From McSteamy to Mind-Blowing Drama: You Won’t Believe Which Grey’s Anatomy Doctors Made the Ultimate Cut!

 

This was the main cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” when the ABC soap opera premiered in March 2005. Of the actors seen here, only three series regulars remain: Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr.

Following the death of “Grey’s Anatomy” star Eric Dane, who played Mark “Dr. McSteamy” Sloan, here’s a look back at all the stars of the iconic medical drama.

Justin Chambers (Alex Karev, Seasons 1-16): We learn in Chambers’ final episode that Karev left his wife Jo (Camilla Luddington) to reunite offscreen with ex-wife Izzie — and the two children Izzie had using frozen embryos the two made back in Season 5.

Patrick Dempsey (Dr. Derek Shepherd, Seasons 1-11): Dempsey’s neurosurgeon, the longtime love of title character Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) who was known to fans as “McDreamy,” was fatally injured in the Season 11 finale.

After witnessing a crash, he tended to the injured and then was hit by a semi while leaving the scene, leaving him brain dead.

Behind the scenes: Dempsey still had a year left on his contract when he exited but had begun to cause strife on the set, leading creator Shonda Rhimes to kill off his character.

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Sandra Oh (Dr. Cristina Yang, Seasons 1-10): No drama here. After 10 years, Yang was simply ready to move on. So, the show wrote out her cutthroat cardiothoracic surgeon by giving her a new job in Switzerland running a private research hospital where she could continue her groundbreaking use of 3-D printing to replicate parts of the human heart.

Isaiah Washington (Dr. Preston Burke, Seasons 1-3): The quiet but intense cardiothoracic surgeon left fiancée Cristina Yang at the altar in the Season 3 finale.

Burke went on to win a prestigious award at another hospital and later ran a private research hospital in Switzerland, which he later turned over to Yang when Oh left at the end of Season 10. He then moved to Italy with his wife and two daughters.

Behind the scenes: In 2006, during an on-set incident early in Season 3, Washington used a gay slur (assumed to be directed at costar T.R. Knight, who was not yet out at the time). He apologized, but after the show wrapped for the season, ABC declined to renew his contract. He did return as a guest star for Oh’s final episode in 2010, however.

Katherine Heigl (Dr. Isobel Stevens, Seasons 1-6): The surgeon, who financed her education by posing for lingerie ads, was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic skin cancer in Season 5, inspiring a deathbed wedding to fellow resident and on-again-off-again beau Alex Karev. But the marriage fell apart after the successful removal of her tumor, and Izzie left town.

Behind the scenes: Heigl, who had won a supporting actress Emmy for “Grey’s” and for a time had a burgeoning film career, ran afoul of the writers in Season 4 when she said the material wasn’t good enough to warrant Emmy consideration. Heigl later asked for and was granted early release from her contract. She floated the idea of coming back to give the Izzie Stevens character closure, but Rhimes wasn’t interested.

T.R. Knight (Dr. George O’Malley, Seasons 1-5): After finally discovering his medical calling (trauma surgery), O’Malley joined the U.S. Army.

His coworkers were discussing how to talk him out of it while treating a disfigured John Doe. That patient, they later figured out, was O’Malley. He was declared brain dead, and his organs were donated.

Behind the scenes: Feeling he hadn’t been given enough to do in Season 5, Knight asked to be released from his contract three years early.

Sara Ramirez (Dr. Callie Torres, Seasons 2-12): Torres, an orthopedic surgeon written into the show as a love interest for George O’Malley, eventually came out as lesbian, married fellow surgeon Dr. Arizona Robbins and had a daughter. But after Torres was unfaithful, the relationship broke down and they divorced.

After Ramirez decided to take a break from TV, the character lost custody of their daughter and decided to move to New York with her new girlfriend.

Eric Dane (Dr. Mark Sloan, Seasons 2-9): The plastic surgeon, dubbed “Dr. McSteamy,” broke up Derek and Addison Shepherd’s marriage and later followed Addison to Grey Sloan Memorial.

Sloan was severely injured in a crash while flying with coworkers to separate conjoined twins in Idaho. In the Season 9 opener, his colleagues complied with his will’s instructions that he be taken off life support if he was still unconscious after a month.

Chyler Leigh (Dr. Alexandra “Lexie” Grey, Seasons 3-8): The Harvard-trained half-sister of Meredith Grey was trying to get back together with boyfriend Mark Sloan when the Grey Sloan Memorial team’s plane crashed in the Season 8 finale.

Lexie was crushed under debris from the plane and died on the scene, but not before Sloan told her he was still in love with her, too.

Kate Walsh (Dr. Addison Montgomery, Seasons 2-3): After breaking up with husband Derek Shepherd for good, the neonatal surgeon’s biological clock began ticking. She took a trip to LA to visit a fertility specialist friend and wound up joining her practice.

Her new life was documented in the spin-off “Private Practice,” which ran from 2007 to 2013.

Brooke Smith (Dr. Erica Hahn, Seasons 2-5): The cardiothoracic surgeon character was brought in as a replacement for Preston Burke, a mentor to Cristina Yang and the first same-sex love interest for Callie Torres.

But when Torres slept with Mark Sloan to prove to herself that she was no longer straight, Hahn broke things off and left the hospital.

Behind the scenes: Despite the Callie-Erica romance earning initial praise from GLAAD for the realistic portrayal of a same-sex relationship, ABC abruptly let Smith go early in Season 5. The show eventually cast Jessica Capshaw as a new love interest for Ramirez’s character.

Kim Raver (Dr. Teddy Altman, Seasons 6-8): The cardiothoracic surgeon came to Grey Sloan Memorial after working as an Army doctor in Iraq. She eventually returned to the military, taking a job at the U.S. Army Medical Command.

Raver returned as a series regular in Season 14.

Jerrika Hinton (Dr. Stephanie Edwards, third left, Seasons 9-13): After being burned in a hospital accident, Edwards left Grey Sloan Memorial, citing a desire to experience life outside of a hospital.

Gaius Charles (Dr. Shane Ross, second left, Seasons 9-10): After killing Alex Karev’s father during a mental breakdown in Season 10, Dr. Ross goes to work for Cristina Yang, with whom he had a brief sexual relationship, in Switzerland.

Jessica Capshaw (Dr. Arizona Robbins, Seasons 5-14): Despite her messy divorce from Callie Torres, Robbins maintained a coparenting relationship with Torres for their daughter, Sofia.

In the Season 14 finale, Robbins moved with Sofia to New York to deal with Sofia’s disciplinary problems, signaling the possibility a reconciliation with Torres.

Capshaw returned for a guest appearance in Season 20 when Robbins was called back to Grey Sloan Memorial to perform fetal surgery as part of a clinical trial.

Sarah Drew (Dr. April Kepner, Seasons 6-14): Drew was a resident-turned-trauma specialist who joined Grey Sloan Memorial after it merged with her hospital.

Kepner quit her job at the hospital in the Season 14 finale to do charity work and also married paramedic Matthew Taylor. Drew reprised the role for guest appearances in Seasons 17 and 18.

Richard Flood (Cormac Hayes, Seasons 16-18): Hayes is introduced in Season 16 as Karev’s replacement for chief of pediatric surgery.

A single parent and widower, Hayes later bonded with Meredith Grey over the grief of losing a spouse. He left Grey Sloan Memorial in Season 18 after deciding to return to Ireland with his children.

Scott Speedman (Nick Marsh, Seasons 14, 18-20): Marsh, a transplant surgeon from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, met Meredith Grey in Season 14 when he collapsed during a visit to Grey Sloan Memorial (Grey treated him for a kidney transplant-related blood clot).

Marsh and Grey reconnected in Season 18 and developed a romantic relationship when Grey began visiting Minnesota to develop a cure for Parkinson’s disease. Despite later splitting up, Grey offered him a position as director of Grey’s residency program after the pair performed a triple organ transplant.

Chris Carmack (Atticus “Link” Lincoln, Seasons 15-22): A child cancer survivor, Dr. Lincoln joined Grey Sloan Memorial as the hospital’s chief of orthopedic surgery.

Lincoln starts up a romance with Amelia Shepherd after her breakup with Owen Hunt. Although the couple goes on to raise Shepherd’s child together, Shepherd turns down Lincoln’s proposal for marriage in Season 17.

Jake Borelli (Dr. Levi Schmitt, Seasons 14-21): Something of an underdog, Schmitt was initially known as the intern whose glasses infamously fell on a patient during surgery. Despite the rocky start, he goes on to become a general surgical resident.

In his personal life, Schmitt came out as gay in Season 15 and began a relationship with orthopedic fellow Nico Kim.

Greg Germann (Tom Koracick, Seasons 14-19, 21): Koracick came to the rescue in Season 14 when he removed Amelia Shepherd’s tumor and continued as her substitute while she recovered.

Koracick also struck up a tumultuous love affair with Teddy Altman, despite Altman expecting a baby with Owen Hunt. In Season 17, following a bout of COVID-19, he moved to Boston to work at the Catherine Fox Foundation.

Midori Francis (Mika Yasuda, Seasons 19-21): Yasuda, a competitive surgical intern, fights for her career ambitions amid her struggle with student debt.

Yasuda’s financial troubles inspired Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliot) to advocate for disadvantaged residents. Yasuda and Helm later start dating, which leads to tensions when Helm becomes Yasuda’s boss as co-chief resident.

Anthony Hill (Winston Ndugu, Seasons 16-22): Ndugu, an attending cardiothoracic surgeon from Boston’s Tufts Medical Center, sparked a romance with his former teacher, Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary), in Season 17 when they reconnected during a conference.

Ndugu and Pierce eventually married following a long-distance relationship that culminated in Ndugu moving to Seattle. The couple separated in Season 19 when Pierce moved to Chicago and Ndugu became the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial.

Alexis Floyd (Simone Griffith, Seasons 19-22): Dr. Griffith works as a general surgical intern at Grey Sloan Memorial after losing her residency at another hospital following a viral incident, in which Griffith spoke up against a racist superior.

Griffith lived for a period of time at Meredith’s house but later moved out after Meredith moved to Boston.

Harry Shum Jr. (Benson “Blue” Kwan, Seasons 19-22): A Yale University dropout, Kwan was forced to leave medical school when his mother became terminally ill, and he was saddled with debt from his mom’s treatments.

Kwan resumed his medical career after enrolling at a school in the Caribbean, later becoming a general surgical intern at Grey Sloan Memorial. He also developed an on-again-off-again relationship with Jules Millin.

Adelaide Kane (Jules Millin, Seasons 19-22): Millin, a general surgical intern, was reluctant to enter a romance with Kwan after she failed her previous residency placement due to becoming distracted by a relationship.

Millin also struggles in her relationship with her irresponsible family, whom she often has to bail out of legal trouble.

Niko Terho (Lucas Adams, Seasons 19-22): The nephew of Amelia Shepherd and Derek Shepherd, Adams works hard to hide his family legacy and prove himself at Grey Sloan Memorial, where he works as a general surgical intern.

Adams later moves into Meredith Grey’s house after spending weeks living at the Grey Sloan on-call room.

Trevor Jackson (Wes Bryant, Seasons 21-22): Bryant, a charismatic and brash surgical intern, shakes things up at Grey Sloan Memorial with his messy love triangle with Simone Griffith and Lucas Adams.