Grey’s Anatomy Season 20 Just Exposed A Huge Problem With The Show’s Doctors

Warning! SPOILERS about Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 1 ahead.

While Grey’s Anatomy has often put its interns in difficult situations that could only see them fail throughout its twenty seasons, the medical drama’s season 20 premiere also highlighted one side of things never taken into consideration. Grey’s Anatomy season 19’s finale ended with an impossible situation for the interns, as Lucas and Simone tried to save Sam’s life while Mika kept Teddy alive after she collapsed just before cutting into Sam. A big question Grey’s Anatomy season 20’s premiere needed to answer entailed their fate, as all five from the new class acted in ways clearly against the rules.

Interns in Grey’s Anatomy have often been portrayed as prone to make the most basic mistakes, forced to do scut work before they could earn the privilege of entering an OR. Their mistakes and misbehaviors have been plenty over Grey’s Anatomy’s twenty seasons, and Meredith’s own class easily became an example of the most unethical practices they sometimes employed, like the cutting of Denny’s LVAD proved in season 2. However, the interns being first-years also entailed someone else should have been watching them, but nobody ever dared to question the doctors’ inability to be there for the interns before.

The Interns Are Often Unsupervised & Attendings Aren’t Held Accountable

Interns shouldn’t be left alone per Grey Sloan’s own rules & yet they so often are

While it happened less often in Grey’s Anatomy season 19 because Grey Sloan Memorial hoped to use the new class of interns to entice more residents to stay, the doctors still left the interns unsupervised. From Izzy’s LVAD stunt to Sadie Harris’s cutting herself so that fellow interns could practice sutures, interns couldn’t have gotten away with such ideas if they just were being supervised by their attendings. Even the last intern class in Grey’s Anatomy season 19, episode 3 managed to go off-script when teaching sex-ed, which got the students interested but still showed their ease to go off-course.

Mika’s outburst at Jo highlighted how her class might have done the wrong thing, but Sam’s actual doctors were nowhere to be found. Grey’s Anatomy rightfully highlighted the foolish things interns sometimes did just to be closer to operating, but it should have also let the responsibility fall on the attendings and residents who didn’t follow their interns closely. While Grey’s Anatomy often showed how stretched-thin residents and attendings were by work, they should have still been supervising the interns’ work on their patients, so that the interns’ rash decisions and mistakes could be prevented before they caused greater harm.

Past Interns Ignored Mika’s Problem As They Wanted Time In The OR No Matter What

Past interns would have jumped at the chance to operate, not facing Mika’s fears

Not knowing if Teddy survived and keeping her alive while Sam bled out proved harrowing for Yasuda, and Jo owed her an explanation. Mika’s words to Jo in Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 1 were true and valid for any intern who made a mistake unsupervised. However, past interns often showed such an eagerness to operate that they didn’t care if that happened when they were supervised or not. O’Malley himself was forced to perform cardiothoracic surgery in an elevator, not showing any doubt or fear, because operating on someone was always the objective, even if that happened improperly unsupervised.

Mika’s Words Finally Highlighted How The Onus Is Also On The Interns’ Teachers

Jo & Link should have been reachable instead of confessing their love to each other in the rain

Due to the emotional nature of Mika’s outburst, Jo managed to write off her reaction’s validity. However, the basic idea behind Mika’s request was that attendings should be the ones responsible, especially of those considered their patients. While getting closer to an OR could have made any intern giddy and thankful to be involved, interns were never supposed to take the big responsibility of handling patients on their own. Doctors repeatedly highlighted throughout Grey’s Anatomy that Grey Sloan was a teaching hospital, but Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 1’s events showed it was almost only in name in that case.

Jo and Link’s long-awaited love confession not only made them unavailable when Sam needed them the most but also at a time when the interns could have learned a lot from them trying to save Sam, even if they didn’t succeed in the end. Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 1 eventually revealed that no intern was to be fired because of what happened.

However, given how the interns should have never ended up treating a patient alone, consequences should befall the attendings, who once again left them to bear the brunt of handling a situation they were unequipped for and be responsible for the blood on their hands, when it should have never been theirs. Hopefully, Grey’s Anatomy season 20 finally highlighting the repeated lapses of Grey Sloan Memorial’s doctors when managing interns can finally start a bigger discourse on the intern system, making it more educational and rewarding for the interns, without them suffering having to make such difficult decisions.