Dispatching doctors on Greys Anatomy

On Thursday nights season finale of Greys Anatomy, the long-running ABC series will say goodbye to stalwart cardio-nerd Dr. Cristina Yang, played by Sandra Oh, who opted out of her contract after 10 seasons on-call.

Also exiting the show are actors whose nonrenewal seems to have been a little less, er, voluntary: Tessa Ferrer and Gaius Charles as hapless interns Leah Murphy and Shane Ross, respectively.

Its a safe bet Cristina will hog the tears.

Sending doctors packing is somewhat of a specialty for Greys Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. Here are some of the best ones:

All-time hottest OB-GYN and McDreamys ex Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) was exiled in Season 3 to make room for Meredith. Addison stayed in the Shondaverse, though, heading to the spinoff series Private Practice, which lasted for six seasons, ending in 2013.

Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) went AWOL for six seasons after leaving Cristina at the altar following a torrid romance. (Washington was fired after calling co-star TR Knight a homophobic slur.) Why not watch those wedding vows that wouldnt be?

In just one season, cardio-goddess Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) managed to antagonize everybody except for Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), with whom she had a controversial affair. Hahn left because of the fallout from the Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) mess, but really because everybody hated her and she was fired by Rhimes. Brooke Smith played Erica Hahn for a single season on Greys Anatomy.

At the end of Season 5, Dr. George OMalley (Knight) was thrown under a bus literally! That worst part is that he was so disfigured, his friends didnt recognize him until the very end.

Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) delivered more drama on Greys than all the other doctors combined. So its surprising that after everything including cancer Izzie just upped and left the hospital. All that for a nonstarter rom-com career!

We barely had time to get used to Mercy West transfers Reed Adamson (Nora Zehetner) and Charles Percy (Robert Baker) before they were shot by a gunman in the two-part conclusion of Season 6.

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Dispatching doctors on Greys Anatomy