Grey's Anatomy action page

Grey's Anatomy Action Page

Please send a letter to Grey's Anatomy! Please click on the link on the most recent show analysis and send the accompanying letter (or one of your own.)

Also, after you have sent your letter, please go to the ABC "Grey's Anatomy" message board and post your comments or your letter to change the way the fans think about the show, to help pressure "Grey's Anatomy" to either improve or get off the air.

Please call Charissa Gilmore at 1-818-460-7950 to ask her to remedy the portrayal of nursing on "Grey's Anatomy." Click here to send our most recent letter to "Grey's Anatomy" producers.

You can write to the show at:

Mark Gordon, Betsy Beers, Krista Vernoff
Executive Producers, "Grey's Anatomy"
The Mark Gordon Company
12200 W. Olympic Blvd., Ste 250
Los Angeles, CA 90064 USA

Shonda Rhimes
Executive Producer, "Grey's Anatomy"
Shondaland
4151 Prospect Ave. 4th Fl.
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Channing Dungey, VP Drama Series
Touchstone Television
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521

Charissa Gilmore, VP Media Relations
Touchstone Television
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521

"Grey's Anatomy" single episiode analyses

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

January 25, 2007 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" includes a short scene in which attending physician Mark Sloane praises nurses as "helpful," "smart," and "already good at their jobs." We give the show credit for trying. But the scene presents Sloane as inflicting seemingly grotesque, trivial nursing tasks on interns Meredith Grey and Alex Karev as a punishment, with no hint that the tasks might be important to patient outcomes--a "Grey's" scenario that is sadly familiar (see examples 1, 2, 3, 4). So the scene suggests that physicians do nursing work, that nurses are helpful physician helpers, that nursing tasks are unpleasant and insignificant, and that nurses are all already good at their jobs because there isn't much to their jobs, in contrast to real professions like medicine, in which people must practice for years to achieve proficiency. The "smart" comment will have little effect given these problems, and given that "Grey's" has spent the last two years telling the world that nurses are disagreeable twits. Indeed, that comment may be the biggest insult of all, because it suggests the show thinks nurses can be mollified with such an unpersuasive pat on the head. The episode, Eric Buchman's "Great Expectations," was seen by 21.5 million viewers in its initial U.S. airing. more...and join our letter-writing campaign!

McSteamed

In response to our item about the January 25, 2007 episode of "Grey's Anatomy," entitled "Great Expectations," a nurse has submitted a great script idea. Our analysis focused on a scene in which attending Mark Sloane punishes two surgical interns by giving them what is presented as the trivial, grotesque task of treating bedsores, suggesting that he's not asking the nurses who would normally do it because he likes them. Please see below for a powerful idea for the scene written by Mandy Mayling, RN. Ms. Mayling envisions what might have happened if Seattle Grace actually had nurse managers. Click here to see the script...

Digging through crap

November 9, 2006 -- Tonight ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" included a plotline in which the "nurse's job" of "dig[ging] through crap" was used relentlessly as a symbol of professional disaster for the show's smart, ambitious surgical interns. Intern Cristina Yang spends most of the episode sifting through the stool of a boy who has swallowed Monopoly pieces. This is presented as a brutal punishment from Cristina's chief resident. Intern Izzie Stevens joins Cristina, in a desperate effort to avoid her own mandatory peer counseling. The plotline equates nursing with disgusting, trivial work that no educated, ambitious person would ever want to do (ewww!). Later, nurse Moe pages Cristina when the boy starts vomiting. Cristina quickly diagnoses a perforated bowel and directs the clueless Moe to page the chief resident. Thus, nurses do alert physicians to obvious changes in patient conditions, so the physicians can give life-saving care. Physicians also provide all other important care on the show, though nurses may be present at the edge of the main action, silently doing some little nurse thing. The episode, Mark Wilding's "Where the Boys Are," was seen by 20.6 million viewers in its initial U.S. airing. more...

"We're all 17 years old"

September 28, 2006 -- This season's first two episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" included handmaiden portrayals and physician nursing that flowed naturally from the show's comically superficial approach to health care. In the September 21 premiere, written by Shonda Rhimes and seen by 25 million U.S. viewers, experienced nurse Olivia confronts a sick newborn much as a deer faces headlights. Intern Alex orders Olivia to get him IV materials as he whisks the baby out of the flu-stricken ED. At first Olivia can only babble "How old's that baby?", and sputter that she's just been sent down from the floor to handle the flu overflow. But she does recover enough to snap that the infant has to be admitted to the hospital--which Alex of course ignores, since he's all about saving lives. In tonight's episode, written by Krista Vernoff and seen by 23.3 million, nurse Tyler informs intern Cristina that he was part of a team that just saved a life in a code. But we get no specifics. And Tyler tells Cristina only to justify his failure to earn the $20 she paid him to act as a lookout, so she could have sex with her boyfriend, an ailing attending surgeon, in his hospital bed. Tyler seems to get the last laugh, but he's still a lackey who accepts $20 tips for tasks other than his real job. Later, we see what Tyler really does for patients. He pages intern George to tell him that a pre-op lung cancer patient has been shoplifting and is planning to leave without having her operation. Then Tyler steps back to let George handle the important health care issues. Seriously? Seriously. more...

An Inconvenient Truth

May 15, 2006 -- Tonight's two-hour season finale of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" featured a remarkable level of physician nursing, even by the no-nurse standard the show has maintained since its two January 2006 nursing strike episodes. Those episodes now seem like a token effort to get nurses off the show's back, so it could go on with its inaccurate and damaging portrayal, regardless of the central role nurses actually play in hospital care--a reality that seems to be no more than a minor inconvenience to the show. In the finale's main care-related subplots, physician characters do everything that matters, with no nurses in sight. And an enormous amount of what they do would have been done by nurses in real life. Physician characters do all patient monitoring, all patient emotional support, all family relations, all patient advocacy, and virtually all supportive and therapeutic care. When nurse Olivia does briefly appear, she is presented as a timid physician lackey whom senior resident Bailey drags in to take over heart-pumping for intern Izzie, who has lost her heart to transplant patient Denny, and her mind to the show's producers. As in other post-January episodes, no one here directly suggests that nurses are sluts or losers, and perhaps nurses' protests have at least achieved that. The first episode, "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response," was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan; the second, "Losing My Religion," was written by series creator Shonda Rhimes. This initial airing drew an estimated 22.5 million U.S. viewers. more...

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

January 29, 2006 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's hit "Grey's Anatomy" featured the conclusion of the nursing strike plotline begun last week. "Break on Through," written by Zoanne Clack, MD, seemed to be an effort to show nurses some respect, and we give the show credit for that. The episode did manage to convey that the nurses' complaints about short-staffing and forced overtime had merit, that nurse staffing had been sacrificed to short-sighted cost-cutting, and that the hospital needed the nurses in order to run efficiently. Ultimately, the hospital agreed to hire more nurses and the strike ended. Unfortunately, the episode wrongly presented the chief of surgery as managing all the nurses. More broadly, the episode continued the show's tradition of damaging misinformation and unrebutted anti-nurse slurs. Nurses were seen as focused on administration and care tasks that the episode's 18.5 million viewers are likely to find trivial, like changing bedpans, handing things to physicians, minor handholding, and tracking little patient quirks. Physicians were depicted as saving lives, and handling exciting work that nurses do in real life, including all key patient relations, all monitoring, all significant clinical interventions--and of course, managing the nurses. Indeed, since physician characters on the show do all the nursing that matters anyway, the strike made virtually no difference in the episode's clinical scenes. more...

Sweet Little Lies

A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth, especially about oneself.

-- Richard Pryor

January 22, 2006 - Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" included a surprising (if minor) subplot in which nurse characters complained about short-staffing, began a sick-out, and even threatened to strike--which will actually occur in the Jan. 29 episode. In the Jan. 22 episode, the nurses try desperately to cope, while the hospital ignores their concerns. We haven't seen these issues addressed in any significant way on a U.S. prime time show since a January 2002 episode of Lifetime's "Strong Medicine." We give "Grey's Anatomy" credit for trying. But we also note that: (1) in this episode, the nurses' jobs seemed to consist of managing hospital room occupancies and paperwork, with no hint that they play any important role in direct care; (2) the show's 10 physician stars continued to provide all significant care, including much that nurses do in real life; (3) the episode wrongly told its 21.3 million U.S. viewers that the disgruntled nurses report to the chief of surgery, and nurse managers remained nonexistent; and (4) the episode continued the show's association of the few, unpleasant nurses who do occasionally appear with problems (bureaucracy, infidelity, STDs, failure, strikes, and so on). The show seems to be saying that the nurses are bitter serfs, but if physicians ignore or abuse them enough, they will strike back. The well-named episode, "Tell Me Sweet Little Lies," was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan. more...

Nurses strike Seattle Grace Hospital? What nurses?

January 23, 2006 -- The Jan. 22 episode of ABC's hit "Grey's Anatomy" (analysis pending) actually had a minor subplot in which nurses expressed frustration with short-staffing (!). And the episode set to air on Jan. 29 will evidently feature a nursing strike, with a focus on the struggle of the show's 10 physician characters to cope without nurses. Of course, since these physicians already provide virtually all the nursing on the show, including key procedures, monitoring, and patient relations that nurses do in real life, you might well ask just what additional things the physicians are going to do in this episode. If the Jan. 22 episode is any guide, we'll see the pretty intern stars trying to do their important jobs as well as what the show will likely present as the nurses' annoying administrative and grunt work. In the Jan. 22 episode, the nurses' jobs seemed to consist of managing room occupancies and paperwork. The show's few, generally nameless nurses are often associated with problems (bureaucracy, petulance, infidelity, STDs, porn, failure, strikes, we could go on), but not with important patient care. And while we appreciate the show's nod at the short-staffing that now threatens many nurses' practice, the Jan. 22 episode wrongly told viewers that the disgruntled nurses reported to the chief of surgery--a damaging inaccuracy for an autonomous profession in the midst of what may be the worst shortage in its history. By the way, none other than TV Guide noted in its preview for the Jan. 29 episode (Jan. 23-29 issue) that it had "hardly even noticed there were nurses on this show. (Except for the syph-giving one...)" Right. Anyway, we urge all to watch the episode, and let the show creators know whether it gives a good sense of what happens to patients when nurses are not there. more...

Plot devices in scrubs

December 11, 2005 -- The last two episodes of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" are notable for more of the show's now-familiar explicit expressions of contempt for nurses (e.g., "skanky syph nurse"). But they also illustrate how nurse characters serve as convenient plot devices for the show. Nurses are vehicles through which the show's pretty physician heroes confront failure, fate, infidelity, class differences, and, for the women, latent fears about female subservience and their own sexual virtue. In fairness, several scenes in the December 4 episode, Mark Wilding's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" (20.75 million viewers), make a stab at "ER"-style handmaiden portrayals, which would actually be a step up. In these, nurses are minimally skilled subordinates who may detect basic changes in patient conditions, and in one case even predict that a specific treatment will not work. But they are helpless to address serious problems, and they look to the physicians--interns, no less--for all care decisions that matter. And with tonight's episode, Krista Vernoff's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," it's back to the physician nursing, as the physician characters do all monitoring, all patient interactions, and all key procedures, including defibrillation. The nurses do seem up to catching vomit, though, so that's something. more...

The Drunk and the Ugly

November 6, 2005 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," seen by 19 million people, featured yet another anti-nurse slur from one of the show's pretty physician heroes. Hotshot intern Cristina Yang dismissed a veteran nurse from a patient's room with a comment that the physicians would let her know if a bedpan needed changing. Rather than objecting to this, the nurse took revenge by paging Yang to do a series of grotesque bodily fluid tasks. We realize that this fantasy about workplace roles was likely intended as a token effort to show nurses respect. But it still associates nursing with icky tasks that seem menial, wrongly suggests that physicians help with them, reinforces battleaxe stereotypes, and does nothing to show what nursing is really about. On the contrary, it is fully consistent with the show's vision of nurses as fawning or vindictive losers whose lives revolve the physician characters who provide all meaningful care, including key tasks that nurses do in real life. The episode suggests that the problem with anti-nurse slurs is not that they're inaccurate, or ultimately a threat to public health. It's just, as one resident notes, "stupid" to "piss[] off the nurses"-- the petty little clean-up crew of health care. The episode, "Something to Talk About," was written by Stacy McKee. The medical consultant was Karen Lisa Pike, MD. more...

"Grey's Anatomy" doesn't care about nurse people

October 23, 2005 -- I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a nurse, it says, "she's naughty." You see a physician, it says, "she's saving lives." Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" marked an unwelcome return to series creator Shonda Rhimes' own writing about nurses. The popular series debuted earlier this year with Rhimes-penned episodes that featured female surgical interns furious that one of them had been compared to a nurse. Now Rhimes is back with more faux-feminist contempt. Tonight's episode, seen by 18.4 million people, suggested that naughty nurse video p*ornography was a viable pain management tool. It even featured tough intern Cristina Yang reluctantly composing a verbal naughty nurse scenario for an afflicted man when a storm knocked out the hospital's television system. Regardless of whether such female-focused p*orn is misogynous, as Yang suggests at one point, naughty nurse imagery like that this episode offers up mainly for laughs continues to be a factor in the devaluation of nursing. Indeed, in this season "Grey's Anatomy" nurses seem to pop up mainly as degraded tools in the show's ongoing sex farce (fulfilling sex stereotypes, spreading STD's, getting dumped for more attractive physicians), while the heroic, brilliant physicians provide all important care. In this episode, we did not see a nurse character utter a single line. more...

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We, the AMA, are controlling transmission.

September 2005 -- Late this month, Slate posted a piece by two Boston medical residents (and clinical fellows at Harvard) entitled "Paging Dr. Welby: The medical sins of Grey's Anatomy." Authors Ingrid Katz and Alexi Wright make some good points about the ABC hit's medical inaccuracies and distortions. But their main theme seems to be that things would be better if the American Medical Association had never lost its tight control over how physicians and presumably all health care events are portrayed, which has supposedly led to unsavory depictions of physicians as deeply flawed humans, rather than the godlike Welbys of yesteryear. This, along with medical inaccuracies generally, assertedly works to undermine vital public trust in physicians. Evidently, the authors would entrust public understanding of health care errors, health financing, scope of practice, access to care, and health policy generally to a lobbying organization representing a small minority of powerful health workers who lack expertise in many key areas of modern health care. The authors also overlook the media's ongoing portrayal of physicians as the heroic (if human) providers of all important health care. And they ignore the enormous influence individual physicians--like them--continue to wield over such depictions, influence that has, sadly, been a significant factor in the ongoing representation of nurses as peripheral subordinates who make no meaningful contribution to health care. more...

If Tomorrow Never Knows

May 1, 2005 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," written by Krista Vernoff, included an extraordinary scene in which a veteran nurse character guided one of the interns through treatment of a life-threatening cardiac tamponade. This is the kind of informal teaching of new physicians that experienced nurses commonly do but that Hollywood almost never shows, and we give the show credit for showing it. Unfortunately (you knew this was coming) the episode still manages to suggest that the intern alone saved the patient's life. It presents the unnamed and unrecognized nurse as a kind of humanoid how-to card, rather than a skilled professional whose expertise was the most critical factor in the patient's survival. When the episode isn't crediting physicians for work that nurses really do, it portrays them as physician helpers. The medical consultant was Karen Lisa Pike, MD.. more...

The scrubbed nurse

April 17, 2005 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" actually presented a significant nurse character, dying pancreatic cancer patient Elizabeth Fallon. We have to give the show credit for a nurse character who was not a huge problem at first glance. Indeed, the bedridden Fallon was formidable and savvy, and the show suggested that she was an excellent nurse, though it has never offered viewers any hint as to what excellent nursing might consist of. The bad news is that Fallon was also seen as a career physician appendage, and her main professional focus seemed to be gruffly charting the progress of the physicians around her. Otherwise, the show's physician nursing continued unabated. Surgeon characters provided all monitoring, emotional support and advocacy for patients, practiced hospice nursing, and even handled deceptively difficult nursing tasks like enemas and colostomies. The episode was written by James Parriott, and the medical advisor was Karen Lisa Pike, MD. more...

ABC's Touchstone sends a response to nurses' concerns on "Grey's Anatomy"

April 14, 2005 -- Today Charissa Gilmore, the Vice President responsible for Media Relations at ABC's Touchstone Television, sent the Center a letter in response to the outpouring of letters from nursing supporters on "Grey's Anatomy." Ms. Gilmore's letter expressed appreciation for nurses and appeared to take their concerns fairly seriously. But it stressed that a nurse advisor was involved in the show's production and that diverse nurse characters did appear on screen, noting that the episode scheduled to air Sunday April 17 would feature a "much loved former nurse" returning to the hospital as a patient. In response, the Center sent a letter explaining that its concern was with what viewers actually saw on screen, and that so far the show had been full of anti-nurse slurs and physician characters performing tasks that nurses do in real life, while nurses were wrongly seen as peripheral subordinates, when they appeared at all. Please read Ms. Gilmore's letter, see our response and send our instant letter or one of your own. Thank you.

"You should reprimand him...make him change bedpans."

April 10, 2005 -- Tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" featured rampant physician nursing, as the show's surgical interns did many important things that nurses do in real life, while nurses themselves were portrayed as peripheral subordinates. At the same time, the show doesn't seem able to get through an episode without at least one specific expression of contempt for nursing--in this case, a playful remark that associates a certain well-known nursing task with punishment for a junior staff member. Once again, show creator Shonda Rhimes wrote the episode, and the medical advisor was Karen Lisa Pike. ABC is already calling "Grey's Anatomy" one of the biggest new hits of the season, and this episode had a reported 18 million viewers. more...

"You're the pig who called Meredith a nurse...I hate you on principle."

April 3, 2005 -- Proving that its series premiere was no fluke, tonight's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" offered 18.2 million viewers more of its surgical intern characters' explicit contempt for nursing. But perhaps the episode's most notable feature was its relentless portrayal of physician nursing, as the physicians basically handled all meaningful patient care by themselves. Show creator Shonda Rhimes wrote the episode. The show's attractive lead actors and yearning guitar pop soundtrack seem to be persuading viewers to overlook some bogus writing and less than credible plotting, and it is shaping up to be a major new force in fostering inaccurate attitudes toward nursing. more...

ABC's "Grey's Anatomy": so chunky with Hollywood's contempt for nursing, you'll be tempted to use a fork. But use a scalpel!

March 27, 2005 -- Tonight ABC drew 16.3 million viewers to the series premiere of "Grey's Anatomy," a drama about surgical interns, especially attractive young female ones. Projecting edge but hedging with melodrama, the all-physician show combines elements of recent hospital shows like "ER" with overtones of "Sex and the City"--and "G.I. Jane." Show creator and executive producer Shonda Rhimes wrote the episode, and the "medical consultant" was Karen Lisa Pike, MD. We figured the show might be something like "House," which ignores nursing except to show physicians doing it, wrongly suggesting that they provide all meaningful care. "Grey's Anatomy" does that, but the premiere also embodies feminism's blind contempt for nursing, stressing that smart, tough, attractive women do not do the bedpan servant thing. Given the media's proven influence on the public, this widely seen premiere's regressive attack on nursing will likely do its part to exacerbate the nursing crisis that is taking lives worldwide. more...

"Grey's Anatomy": New ABC show boasts nine physician characters, no nurses

March 2005 -- On Sunday, March 27, at 10 p.m. (9c), ABC will broadcast the premiere of "Grey's Anatomy," a new television drama about the experiences of a group of physician interns, especially women, struggling to cope in a tough Seattle surgical program. We're trying to keep an open mind, but with a staggering nine out of nine recurring characters apparently surgeons, the show seems poised to offer millions of viewers yet another regressive, physican-centric drama in a season that has been crammed full of them. Because of the demonstrated influence of network dramas on the public's health-related views and actions, we hope all nurses--but especially OR nurses--will watch and let the show's producers know what they think. more...