Grey's Anatomy has been a television institution for more than a dozen years and the success of the series has a lot to do with its plethora of interesting characters. Fans love the new doctors being brought onto the show, but there's something to be said for the original crew of interns who started it all when the first episode aired in 2005.
These days, only Meredith Grey and Alex Karev remain of the original five, with the most recent departure being Dr. Cristina Yang. It seemed Yang would remain on the series forever, but the time finally came at the end of the 10th season for Sandra Oh's character to make her exit.
Cristina was an important part of the show given that she made up the core group of interns and was Meredith's "person" she just couldn't live without. Now that she's left the series, we thought it was high time to examine the character and look back at some of the more interesting aspects of what made Cristina such a compelling character on the series.
See how much of a fan you are by looking back and seeing what you already know of these 16 Things Only True Grey’s Anatomy Fans Know About Cristina Yang
16. WHY SHE BECAME A DOCTOR
If there's one thing to be said about Shonda Rhimes, it's that the woman knows how to write interesting and detailed character backstories. Cristina Yang is no exception to this rule and her rich backstory paints a picture of a woman who has had to struggle with great adversity in order to become the successful and professional doctor she ultimately became.
When she was a child, an accident left her father severely injured. As he lay in her arms, she held his chest together in order to try to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, she was unable to save him and he passed in her arms. Instead of destroying her, as it would have most people, she used the event to orient her life goal to becoming a Cardiothoracic surgeon so she could save people like her father in the future.
15. SHE COINED THE NAME "MCDREAMY"
For most of the series run and even following his death, Dr. Derek Shepherd was known colloquially as "McDreamy" and only true fans of the series recall how he got the name. It was all thanks to Cristina, who correctly identified the doctor, played by Patrick Dempsey, as a charming and handsome man. Calling him McDreamy came naturally to her in the episode "The First Cut Is The Deepest", which was the second episode in the series.
Cristina would go on to coin many "Mc" named for other doctors and interns on the series including calling Dr. Sloan "McSteamy" and even "McLove Life" when describing Meredith's relationships.
Cristina wasn't the only one on the "Mc" naming game. Many of the other characters have taken up the naming challenge having come up with some pretty good ones over the years.
14. CRISTINA IS DYSLEXIC
Shonda Rhimes enjoys throwing adversary at her characters, especially in the development stage. Instead of just keeping Cristina as a driven woman who turned to medicine following a horrific childhood accident, she also made the character dyslexic. Being dyslexic can be especially difficult for developing children, but most people can overcome the disorder and lead normal, professional lives.
Because she is dyslexic, Cristina has shown that it is not only possible to overcome the disorder, but excel beyond her peers despite it.
She was a straight-A student who graduated at the top of her class at Smith College, Berkeley, and Stanford University. They didn't go over her dyslexia much in the series, but it is just another backstory detail that makes her character all the more compelling.
13. SHE WAS A BIKER
You might not think it to look at her, but Cristina Yang is a biker. She used to ride when she was younger, but her time as a surgeon has made her somewhat distrusting of the machines she once loved.
Like many doctors on the show and in real life, she now refers to motorcycles as "Donorcycles" due to the large number of people injured while riding them.
You can't really blame her shifting opinion on motorcycles when you take a look at her time on the show. While not every person who ends up with organs to spare for transplant got that way while riding a motorcycle, a lot of them did, which is more than enough reason to become wary of riding. Writing the character this way adds a bit more realism.
12. CRISTINA'S FEELINGS ON MOTHERHOOD
While she was in the early stages of her internship, Cristina became pregnant by Dr. Preston Burke. She booked an appointment to terminate without telling him and would have gone through with the procedure had the pregnancy not been ectopic, which resulted in her losing the baby.
This event led to the two dating rather than keeping up the fling that got them to that point.
Years later, she became pregnant once more by Dr. Owen Hunt and she once again decides to terminate. Though he is angry with her decision, Hunt accompanies her to get the procedure. The storyline was praised by critics due to the way it revolved around Cristina and her decision. In yet another way the series emulates real-life scenarios, handling something controversial helped to mature the character.
11. HER UNEXPECTED ANCESTRY
Cristina Yang is of Korean descent, but she does have some Jewish roots, which may surprise you. After her father passed, she ended up being raised by her mother and Jewish step-father, Dr. Saul Rubenstein, an oral surgeon.
Though Cristina is a self-described atheist on the series, she has, at times expressed an adherence to some aspects of Judaism.
Her mother ended up converting to Judaism when she married Dr. Rubenstein, but the series hasn't delved too much into Cristina's Jewish roots. Though she is an atheist, she reacts to a patient who arrives with a swastika tattoo displayed prominently. Upon seeing it, she says "My step-father's parents [lost their lives] in Auschwitz" so her close relationship to her parents certainly made an impact on how she sees the world.
10. SANDRA OH WAS DONE WITH THE CHARACTER
For a decade of amazing television, it seemed Sandra Oh and her character would remain on the series forever. Sadly, that wasn't the case and we saw the unfortunate departure of one of the original five at the conclusion of Grey's Anatomy's tenth season.
The reasons for writing Cristina off the series revolved around the simple fact that Oh no longer wanted to play the character.
Fans were certainly upset, but she gave The Hollywood Reporter some good reasons for her decision. "Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go." We can certainly understand that.
Few actors have the opportunity to play a character for as long as Oh so it makes sense that she felt she had taken Cristina as far as she could go.
9. CRISTINA WAS SUPPOSED TO FALL FOR DENNY
One of the primary storylines of the earlier seasons revolved around Dr. Izzie Stevens and her affair with the patient Denny Duquette. The character helped define Izzie, who went on to inherit a sizable amount of money from Duquette after he passed away. She then opened a free clinic attached to the hospital with his money.
Everyone who watches the show associates the two characters, but did you know Denny and Cristina were originally supposed to be the ones to fall in love?
The whole concept of a doctor falling in love with a patient was initially meant for Cristina.
It's good this didn't happen as it seems pretty implausible given everything we know about Cristina. Falling in love with a heart surgeon is her thing, not going for the dreamy patient in the bed down the hall.
8. CRISTINA'S DOPPELGANGER
For the 300th episode of the series, Shonda Rhimes decided to have a little fun when she introduced some new characters meant to do one thing: call back to an earlier time. She did this by casting actors who resembled the original three characters who has since left the series (Cristina, Izzie, and George). Not only did these folks look a bit like the characters, their time on the episode hearkened back to storylines from the first few seasons.
All of this unfolded under the watchful gaze of Dr. Meredith Grey who, along with the audience watching the episode, experienced a feeling of nostalgia to what must seem like a simpler time for the series. It was a great way to honor the amazing achievement of airing a 300th episode while also paying homage to the character who made that very achievement a possibility.
7. SHE ADVANCED BECAUSE OF A COVER-UP
There's no doubt Cristina is an excellent surgeon; it's the very core of her being, but her ability to perform complex procedures beyond her level of experience has some duplicitous origins. When she was deeply involved with Dr. Burke, he was shot during one of the series' more dramatic episodes. He survived, but his recovery was long and arduous - and it came with a hand tremor: something no surgeon needs.
While Burke was still recovering, Cristina did something a bit unethical when she covered for him by concealing the hand tremor.
This led her to perform complex procedures she was in no way prepared for at her level of experience. By doing this, she ended up advancing her career and abilities at a much faster rate than other surgeons at her level.
6. She wins the competition of being most competitive
If there's one thing Grey's Anatomy has taught us about doctors, it's that surgeons are incredibly competitive people. That makes a lot of sense when you learn there are only so many positions for a large group of people vying for them. They have to compete against people within their own programs as well as those outside their respective hospitals or they could be out of the job.
When it comes to Cristina, her need to compete seems to be more deeply ingrained than others.
Cristina is probably the most competitive person on the show, which is saying something. Her desire to win a Harper Avery Award and become the best Cardiothoracic surgeon in the world is more than a goal, it's a defining character trait.
5. HER ONLY TRUE LOVE IS SURGERY
We already know Cristina Yang is all about the surgery, but her adherence to the profession extends beyond anything else in her life. While she is devoted to a fault to her friends and has had numerous romantic affairs, it all goes right back to surgery for Cristina. If you go back and examine the 10 seasons she was on the series, everything she did revolved around or shifted her focus right back into the operating room.
Her relationship with Burke was, at least partly, about his skills as a surgeon.
That's what attracted her to him in the first place and while she may have been more interested in Owen for other reasons, their relationship ultimately fell apart and she went right back to focusing on her one true love, which is, without question, surgery.
4. SHE REPLACED HER FORMER LOVER AND MENTOR IN SWITZERLAND
When she began on the series, most of her initial storylines revolved around her relationship with Dr. Burke. He wasn't just her lover, though, he was also her mentor and the representation of where she wanted to be professionally.
The couple had their ups and downs and were going to marry, but Burke ended up leaving the hospital/series and wasn't seen again until he showed up in the tenth season to help escort his former protégé from the series.
Burke called Cristina to Zurich, Switzerland where he presented her with the option to take over his position as the head of the Klausman Institute for Medical Research, which he founded. When she left the series, she finally accomplished the goal she set for herself all the way back in the beginning when she attained the professional level of her mentor, Dr. Burke.
3. SHE GAVE RISE TO BEING A "PERSON"
Fans of the show know that there's one thing Meredith can't live without: her "person." For the characters, a "person" is someone who you can rely on in any situation, who will have your back, be your ally, your friend, your shoulder to cry on, and your rock.
The term was coined on the series to describe the relationship between Meredith and Cristina when the term BFF just wasn't enough to describe what they shared.
After Cristina left the series, the honor fell to Dr. Alex Karev, but he is something of a stand-in for Cristina, as Meredith truly lost something when Cristina left. What fans may not realize is that the pair not only coined the phrase, they entered it into the lexicon, making it something people all around the world now use to describe the person they are closest to.
2. SHE STILL AFFECTS THE STORY TO THIS DAY
She may have left the series at the end of the tenth season, but Dr. Cristina Yang is still a character on the show, if only in name and reference. She is occasionally mentioned as someone Meredith has spoken to on the phone or she might be referenced in a conversation, but Cristina doesn't normally have anything to do with what's going on.
In an episode dealing with the fear of deportation many people called Dreamers face every day, Dr. Sam Bello is confronted with an ICE Agent and fears she may be sent to El Salvador. As the episode progresses, various ideas are submitted for her to either run away, fight it, or simply hide. At the end of the episode, Meredith presents Bello's acceptance to Cristina's Zurich institute, which she had never applied for. As a favor to Meredith, Cristina (off-camera, of course) made the whole thing happen.
1. SHE COULD RETURN...
Fans aren't writing Dr. Yang off the show just yet and, thankfully, they aren't the only ones hoping for a comeback. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sandra Oh expressed an interest in coming back to the series for a finale episode to help close out the character alongside others. She reiterated that she did feel her leaving the show was the right choice and the way she exited still left some wiggle room for bringing back the character, but she probably wouldn't return for any lengthy role.
Even if she only returns for a final episode should the series every find a way to conclude, it would be a welcome move fans certainly would appreciate.
We may have gotten a tearful and meaningful send-off for the character when she departed, but it would be nice to see her one final time when the series comes to an end.
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What's your favorite Cristina Yang memory from Grey's Anatomy? Let us know in the comments!
