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Running Head: GREYS ANATOMY

Assignment 1: Greys Anatomy

Katie Klamerus
Madonna University

GREYS ANATOMY

Each of you today comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago you were
in med-school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you will
spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst years of your life. You will be pushed
to the breaking point. Look around you. Take a look at your competition. Eight of you will
switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked
to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play is up to you. These are
the words that are imprinted onto the minds of Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang, Alex Karev,
George OMalley, and Izzy Stephens by the chief of surgery as they enter the operating room as
interns for the first time on ABCs hit medical drama Greys Anatomy. Little do these
characters know exactly what they are getting themselves into.
Seattle Grace Hospital is filled with drama, world class surgeons, and patients requiring
cutting-edge surgeries. The interns are trained by their general surgery resident Miranda Bailey,
Merediths future neurosurgeon husband Derek Shepherd, head of cardiothoracic surgery Preston
Burke, the chief of surgery Richard Webber, along with many other characters on their journey
to become residents and attendings themselves. The doctors spend so much time together and,
throughout the current twelve seasons, grow to be a family. Together they discover new medical
techniques, save lives, suffer the losses of many patients and co-workers, and are victims of
events such as lawsuits, a shooting, and even a plane crash.
There are many aspects that make a television show great, but the most important
requirements are that the show is able to keep its audience hooked with exceptional writing and
strong characters. Great writing provokes emotions, inspires its viewers, and focuses on the
unexpected. Strong characters alike should inspire their audience through their actions, while
also giving them a reason to want to be connected to them.

GREYS ANATOMY

Shonda Rhimes, the writer of Greys Anatomy, is able to make her viewers feel just
about every emotion within a one-hour episode. Although there are many sad aspects to the show
with patients and doctors dying, the characters senses of humor provide a great amount of comic
relief. Every episode in itself takes the audience on an emotional rollercoaster. In season three,
for example, the doctors are notified that there has been a ferry crash and that they are needed on
the scene. While Meredith is trying to help a frantic patient that has been drug out of the water,
the patient accidently pushes her in. A little girl sees her drowning, but does not tell anyone until
she finds Derek. Derek is able to jump in and find her, but Meredith has already been drowning
for quite some time. Meredith is brought back to the hospital where the doctors work endlessly
trying to revive her. Her friends, boyfriend, and the viewers are all in distress waiting to find out
if she is going to make it. In the same episode, Cristina announces that she is going to marry
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Doctor Burke and Meredith is reunited with her old dog in the afterlife before she is revived
from drowning. If all of these emotions were not enough, when Meredith is revived at the end of
the episode, her mother dies. In addition to the emotions felt in every episode, there is also a
great dynamic of love throughout the series. Examples of this are Derek and Merediths
forbidden love, Doctor Jackson Avery interrupting Doctor April Kepners wedding to tell her
that he loves her, and Cristinas relationships with Doctor Burke and Doctor Hunt. Shonda
Rhimes is a master at working her viewers emotions.
One of the most intriguing parts about the show is the amount of unexpected medical
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scenarios that the doctors encounter. The writers actually go through real medical cases trying to shows us
find the most unusual and interesting patient stories, and then change them up a bit to fit the
show. This gives the show more of a freak-out factor, making it even more appealing to its
audience. An example of these extreme scenarios can be found in season two. During a train

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GREYS ANATOMY

crash, a metal pole impales two of the trains passengers (Bonnie and Tom) leaving them like a
human cabob. When brought to Seattle Grace, both of the patients are miraculously conscious
and 100% aware of what happened. Bonnie and Tom become friends, but the doctors become
increasingly aware that they will only be able to save one of them. After running some tests, the
doctors agree that Bonnies injuries are more severe, and that they will need to move her from
the pole in hopes of saving Toms life. The doctors are able to save Tom, but Bonnie bleeds out
on the table after being removed from the pole. In addition to Bonnie and Toms story, the
doctors have also been faced with a man that claims that he is pregnant, an author who eats his
own stories, a teenage boy completely incased in cement, a patient with toxic blood that nearly
kills the surgeons, and many more. These rare cases not only make the show more interesting
and intense, but also leave the viewer sitting on the edge of their seat wondering what kind of
outcome the doctors will face this time.
In Greys Anatomy, the audience is easily able to become connected with main
character Meredith Grey. She undoubtedly experiences the most pain throughout the series, and
handles it with a toughness like no other. Her troublesome life begins by being born to a
hardcore surgeon mother that does not have much time to spend raising her, and a father that left
them both. Throughout her life, Meredith always finds herself trying to live up to her mothers
greatness. She decides to attend medical school in hopes that she will prove to her mother and
herself that she is extraordinary. While trying to balance medical school, Meredith also has to
begin caring for her mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimers. The show begins when
Meredith starts her internship at Seattle Grace, and the audience witnesses her luck diminish
from there. Meredith falls into a forbidden love with her boss Derek, finds out that he is married
to a woman back in New York, has to wait for Derek to divorce her so that she can be with him,

GREYS ANATOMY

and also suffers the loss of her mother and one of her best friends. On top of these situations, her
work causes her to almost drown in efforts to save a patient, witness her husband get shot and
almost die, go down in a plane crash where she loses her sister, nearly die in an explosion trying
to save a patient with a homemade bomb in his chest cavity, and also deal with the every day
stresses that go along with having such a demanding job. One of the only great things Meredith
has in her life is her husband, that is until he too is taken from her. Derek dies because of
inexperienced trauma doctors at a rural hospital after being the victim of a car crash, and
Meredith is left coping with the fact that, if he would have been taken to Seattle Grace, he could
still be alive. Through all of these struggles Meredith puts up a strong faade, which is what
viewers admire most about her. She gives the audience reason to believe that they are capable of
overcoming anything that gets in their way. The audiences connection with Merediths character
is imperative to the overall success of the show.
Although there have been many good shows produced over time, I truly believe that
Greys Anatomy is one of the greatest. Through the emotions that Meredith and the other
characters generate, the intriguing storylines, and the incorporated inspirational aspects, the show
successfully keeps its audience hooked and is worthy of being labelled as great.

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