Although Meredith Grey is now considered to be one of Grey’s Anatomy’s best surgeons, it did take her a while to earn this legacy since her career was full of grave mistakes and terrible decisions. Between season 1 and season 19, Meredith Grey has achieved and accomplished many great things. She became one of the few surgeons to win a Catherine Fox award (formerly known to Grey’s Anatomy fans as a Harper Avery), she created many groundbreaking medical procedures, and she cemented a legacy for herself that was just as great as her mother, Ellis Grey’s.
However, it did take her a while to get to this point. While Meredith has certainly become wise over the years, this hasn’t always been the case as she did make a lot of impulsive and reckless decisions when it came to her career and professional life. What more, her impulsive decisions could sometimes deeply hurt the ones she loved most. She would definitely approach things from a different angle if she knew the detrimental consequences that followed.
3. Not Reporting Richard To The Board In Order To Further Her Career
While Meredith and Richard’s friendship was one of the most memorable on the show, that didn’t mean they didn’t do a lot of terrible things to each other (especially in season 6). After Meredith discovered that Richard had relapsed and was drinking again, viewers saw her become conflicted as she wanted to do the right thing and report him to the Board. She just didn’t want him to lose his livelihood.
It was certainly a difficult situation that many people sympathized with. However, a lot of respect for her dwindled a little bit when she decided not to report him in order to further her career (not only did Richard begin to give her private lessons, but he almost let her perform a procedure she just wasn’t ready for just yet). It was certainly one of Meredith’s worst and reckless decisions since allowing Webber to operate could have resulted in several medical malpractice suits and possibly led to someone dying. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
2. Committing Insurance Fraud
Although Meredith has done a lot of good at Grey Sloan Memorial, she does make a lot of reckless decisions when it comes to her career. While she is an extraordinary surgeon, she is extremely lucky to still have a medical career since Meredith has been fired twice for breaking the law and medical protocol (one of these instances occurred in season 15). As fans will remember, Meredith committed insurance fraud to help one of her patient’s with the surgery costs (season 15, episode 23, “What I Did For Love”).
However, her crime was later discovered by Bailey and Catherine, who ultimately fired and then reported her (episode 25, “Jump Into The Fog”). Not only that, but Meredith also ended up in jail for a brief period of time after she failed to complete her community service. As noble as this gesture was, there were certainly other ways that she and the other surgeons could have made this surgery happen.
1. Tampering With The Alzheimer’s Trial
While it’s no secret that Meredith had made a lot of mistakes during her 19-year tenure of Grey’s Anatomy, most of them she was able to bounce back from. However, there was one huge mistake that she made that nearly ruined her career as well as her colleagues – and that was her tampering with Derek’s medical trial (a project that both she and the neurosurgeon had been working on to help individuals who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s).
Although everyone knew that she didn’t do it with malicious intent (after all, she was trying to help Webber’s wife, Adele, qualify for the drug), her actions got her fired, almost cost her her license, and nearly destroyed the hospital’s chance of running another medical trial again. She also broke medical protocol by allowing her personal bias towards Adele affect her professional opinion (which was kind of disrespectful to the patients participating on the trial as it seemed like she was suggesting they weren’t as important).
