Nine Grey’s Anatomy doctors have served as Chief of Surgery throughout the show’s 19 seasons. Each of the doctors has left their own legacy.
Many Grey’s Anatomy doctors have been chief, and their legacies still live on. At the beginning of the series, Richard Webber was supposed to retire and appoint Preston Burke or Derek Shepherd as chief. It’s a coveted position that not only Burke and Shepherd were fighting for, but Mark Sloan and Addison Montgomery also went after.
While many doctors have fought for the chief position, the chief is faced with more than just the responsibilities of the job. In Grey’s Anatomy, many tragedies happen, and these chiefs have to manage them and deal with the fallout. These doctors were thinking of the title and the prestige it would be for their career, not everything that comes with it, even after they saw what former chiefs went through.
Richard Webber (Season 1 – Season 6; Season 7-8; Season 11-12)
Richard Webber is the OG Chief of Surgery of Grey’s Anatomy. He was doing it long before the series began and has served as interim whenever the hospital needed a chief. He dealt with the first big scandal of the show, Izzie Stevens cutting Denny Duquette’s LVAD wire. It started a tradition of the Grey’s Anatomy interns breaking the rules, and Webber had to deal with the punishment. They all would have probably been fired in real life, but they all kept their jobs.
Then, in season 4, two ambulances collided in the ER bay, leaving two paramedics fighting for their lives. Webber oversaw the rescue, where they were able to save one of them. The following season, the hospital dropped its national ranking to 12 — devastating for all doctors. Webber admitted he may have gone soft with the arrival of Meredith Grey.
While most of Webber’s tenure could be seen as running smoothly compared to things future Chief of Surgeries would have to deal with, he wasn’t perfect. He fell off the wagon in season 5. He stepped back from surgery and took Grey under his wing. Shepherd told the board, which led to Webber being given an ultimatum of rehab or being fired. Shepherd, of course, stepped happily into his role.
Webber became chief again in season 7 because Shepherd no longer wanted the job. At the end of the season, he is left with a mess when Grey tampers with the Alzheimer’s trial to give his wife, Adele, the drug. He took the fall for Grey in season 8, and Owen Hunt became the new Chief of Surgery. He briefly became chief again in season 11 before Miranda Bailey took over.
Webber’s time as chief really cemented him as someone everyone respects. Even when he’s not the Chief, he’s still looked at as the Chief. Webber and Grey may have had a rocky start, but they became family. Both times he lost his Chief job revolved around Grey—the first with Grey hiding his drinking, and the second with him taking the fall for her. While Webber has been trying to retire since season one, it’s hard to imagine a Grey’s Anatomy without him.
Preston Burke (Season 2)
Preston Burke was supposed to be Chief of Surgery after Webber retired, but he only ended up being Interim Chief for two episodes when Webber was recovering from brain surgery. He did a well enough job. He oversaw a tricky transplant of an abusive father and dealt with Montgomery appearing and requesting Grey on her service. This was Burke’s big shot, and Webber even told him that.
The pressure to reclaim his chief title likely led him to lie about his hand to ensure he could get the full promotion. That, of course, led to him not getting the promotion. Webber no longer felt he had what it took to be chief after he deceived everyone. That elusive chief role was his downfall.
Derek Shepherd (Season 6)
While Derek Shepherd may have deserved the chief role, he didn’t go about it well. When he told the board about Webber’s drinking, that led to him taking the position he moved for in season 1, seeing as Webber promised Shepherd and Burke the role when he retired. Shepherd probably dealt with one of the biggest catastrophes in Grey’s Anatomy history, the shooting. Shepherd had ordered the unplugging of a brain-dead patient, and the husband didn’t handle that well.
Shepherd was shot, and Yang performed a life-saving surgery on him while at gunpoint. Two of the residents also lost their lives, as well as many other hospital staff. This experience led Shepherd to step down as Chief and go back to his love of surgery, which he always hated not being able to do much of when he was Chief. Being Chief wasn’t really what Shepherd wanted to do. He wanted to cure Alzheimer’s to save Grey and do innovative surgeries and medicine. He shifted full force into that after he stepped down.
Owen Hunt (Season 8 – Season 11)
Owen Hunt was the first stable Chief of Surgery after Webber. He wasn’t chief for just a couple of episodes or a season. He was chief for four seasons. Webber announced his appointment in season 8, episode 3. His tenure was also, at times, led by his emotions when he let Teddy Altman punish him for lying to her about Henry being dead. Altman was rude and insubordinate, but he let her be despite being detrimental at times.
The plane crash was the worst thing that happened in Hunt’s time as Chief. He changed airlines to save money and didn’t check his messages all day, so he had no idea his doctors had never arrived. He carried an enormous amount of guilt around about this. On top of that, the lawsuit almost bankrupted the hospital, but he wanted Yang and the rest of the doctors to win the settlement. For a tough army man, Hunt was also empathetic and kind, and this showed his true colors, even if the hospital almost closed.
Viewers may have thought the plane crash would be the thing that made Hunt step down, as the shooting did for Shepherd, but it wasn’t until after Shepherd died and he went back to war that he was done with his chief position. He needed to get away, but coming back crystallized it for him. Being Chief of Trauma was always the best place for Hunt because that’s where he thrived in the ER, so for his character and the show, it was good that he stepped down, which led to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital’s first female chief.
Mark Sloan (Season 8)
Mark Sloan was only Chief for one day and was pretty good despite not being asked to step in. Hunt asked for Shepherd to Webber, but Sloan stepped in and pushed Shepherd to come up with something innovative to get the patient ready for surgery. He even had Shepherd calling him a good chief by the end of the episode, never for him to find out, of course.
Sloan was a great teacher to Jackson Avery, and it turns out he could have been a great chief if he lived long enough to get the opportunity. Sloan wasn’t just “McSteamy” or great plastic surgery; he had a lot more to him, which Lexie Grey, Callie Torres, Arizona Robins and Jackson saw, and that day, the other doctors saw it too.
Miranda Bailey (Season 12 – Season 18)
Miranda Bailey dealt with the most in her tenure, from an escaped rapist that led to a fire in the hospital, the hospital being hacked, to Covid, to Grey having Covid to a blood shortage and the residency program being shut down. Webber fought for her to be Chief, but she probably had no idea what she was getting herself into. Bailey also had to deal with Alex Karev beating up Andrew Deluca and, later, Deluca’s breakdown.
Bailey also had to suspend her husband, Ben Warren, when he performed a C-section in the middle of a halfway when the elevators had opened up. While she dealt with a lot, this was probably her biggest challenge. Suspending him for six months was probably light punishment, though he felt it was too much. It put a strain on their marriage. They overcame this, and, of course, he’s changed careers again since that incident.
Bailey survived everything, and she learned how to take care of herself in the process. She took a sabbatical for her health, and after the residency program was disbanded, she even took a break again. She’s come a long way since those arguments with her ex-husband for working too much. She’s now working at the clinic to protect women’s reproductive rights and practicing surgery again, but she’s doing it all much more balanced. She ultimately stepped down because the program was disbanded and needed a break. She handed everything over to Grey to fix the mess that Grey partially caused.
Alex Karev (Season 15)
Alex Karev was the unlikeliest Chief (other than Sloan). He was appointed because Baily didn’t want someone better than her to step in for her, per Link’s advice, but Karev ended up being a great chief despite a shaky beginning. He spent almost a quarter of the budget in one day, but he quickly learned. He delegated and even had Bailey and Webber impressed, but neither one was going to tell him that.
This was just the next step of Karev’s character growth. He’d come a long way since the jerk that started as an intern. It makes his exit hard to understand. Why would this person who grew up to be the man he did leave his wife and responsibilities? All his character growth was wasted in how he was written off the show, making Karev’s Grey’s Anatomy exit controversial.
Meredith Grey (Season 18-19)
Meredith Grey’s time as Chief of Surgery was short. She was given the job when the hospital was a mess and had to build it back up again. She re-started the residency program earlier than it was meant to and got a group of bright doctors who all had obstacles stopping them from becoming great. It was all inspired by Nick Marsh and his path. Despite all this, it seemed fitting that she became Chief at the hospital where she grew up.
If Ellen Pompeo didn’t want to step back from Grey’s Anatomy, there’s no telling where this story could have gone. She turned things around and seemed like a great Chief. Grey ultimately stepped down for her daughter Zola. They discovered she was gifted, which was partly why she was having panic attacks, so she found a school in Boston.
Teddy Altman (Season 19 -)
By Grey’s Anatomy season 19, no one but Teddy Altman wanted the Chief job. It’s not a surprise, given all the issues previous chiefs have gone through. Some endured, like Webber, Hunt, and Bailey, and others, like Shepherd, stepped away. But Altman fought for the job, and for the short time she’s been in the role, she excelled.
Not long after getting the position, Altman was faced with protests outside the clinic. She handled it well by changing into sneakers and getting a walkie-talkie. She brought her army training to her role and showed why she was the best person for the job. Altman even called for an emergency meeting to deal with intern burnout, and they created an emergency relief fund so doctors like Mika Yasuda don’t have to work multiple jobs through their training. And she did this in only 12 episodes. There’s so much potential for Altman in Grey’s Anatomy season 20.
