Lily Chao

Lily Chao is a doctor who currently works in the Emergency Department of Holby General Hospital. She joined the department in 2013 as a junior doctor, and became a registrar in 2015. Although she initially had trouble with adopting a more caring attitude when dealign with patients, with some help from Martin Ashford she was able to improve her bedside manner.

Despite originally being disliked in the ED, she has since managed to develop friendships with other staff members, notably Cal Knight and Ethan Hardy, registrars in the ED. When she took her examination to become a registrar she passed, whereas Cal and Ethan failed theirs to become consultants. Nevertheless, they both congratulated her even though they failed as the true competition existed between the two of them.

She has had tough times whilst working in the ED including being involved in a minibus crash along with four other staff members and having a motorcycle accident due to Connie Beauchamp increasing the work hours. Either way Lily continued to work hard, determined to complete her five year plan to become a consultant.

Early life
Lily grew up with her parents Feng and Li Na Chao in a family where education was considered to be of great importance. Despite the fact she was the first of her family to go to university, her father would tell her that hard work and dedication is the key to success.

At some point after graduating, Lily devised a 5-year plan, consisting of her two years as a foundation doctor in an emergency department. Upon joining Holby ED, she quickly realized that she may have set her goals too high. She has origins from Hong Kong.

Time in the Emergency Department (2013-)
Lily Chao joined the Emergency Department of Holby General Hospital in August 2013 as a new foundation doctor in her second year of training. After meeting Zoe, Lily confirmed that she had just completed a six month rotation in gerontology, and said that old people were either very sweet or very rude. Initially, she found it hard to fit in with her arrival, primarily due to the fact she was bossy, strict, and had complete disregard for her bedside manners when dealing with patients, something that Martin Ashford later picked up on. Ash was one of the first staff members to have met Lily after he told her she couldn't park her motorcycle outside the ED, but she refused to move it.

Towards the end of the month with no signs of her behaviour improving, she was paired up with Rita in an attempt to help her improve her bedside manners once and for all. When this failed to work, it became clear that Lily was only determined to progress her career, and had no time for going above and beyond with patients. However, this later became more costly as in November she attempted to remove some broken wood from a patients leg which inadvertently nearly caused him to bleed to death. Later in November, she discharged a distressed lady without taking her mental state into consideration, and Jamie was assigned to guide Lily when dealing with this in future.

In January 2014, Lily found a friend in a new registrar, Ethan Hardy. On his first day, Zoe assigned Lily to teach him the ropes of the department, and they worked together in figuring out a patient's illness when she displayed unexplained symptoms. Meanwhile, Ash was still concerned about Lily's methods of dealing with patients and by this point he was becoming angry. However, at a Valentine's Day party in February, Lily threw a drunken kiss at Ash. something which caused further tension between them.

By March, Lily had begun to show a softer side when she treated a woman admitted to the ED, but Ash had a harsh word with her after she failed to follow all of his instructions. The following week, Lily decided to press charges against Ash for workplace bullying. Two weeks later, a disciplinary hearing took place involving Lily, Ash and the hospital's CEO at the time, Guy Self. It resulted in Ash receiving a formal written warning.

In April, Cal Knight, a registrar who had arrived in January, assisted Lily in treating a patient, all whilst he was trying to reel her in. This caused a small rivarly to surface between her and Ethan, but they eventually made up in July, on the day that Connie Beauchamp had her first shift as Clinical Lead. In August, Lily helped to expose Cal for stealing Ethan's ideas on cost cutting and blood transfusions.

In October 2014 Lily was involved in a minibus crash along with several other members of staff. Despite the paramedics concerns at the scene due to her pain, Robyn later told her at the ED that her injuries indicated that she was low priority. Whilst in the crashed minibus, she asked the paramedics to check if Ethan was okay first, which reflected her caring side towards those that she liked. The following month during a night shift, Lily suspected that something wasn't right and suspected that a patient who was admitted had been murdered. Her instincts eventually proved to be right, and led to a life being saved and the killer being arrested.

In March 2015 when Connie greatly increased the training doctors' workloads in her urgency to improve standards, Lily worked the hardest, losing sleep in her efforts to impress Connie. She appeared in the ED 'dead on her feet', inattentive and potentially a danger to herself and her patients. She fainted at work, but Connie ignored the warning signs. Dylan eventually persuaded Lily to go home, but against his judgement she decided to make her own way on her motorcycle scooter. Lily nodded off whilst driving and hit a jaywalking girl; the girl's father admonished her and Lily was devastated. She attributed the accident to her own carelessness, and left Connie a letter of resignation. However, Connie caught up to her before she left and rejected her resignation, and told Lily that she was a good doctor, leaving Lily to go back on her choice. The girl also admitted that she had purposely stepped out in the road, therefore getting Lily off the hook.

In August 2015, Lily passed her test in order to become a registrar, while her friends Cal and Ethan didn't pass their consultant exams. Upon telling her father, he wasn't as pleased as she had thought he would be which lead her to start a quest for approval at work, by turning to Connie.

In September 2015, upon the arrival of Alicia Munroe, Lily was paired up with her to be her mentor. Lily was jealous at the fact she managed to get along well with everyone, and always looked for a way to criticise her because of this. Although she intially wanted to work in dermatology, she revealed to Alicia that she belonged in the ED. The following month, Lily received a devastating phonecall to tell her that her father had died. She attempted to bottle up her emotions and get on with her shift. However, after the funeral the following week she threw herself into work once again, and ended up taking her anger out on Alicia when she asked if Lily was okay. At this point, it was becoming evident to Louise that Lily was bullying Alicia.

Just a week after the funeral, Alicia was forced to go and get Connie after Lily made a mistake whilst realigning a patient's broken ankle bone. Lily soon became more jealous when it was Alicia's quick thinking that saved the patient's ankle. At the end of October, Connie encouraged Alicia to take her MCEM exams as soon as possible. The only issue is that she asked that a senior member of staff also write a report on her, and it was Lily who took charge. During the shift, Alicia performed un unfamiliar procedure on a patient to relocate his dislocated shoulder which annoyed Lily. Towards the end of the shift, Connie asked Lily if everything was okay, and Lily told her that she thought Alicia was overconfident and not ready for the exams.

In November when Alicia abandoned her patient to help at the scene of an accident outside the ED, Lily was furious, and they are both called into Connie's office. In the end, Alicia left her job stating that she had been bullied out of her job, by Lily. When Louise blamed Lily for Alicia's departure the following week, she acts oblibious to the way she treated Alicia, and that her actions had consequences. Soon, several other members of staff picked up on this, including Lily's friend Ethan, who said that he couldn't take her side as what she had done was wrong.

Personal life
Throughout her time in the ED, Lily has been shown to have a romantic interest in co-worker Ethan Hardy. Despite this, many things have got in the way including studying for exams to become a registrar and the arrival and return of Honey Wright, the ED's coffee shop barista.

In October 2015, Lily's mother phoned her to tell her that her father had died. Although Lily managed to get through her shift with as little fuss as possible, she revealed to Connie at the end that it was because her father wanted to see her become a consultant, and would have wanted her to finish her shift. Her father's funeral took place on 17 October 2015. In November, Lily's mother discovered a draft email composed by her father in August telling Lily that she made the right choice and that he was proud of her on passing her FCEM exam.

Trivia

 * Lily’s mother owns a restaurant.
 * Lily lives by her five-year plan and nothing will deviate her from this course... or will it?
 * Lily doesn’t even like funfairs.
 * Lily aspires to be like Connie one day.

Behind the scenes
Crystal Yu has portrayed Lily in Casualty since her arrival in August 2013. The character has been generally well received by critics favouring her sound medical skills and poor bedside manner. However, Duncan Lindsay writing for newspaper the Metro accused the character of being one-dimensional.

Crystal Yu attended the NTA Awards in January 2016 along with several other cast members. Casualty was nominated for the best drama, however it lost out to Downton Abbey.

Appearances

 * See also: Character appearances.

Lily made her first appearance in the 2013 series 28 episode "Bedside Manners".