Shonda Rhimes had to put up quite the fight 20 years ago to get Grey’s Anatomy made. She endured several different title changes, pushed for diversity in casting and insisted Meredith’s one-night stand in the series premiere would not doom the series to failure. Her efforts paid off in spades, as Season 29 continues on the 2026 TV schedule. Thinking back to those early days, Rhimes admits there was one unexpected (and pretty funny) side effect to all of the work she put into writing the show.
Grey’s Anatomy has featured some wild medical emergencies and weird diseases since its 2005 debut, and it turns out spending so much time researching different illnesses to populate a fictional hospital will turn you into something of a hypochondriac. During a visit to The Jennifer Hudson Show, Shonda Rhimes confirmed she fell victim to this, saying:
For the first four years of the show, I thought I had everything. Even things I couldn’t have. I would go to my doctor constantly. My poor doctor was like, ‘Shonda, you don’t have it. Just assume you don’t have it, and then only come to me when you’ve passed out or something.’ Because I both thought I had every illness, and I thought I could do all the surgeries myself. I was like, ‘I’ve learned enough that I could take somebody’s appendix out.’
Wait, hold on a second! Self-diagnosing rare ailments and wanting to operate on them are two completely different beasts.
So, in addition to being constantly worried that she might be exhibiting symptoms of some uncommon disease, Shonda Rhimes also apparently felt like she’d gleaned enough knowledge to fix everything. I can see why her doctor might have dreaded seeing her name on the appointment book! She continued:
I always told the pregnant women in my writers room, like, ‘Go into labor. I could do it. I could do it right here.’
The cast and crew have always raved that Shonda Rhimes was great to work for when you were pregnant, and I guess we can add “willing to deliver the baby” to the list of reasons why.
In all seriousness, given the way the Grey’s Anatomy’s cast scrubs in on real surgeries to prepare for their roles, I’ll admit there are people I’d trust less than Shonda Rhimes to give me medical care in an emergency.
A lot of research goes into the medicine practiced by the Seattle surgeons, and those long surgery scenes reportedly take days to shoot, so while I’d probably stop short of letting them take my appendix out (if I still had mine, which I don’t), they’re probably better trained than the majority of civilians one might encounter outside of a hospital.
Of course, if we’re talking about the current season, the Grey Sloan Memorial doctors need to figure out how to keep themselves safe first. Season 22 so far has featured one main character being killed off, Atticus Lincoln’s near death in the hospital explosion, and most recently Jo’s twins having to be delivered via emergency C-section, risking all three of their lives. Where’s Shonda Rhimes when you need her?
Grey’s Anatomy airs at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC and can be streamed the next day with a Hulu subscription.
