Grey’s Anatomy has built its own world, which includes a medical award called Harper Avery Award, and the show has only revealed six doctors who have gotten the award. The medical drama genre is one of the most popular ones in television, and it has housed some of the most successful TV shows in history. Among the most recent dramas is Grey’s Anatomy, created by Shonda Rhimes. Grey’s Anatomy has been going strong since its premiere in 2005. The series has been led by Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), who started as an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital and became the head of general surgery at the same hospital (now named Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital). The show has explored Meredith’s relationships with family and colleagues
Some of those family members and coworkers have been recipients of a prestigious medical award. The Harper Avery Award (now officially called Catherine Fox Award after the sexual assault allegations against Harper Avery) is given to surgeons who are already at the top of their field professionally, and it also serves to encourage them to push their skills even further. The $500,000 they are given is definitely a good incentive. It’s unknown how many total doctors have taken the Harper Avery Award home, but Grey’s Anatomy has revealed six doctors who have earned the award.
Ellis Grey
Meredith’s mother, Ellis Grey, was a world-famous surgeon and thus one of the most respected doctors in Grey’s Anatomy, even considered the best one of all. Ellis’ legacy is often mentioned among the characters of Grey’s Anatomy, and her contributions to medicine earned her the Harper Avery Award on two occasions.
First, Ellis was put on the shortlist for the award when she was still a surgical resident, and she took the award thanks to the “Grey Method”, an audacious laparoscopic technique to treat gallbladder, all this back in 1988. Her second win arrived years later and there was controversy around it due to the contributions of her then-friend Marie Cerone. This time, Ellis won the Harper Avery Award for the “Ellis Grey Procedure”, which was all about laparoscopic biliary reconstruction. Although Ellis and Cerone worked on it together, the former left the latter’s name out as she was blacklisted from winning a Harper Avery Award. The procedure is now known as the “Grey-Cerone Method”, finally acknowledging the contribution of Cerone.
Margaret Goodwin
Margaret Goodwin is the program director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Goodwin was one of the program directors who tried to convince Meredith to join her general surgery program after Meredith completed her residency. Meredith had to cancel her interview three times as she attended to a patient, and Goodwin finally got to interview her for an attending position, but Meredith chose to stay at Seattle Grace Hospital. Goodwin won the Harper Avery Award in 1996 for excellence and innovation in surgery, but no more is known about her work.
Meredith Grey
The 2017 winner of the Harper Avery Award in Grey’s Anatomy is the one and only Meredith Grey. It isn’t too surprising that Meredith has already been awarded for her work, as she has not only contributed to medicine, but she has also shown a lot of empathy and heart when treating her patients (and with her colleagues, too), which makes her a worthy recipient of the award. Although Meredith has performed a number of surgeries and has made her research on different topics, what finally turned her into a Harper Avery Award recipient was the groundbreaking procedure she used to save Megan Hunt’s life.
Surgery on Megan went well until Meredith found out there wasn’t enough tissue left to close the wound, and once she calmed down, she came up with the idea of performing an abdominal wall transplant. The procedure was successful, Megan had a full recovery and returned to her son, and Meredith Grey landed the cover of the Journal of Surgical Advancement and the Harper Avery Award, by then already known as Catherine Fox Award.
