Grey’s Anatomy: 15 Times the Grey-Sloan Dream Team Faced Impossible Odds

9. Derek took out Izzie’s brain tumor–twice.

In Season 5, Izzie used the interns to get her own diagnosis by putting them through a diagnostic drill for Patient X. The diagnosis came back as metastatic melanoma with mets spreading to the skin, liver and brain, and the interns also concluded that Patient X had a 5 percent chance of survival.

Izzie kept her diagnosis secret at first, telling only Cristina, but Meredith stole the scans and asked Derek to remove the brain met. Derek agreed, and he was able to remove the entire tumor from her temporal lobe.

They later discovered a second tumor in her brain, and Derek removed that one as well, but this time Izzie woke up with memory loss. Alex put post-its all over her room to remind her of what already happened but by the end of the episode Izzie’s memory returned.

All of Izzie’s follow-up PET scans show that the cancer is gone and it appears that she has beaten the odds.

10. Then Derek removed a complex spinal tumor.

In “Give Peace a Chance” Derek met a lab technician named Isaac who showed him some scans. The scans were of his own complex spinal cord tumor—the tumor had been declared inoperable by many other physicians. Isaac asked Derek to remove it, and Derek agreed but Richard refused permission because of the risk involved. Derek ignored the chief’s directions and scheduled the surgery anyway.

The first surgery lasted ten hours, with Shepherd spending much of the time contemplating what to do about the tumor, until Richard stepped in and ordered him to end the procedure.

Derek told Isaac that he could not complete the procedure without paralyzing him, but Isaac convinced Shepherd to operate the next day. Derek told Richard they were going to cut the cord, but then told the rest of the surgical team that they will not be cutting the cord but playing by ear.

Derek removed all but a tiny sliver of tumor and had to cut a nerve in order to remove the rest. He played a game of “eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” and ended up cutting the correct nerve, thus eliminating the entire tumor.

11. The kids with HLHS that Christina saved with the printed valve.

3D printing was a large part of Season 10’s plot. Meredith was printing portal veins for her research, but Cristina usurped the technology to print a conduit for Baby Nathan Glazier’s.

After three failed attempts and many scuffles with Meredith over scheduling for the printer, Cristina performed a successful operation. The surgery was revolutionary, and later put Christina in line for a nomination for the prestigious Harper-Avery Award.

12.  When they separated adult conjoined twins, attached at the head.

Annie and Liz came into the hospital to be separated.  Suffering from high-output cardiac failure, the risky surgery became a necessity when Liz’s heart started doing more work than Annie’s. The condition would have killed them both if they weren’t separated.

They had a team of forty doctors with a complicated surgical plan including: neurosurgeons, general surgeons, orthopedic, and plastics. The conjoined twins shared a sagittal sinus that supplied blood flow to their brains. They needed to decide which twin would get that, while the other gets a graft.

So that they can get the best possible outcome the team assessed which twin had the better prognosis. The team designated Annie as “Twin B” because they thought Liz had a better chance to survival. During surgery, Liz developed a brain clot, which flipped their statuses and made Annie “Twin A.”

They rushed the physical separation, and Amelia rushed Annie to another OR while Derek attempted to save Liz. Derek was unsuccessful, and Liz was left brain dead. Annie decided to withdraw care after the surgery, and Liz died.

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