the story's theme in a sequence of shots that show how it has affected each of the characters.

Almost every episode title for the first eight seasons begins with the first person singular possessive determiner, "My...". Bill Lawrence says this is because each episode is Dr. John Dorian writing in his diary (said on the commentary on the first season episode "My Hero"). There are notable exceptions in the episodes titled "His Story", "His Story II", "Her Story", "Her Story II", "His Story III", "His Story IV", "Their Story" and "Their Story II". Apart from a brief period of narration from J.D. at the beginning and end, these episodes primarily contain internal narration from other characters besides J.D. The transfer of the narration duties usually occurs at a moment of physical contact between two characters.

Starting with season nine, the episode titles start with "Our..." as the focus has shifted from the perspective of J.D. to a new group of medical students, with Lucy Bennett narrating. The webisodes that accompanied season eight, Scrubs: Interns, also were named "Our...".