When we were younger and were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, I think it’s safe to say that most us at one point replied, “A doctor.”
Once we got older, though, and were able to understand the educational and physical demands of becoming a doctor, some of us opted for a different career path. Another handful of us, who still enjoyed being a part of the medical world, even chose to admire the work of doctors from afar via the television show Grey’s Anatomy.
Arguably one of the most addicting shows out there today, Grey’s Anatomy portrays the personal and work lives of surgeons at Seattle Grace Hospital in Washington. The television series began all the way back in 2005 and currently has over 250 episodes.
In honor of National Doctor’s Day this Mar. 30, here are five medical cases from Grey’s Anatomy that were among the most memorable.
1. The lady with all the orgasms (S2, E18)
When a woman named Pamela is brought into the hospital for having a seizure and causing a car accident, doctors soon figure out that her “seizure-like episodes” are actually orgasms… and she has a lot of them! Although initially insensitive toward Pamela’s condition by asking her why she would ever want to fix it, the doctors realize that orgasms are just not appropriate in certain public places, like during church service or at the movies alongside your father.
2. The girl who felt no pain (S3, E3)
Known as the “kid with superpowers,” Abigail Breslin plays a little girl named Megan who, regardless if for the good or the bad, cannot feel any sort of pain. When doctors initially believe her foster parents are abusing her due to her numerous cuts and bruises, they later diagnose her with CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis)—a rare genetic disorder of the nervous system that prevents any sensation of pain—after she continued to repeat, “It doesn’t hurt. Punch me in the stomach, I’ll prove it.”
3. The woman with toxic blood (S3, E14)
Throughout the course of a woman’s cancer treatment, doctors and nurses alike began dropping like flies and getting violently ill. One doctor figured out after the patient was rushed into surgery that her blood was toxic due to the chemotherapy drugs she’d been getting. More surgeons were called up to the woman’s operating room where her initial doctors were lying on the ground unconscious from the exposure. Luckily, the team of remaining surgeons worked together by taking turns entering the operating room and holding their breath for as long as they could to finish the operation.
4. The guy who sawed off his own foot (S4, E5)
For the show’s Halloween episode during their fourth year, Grey’s featured a man who showed up to the hospital demanding to have his foot amputated. When asked by a doctor for a reason, his reply was “It’s not my foot.” He decided to take the matters into his own hands, though, after the doctor rushed a psych consult by stealing a nearby saw and cutting off his own foot… Happy Halloween!
5. The girl who could hear inside her body (S6, E22)
When a teenage girl named Hayley (played by Demi Lovato) comes into the hospital ready to be sent to psych for schizophrenia after she tried to claw her own eyes out, a doctor is determined to find a correct diagnosis for her when she consistently repeats “I’m not crazy”. After completing a few tests, the doctor discovers a tiny hole in Hayley’s ear, which has been causing her to hear every sound occurring in her body. She underwent surgery that patched up the hole in her ear and she got her life back as a teenager.
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