Grey’s Anatomy: Every Character Who Was Fired (& Why)

Although the characters in Grey’s Anatomy are very professional and careful at the hospital, that hasn’t saved them from being suspended and even fired, but why did lead character Meredith Grey get fired? Meredith isn’t the only character who has been fired; there are others who have gone through the same, though all for different reasons. Created by Shonda Rhimes, Grey’s Anatomy premiered on ABC in 2005 and has been unstoppable ever since, becoming one of the most popular medical dramas in TV history. It continues to have a loyal fanbase that keeps following the lives of Meredith Grey and company.

Grey’s Anatomy follows the basic premise of medical dramas and focuses on the lives of surgical interns, residents, and attendings as they do their best to balance their personal and professional lives, which end up overlapping and making way for a lot of drama inside and outside the hospital. Meredith Grey has been the lead of Grey’s Anatomy since the first episode, so viewers have seen her go from an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital to head of general surgery at the same hospital, now named Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, but the road to that hasn’t been easy. Meredith has either witnessed or been directly involved in a number of tragedies and tough situations at work, which have led her to be fired. In fact, there have been eight other characters who have also been fired just like Meredith.

Meredith Grey

Played by Ellen Pompeo

Meredith Grey has been fired twice on Grey’s Anatomy. Both of the reasons for those firings, however, were very different.

First, Meredith was fired after tampering with Derek Shepherd’s (Patrick Dempsey) Alzheimer’s trial. While Derek worked on finding a cure for Alzheimer’s following the death of Meredith’s mother, Ellis Grey, Adele’s (Richard’s wife) condition began to worsen, and she was put on the trial. In order for her to get the active agent and not the placebo, Meredith switched the envelopes and tainted the trial in the process, which got her fired. In addition to that, this decision almost cost her and Derek the adoption of their daughter, Zola, but ultimately, they were able to adopt her, and she returned to the hospital.

Years later, Meredith was fired again due to insurance fraud. In order to help a patient suffering from lymphoma who needed surgery and years of treatment and follow-up, Meredith listed her as her own daughter so that the insurance would cover the surgery. This situation turned out to be a lot more complicated, and she was not only fired but she was also sent to jail for a while.

Alex Karev

Played by Justin Chambers

Like Meredith, Alex Karev was also fired twice. At one point, Alex left Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to join a private practice with Oliver Lebackes, with the purpose of making enough money to pay off his medical school debts. However, Maggie Pierce accidentally revealed that Alex was looking for a spot on the board, so Lebackes fired him, but he was hired back as an attending at Grey Sloan.

Years later, Alex, along with Richard Webber, was fired for covering up Meredith’s insurance fraud, which led him to apply for the Chief of Surgery spot at Pacific Northwest General Hospital, which he got. Sometime later, Alex left Grey’s Anatomy as he moved to Kansas with Izzie Stevens and their twins, as he didn’t want them to grow up in a broken home, as he did.

Izzie Stevens

Played by Katherine Heigl

Izzie Stevens went through a lot during her time in Grey’s Anatomy, and the icing on this chaotic cake was being fired. After dealing with the death of her fiancé Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and her best friend George O’Malley (T.R. Knight), and battling cancer, Izzie seemed to be ready to get her life back on track. One mistake derailed her again though.

After accidentally administering the wrong dosage of medicine to a patient, which led her to not get the kidney transplant she desperately needed, and the hospital going through budget cuts due to the Seattle Grace/Mercy West merger, Izzie was fired. Now free of cancer and her relationship with Alex over, Izzie had no reason to stay in Seattle and left, though she eventually got back together with Alex after he learned she used the frozen embryos from before her cancer treatment and had twins.

Though Heigl had expressed interest in returning to the show to close out her character’s storyline at a later date, creator Shonda Rhimes didn’t invite the actress back. There have long been rumors about a falling out between the two after Heigl declined to submit herself for an Emmy nomination because she didn’t feel the “material warranted one.” When asked about Heigl potentially returning by TV Guide after Heigl left the show in 2010, Rhimes made it clear that she wouldn’t be asking the actress to return to play Izzie Stevens:

It was really nice to hear her appreciating the show. We are on a track we have been planning, and the idea of changing that track is not something we are interested in right now.

Richard Webber

Played by James Pickens Jr.

Being the Chief of Surgery and one of the best doctors in Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t been enough to keep Webber safe from being fired. As mentioned above, Webber was fired along with Alex Karev for covering up Meredith’s insurance fraud, and just like Alex, he got a job at Pacific Northwest General Hospital.

Unlike Alex, however, Webber didn’t leave Grey’s Anatomy, and he’s one of only three of season 1’s characters to still be an active part of the series, but his return to Grey Sloan was surrounded by a lot of drama, as his wife Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) bought Pac-North, which led to Webber being re-hired at Grey Sloan.

April Kepner

Played by Sarah Drew

April Kepner was fired shortly after the Seattle Grace/Mercy West merger, though her firing is regarded as an unfair one, even by the characters in Grey’s Anatomy. When a mass hotel fire brought an overflow of patients into the ER, and as her patient didn’t need surgery, April forgot to check down her airway, which was filled with soot. April was distracted by the chaos at the ER and didn’t check on her patient, who couldn’t breathe and went into cardiac arrest hours later. After investigating the case, April was pointed out as the responsible one and was fired.

Luckily for her, when Derek became Chief of Surgery, he rehired April as he thought she was unfairly fired and deserved a second chance. April eventually left Grey’s Anatomy to help homeless communities in Seattle and later moved to Boston with Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) to run the Harper Avery Foundation.

Teddy Altman

Played by Kim Raver

Teddy Altman’s firing happened under special circumstances. Teddy was offered the Chief job at the US Army Medical Command (MEDCOM), which was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but she decided not to take it because she felt Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) needed her. In order for her to take the job, Owen fired her, and even though Teddy tried to fight back, she eventually accepted it and took the job at MEDCOM. Teddy eventually returned to Seattle and Grey Sloan after Bailey offered her the job of Interim Chief of Surgery.

Eliza Minnick

Played by Marika Dominczyk

Eliza Minnick was a consultant hired to revamp Grey Sloan’s surgical residency program in season 13, but she didn’t stay for long. After an oxygen tank explosion caused a fire at the hospital, Jackson asked Eliza to inform the police that Stephanie was missing, but choosing to follow the protocol instead, Eliza got the patients out of the building and forgot about Stephanie. This resulted in Stephanie getting severe burns that led her to quit medicine, and even though Eliza defended herself, Bailey told her they don’t need surgical robots who strictly follow protocols, but doctors who know when to ditch these to save patients, so she was fired.

Leah Murphy

Played by Tessa Ferrer

Leah Murphy was a surgical resident who was fired during her second year of residency. Leah heard that a resident was going to be fired and Webber invited her to work with him that day. Webber coached her throughout the surgery, but he pulled her aside and told her that, although she was an excellent doctor, her surgical skills were lacking, so she became the resident who was fired. Leah was re-hired after proving herself, but she disappeared from Grey’s Anatomy sometime later.

Vikram Roy

Played by Rushi Kota

Vikram Roy was a surgical intern at Grey Sloan, and just like Meredith and Alex, he got fired twice, but the first time he fought to get his job back. When Arizona got cookies from an appreciative patient that, unbeknownst to her, were actually weed cookies, Vik took one and later lied about it so that he could enter a surgical contest. However, when he went to a patient who needed a central line, he freaked out as a consequence of the weed, backed up into a cart, fell, and got stabbed in the arm with a scalpel. This led Webber to fire him for endangering a patient, but he sued the hospital for wrongful termination. Vik agreed to drop the suit and go back to work if he got paid for the weeks he missed and for a formal apology from Bailey, and he was re-hired with a one-year probationary period.

Sometime later, during Alex’s time as interim chief, a man named Tad arrived with a nosebleed, and Vik parked him in a bed and said he would be back. He returned five hours later and Tad was still bleeding and coughing up blood, and he eventually died. Vik refused to call the time of death even though Tad was his patient and left saying he was just an intern and Tad’s death wasn’t on him. This led Alex to fire him as he lied about having taken care of Tad and for his inability to take responsibility for his actions.

While most of the firings of Grey’s Anatomy doctors were justified, some of them, like April Kepner’s were clearly unfair. The reasons for the firings have many different reasons, and future seasons of the show will likely still contain many different reasons.