If a Grey’s Anatomy fan were to ask Meredith Grey how to describe herself, she would choose the words “dark” and “twisty.” Meredith has gone through a lot in her life, and it has helped shape her as a surgeon. In fact, one of Meredith’s greatest assets as a doctor is her ability to remain calm under pressure. This is mainly due to the fact that she has gone through just about every experience in the book.
Meredith has been the primary constant throughout all the seasons of Grey’s, and show has revolved around her trials and tribulations as she navigates the balancing of personal and professional life. Show creator Shonda Rhimes has gone on record to say that they show will only reach an ending with Ellen Pompeo is ready to leave her role as Meredith.
Despite the showing carrying Meredith’s name for fifteen seasons, Grey’s Anatomy fans still have some questions about Dr. Grey. Even though she is a beloved character, there is still much about her that we have to overlook to keep rooting for her. Meredith’s moodiness and behavior changes make her frustrating to watch at times. In fact, there are some period of the show where fans do not agree with a single thing she does. Between her relationship with Derek and friendships with the other doctors, Meredith makes some questionable choices. However, since the show revolves around her, there’s nothing fans can do except watch how things play out.
For all the frustrated Grey’s Anatomy fans, here are 20 Things Wrong With Meredith We All Choose To Ignore.
20. She’s Stayed At Seattle Grace Too Long
Each doctor that has roamed the halls of Seattle Grace/Grey-Sloan deserves a medal for everything they have been through. In fact, even if a doctor was only there for a few months, they likely went through some unspeakable trauma. Meredith Grey, in particular, deserves a gigantic parade for how much she has endured during her tenure.
Over the course of fifteen years, Meredith has endured bombs, shootings, plane crashes and even escaped lions, which is much more than she signed up for. Out of all the crazy and irrational things that Meredith has done, staying at Seattle Grace is the craziest. Before each season opener, we hold our breath, hoping that Meredith will come to her senses and run away. However, she keeps coming back for more.
19. She followed in her mother’s foosteps
Meredith’s relationship with her mother Ellis is storied and complicated. Ellis’ success in the medical profession is well-documented, but it came at a price. Following a childhood where Meredith felt ignored and unappreciated due to her mother’s medical career, she went through a rebellious phase as a way of lashing out against. Given her how the medical profession took her mother away from her, surely the last thing she would do is devote herself to the same life.
Despite all of the anger she has from her childhood, Meredith has still dedicated her life to being a doctor. She spends more time at the hospital than she does with her children and has even let medicine get in the way of her own relationships. She may have tried hard not to, but she is making the exact same mistakes that Ellis did.
18. She willingly put her hand on a bomb
The number one rule should always be that if there is a bomb around, do not put your hand on the bomb. Despite graduating from Dartmouth, Meredith must have missed this Grey’s Anatomy lesson. In the second season episode “It’s The End Of The World”, Meredith is faced with a patient who has live ammunition lodged in his chest. The only thing keeping the patient alive and the bomb from potentially exploding is that an EMT has their hand on it. When the EMT has a nervous breakdown and flees, Meredith instinctively put her hand on the bomb to keep it from moving.
While her act is certainly noble, it can also be called incredibly stupid. There was no way to tell whether the bomb would explode or not, so she was better off running with the rest of the group.
17. When she got with George
While Meredith is certainly mature enough to make her own decisions, this is universally regarded as a bad one. During a tumultuous time during her relationship with Derek, George decided to unveil his feelings for her. After harboring a crush on her for years, he finally got up enough courage to tell her how he felt. Being very vulnerable herself, Meredith accepted his advances and they got together.
During the act, Meredith realized that she it was not the right time for them and began to cry, which humiliated George. Meredith knew full-well how much she still loved Derek, but destroyed George’s emotions anyway. Instead of pulling him into a very vulnerable situation and breaking his heart, she should never have pursued this. In fact, it almost cost her a friendship with George altogether.
16. Her rejection of Lexie
Other familial bonds would be uncovered forMeredith as the show went on. The first big reveal was when Lexie Grey was introduced as Meredith’s half-sister. While Lexie was elated to finally meet her half-sister, Meredith was less than thrilled to have her around. Despite Lexie being incredibly charming and well intentioned, Meredith treated her awfully for several months.
When Lexie was introduced, Meredith had no close family - her mother had passed away and her father was not speaking to her. Lexie was the only opportunity she had for a family relationship, but she rejected it. Other than her own “dark and twistiness,” Meredith had no reason to push Lexie away. Meredith would eventually let Lexie in to her life, but it took much longer than it should have.
15. She didn’t Notify Derek’s Sisters About His Passing
Derek Shepherd’s passing is still one of the saddest moments in television history. Watching an excellent surgeon and human being’s demise was traumatizing for fans. However, Derek’s own television family did not get the same chance to grieve.
Following Derek’s car accident and botched surgery, Meredith was notified and came to see him and gave the notice to remove him from life support. While Meredith was grieving the loss of her husband and true love, she made a very important error. She did not notify Derek’s family before she removed him from life support. Meredith can be forgiven for being a grieving widow, but she should have given the rest of Derek’s family an opportunity to say goodbye.
14. She Ruined the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial
Meredith’s heart may have been in the right place, but she made a big medical error in judgment during her work on the Alzheimer’s clinical trial. While running a clinical trial alongside Derek, Meredith is faced with a difficult choice. The Chief’s wife is a part of the trial, and Meredith wants to ensure that she will get the actual medication instead of a placebo. In order to ensure this, Meredith chooses to tamper with the study, which results in it being declared invalid.
Ensuring that The Chief’s wife got the proper meds was very noble, but did not guarantee her a cure. In fact, she wound up developing Alzheimer’s anyway. This decision also damaged Meredith’s medical career.
13. She gave Thatcher a liver transplan
Meredith’s relationship with her father Thatcher is about as complicated as the one with her mother. While he may seem like a well-assuming man, he never put his best foot forward as Meredith’s father. Furthermore, his battle with addiction has further developed a fissure in their relationship. Given such a storied past, it begs one question - why would she give him part of her liver?
For all Meredith’s talk of being dark, s he caved very quickly when her Father needed a liver transplant, despite her hatred for him. While she claims she did the transplant for Lexie’s sake, Meredith’s thought process made little sense. Not only does this prove that Meredith is a good person inside, but that she cannot make up her mind about how she feels about others.
11. She didn’t Notice Her Mom Was Pregnant
As the Grey family’s past continued to unfold Grey’s Anatomy, more secrets were uncovered. When Maggie Pierce joined the hospital, she was revealed to be Meredith’s half-sister; the illegitimate daughter of Ellis and Richard Webber.
Maggie had been put up for adoption as a newborn since both Ellis and Richard were married to other people. In an effort to learn more about her mother (and family), Maggie grew up to become a doctor. While this is a very feel-good story, it is very confusing from Meredith’s perspective. Meredith may have only been a young child at the time, but how could she not remember that her mother was pregnant for nine months?
10. She Spends No Time With Her Kids
Through her relationship with Derek, Meredith was able to build a beautiful family. Beginning with their adoptive daughter Zola, and rounding out with Derek Bailey and Ellis, the Shepherd-Grey family is full of little ones. How much time does Meredith really get to spend with her children?
Since Derek’s passing, Meredith has maintained her work schedule at Grey-Sloan and has even accepted promotions. She has also maintained an active social life with her friends. It is highly unlikely that she is able to spend a lot of quality time with her children. While it may not be fair to judge a single mother, Meredith should be making more of an effort to spend time with her children.
9. She ran toward toxic blood
Being a doctor at Seattle Grace likely required being a little bit crazy, considering some of the medical cases that stroll in on Grey’s Anatomy. However, sometimes there are precautions that are ignored by the doctors for the sake of maintaining drama.
In the episode “Wishin’ and Hopin’”, a cancer patient is admitted who has developed “toxic blood” from a mixture of herbal supplements and chemotherapy. After Burke and Shepherd pass out while operating in air-tight suits, the other doctors run in to the room to finish the job. Instead of covering herself in basic precautionary gear, Meredith runs in just holding her breath. It’s already been established that Meredith has no self-preservation, but this is getting ridiculous.
8. She was barely hurt in the plane crash
The infamous plane crash that wound up taking the lives of two doctors and the pilot, as well as injuring others, was a very devastating moment for Grey’s Anatomy. After losing Lexie, Arizona and Derek suffered serious injuries and Mark would pass away after returning home. It was difficult to watch. While the loss of life and injuries would reverberate through the rest of the series, one person was relatively unscathed.
Meredith went through the exact same trauma as the rest of the group, but was hardly hurt. Other than some scrapes and cuts, it almost looked like she had just fallen out of bed instead of the sky. Meredith has been able to survive a lot of crazy things over her years in Seattle, but walking off a plane crash with very little physical damage is certainly the most puzzling.
7. She Ran Away After Derek’s passing
Losing a husband must have been incredibly difficult for Meredith. After pledging her life on a Post-it Note to Derek, having to watch hims lose his life must be unimaginable. Despite the intense sadness she must have felt, what she really needed to get through this time was a solid support system. Fortunately, Meredith had this in the form of her close friends.
Unfortunately, Meredith chose to ignore that lifeline of support. Instead, she took her kids to San Diego for an entire year and did not let anyone know where she was headed. Friends like Cristina, Alex, and Richard were left in the dark, wondering how they could help. Meredith may have felt like she needed space, but it would have been much easier to get through her pain if she had been around those who love her.
6. She Sued Seattle Grace While Still Working There
Following the plane crash, the group of survivors would eventually return to work as doctors. While some of them were more limited in their abilities, they were proud to return to the medical profession. However, following some time after the accident, they grouped together to sue the plane company. Unfortunately, their lawyers turned things around and wound up suing the hospital instead.
Does it sound like a good idea to sue your own employer? With everyone still healing - emotionally and physically - from the accident, this decision was questionable. The suit wound up bankrupting the hospital that they all worked at. While things did end up working out in the end, Meredith’s involvement in suing the hospital was ill-advised.
5. She Ran Around For Surgeries While Pregnant
In one of the more tragic moments in Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith lost a bay. After many tries at getting pregnant, Meredith learned that she would not be able to naturally carry children. While this did result in her and Derek adopting Zola, it was very difficult for them to deal with. However, they experienced a miracle when Meredith became pregnant in season nine.
After all that pain, Meredith did not seem to be taking proper care of herself during her final trimester. While working in the hospital during a super-storm, a very pregnant Meredith was running around the hospital trying to stay involved in surgeries. Unfortunately, this resulted in her falling down stairs. Given how many preventable cases Meredith sees everyday, she should have known to be more careful, especially since it took her so long to conceive a child.
4. She got Mad At Derek For Moving to DC
Meredith Grey’s emotional spectrum has a very large range, which makes it difficult to foresee how she will react to things. Derek dealt with this directly when he approached her about his “dream job” offer in DC. Unfortunately, Meredith did not act in a supportive way at all.
Marriage is supposed to be a process of compromise, but Meredith was not willing to compromise for Derek to live out a big opportunity. While Derek should have been more open to discussion about the position, Meredith was not budging about her feelings. Both doctors have very strong personalities, but at least one of them should have been more giving in this scenario.
12. The Fork in the MRI machine
Despite all her personal faults, Meredith is certainly a great doctor. She has been involved in many complex surgeries and is gifted enough to notice things that even seasoned surgeons have missed. While these qualities have landed her a Harper-Avery Award and the position as Head of General Surgery, she has also made mistakes. Letting a patient with a fork protruding from her neck enter an MRI machine is certainly at the top of the list.
In the episode “Band-Aid Covers A Bullet Hole”, a woman enters the hospital with a fork in her neck. While the wound needs to be examined and treated, Meredith takes her to get an MRI. Considering an MRI is a gigantic magnet, this is an awful idea. While the show did not explore these consequences, it was apparent to the entire viewing audience.
3. She Failed her intern exam
George O’Malley gave fans insight into what would happen if one of the interns failed their entry exam. Despite having all the practical abilities of a surgeon, George’s low score on his exam (by only two points!) meant that he had to repeat his intern year. While George would wind up catching up to the rest of his group quickly, it was embarrassing for him. The real question that came out of this situation is, why didn’t Meredith have to do the same thing?
In the “Testing 1-2-3 “episode in season three, Meredith completely bombs her intern exam by not answering a single question on the test. While this would be an automatic failure, she is allowed to retake the test alongside the Chief. Meanwhile, George took the test like he was supposed to and had to repeat his entire year.
2. She Asked To Be Shot
Aside from the plane crash, the Seattle Grace-Mercy West shooting was the most traumatizing thing to occur on Grey’s Anatomy. When the husband of a former patient seeks to take his anger out on Derek, there are too many fatalities involved. After shooting Derek once, the gunman sees that doctor are working to save him. He threatens to take them out in order to finish the job, but Meredith asks him to turn the gun on her instead.
While this was an attempt to distract the shooter, it had some further grave results. Meredith was pregnant at the time of the shooting, and this trauma resulted in her losing her baby. Her heart was certainly in the right place in trying to save Derek, but there was surely a better way which would have resulted in less tragedy.
1. She lost touch with Cristina
Throughout all the pain in Meredith’s life, there has been one constant thing - Cristina is her “person.” Even in times of trouble with Derek, Cristina is the one she could count on. When Cristina accepted an offer to run her own hospital in Germany, it meant the end of their dance parties and hang-outs. However, they vowed to remain in contact as much as possible to support each other, but we don’t see that on screen.
With things like FaceTime and Skype, they could be in constant communication, yet Meredith goes months without contacting her. While it is unrealistic for Cristina to fly to America often, Meredith should be in more contact with her “person.” Cristina did attend Derek’s funeral, but Sandra Oh was not actually present and a stand-in was used. With so many life-changing things occurring in Meredith’s life, she should be picking up the phone more often.
Are there any other issues with Meredith that Grey’s Anatomy fans overlook? Let us know in the comments!
