For the first few seasons of Grey's Anatomy, the central location is Seattle Grace Hospital. The medical center eventually merges with Mercy West Medical Center to become Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital and later renamed Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to honor the plane crash survivors.
Before the mergers and the renaming, a lot happens at Seattle Grace Hospital. Relationships are formed, breakthroughs are made and plenty of lives are saved. Viewers are familiar with most of the plot details, but there are little details about Seattle Grey that might have eluded even the keenest of fans.
The Lab Coats
The lab coats of the medical personnel have a few notable details. On the right, the name of the hospital is indicated with the initials SGH. On the left, there's the doctor/nurse name and M.D., as well as any other affiliations. Attending psychiatrists are the only staff with lab coats that have their departments embroidered on the second line.
There are also two kinds of lab coats: unisex and female styles. The unisex style is mostly donned by the male characters. It has adjustable back and front pockets. Addison is the only female character to wear the unisex lab coat instead of the female cut one. But when she resigns and returns as a consulting surgeon, she shifts to the women's coat.
There Were Fewer Doctor Deaths
Doctor deaths have become way too common in Grey's Anatomy in recent seasons and fan-favorite doctors have been killed off in almost every season. Luckily, there have always been worthy replacements.
During the days of Seattle Grace, only two doctors died: George O'Malley and Jordan Kenley. In one of his most heartbreaking moments, George was hit by a bus while trying to save someone and succumbed to his wounds. Jackson, on the other hand, died from a heart attack in front of a young patient that he was attending to.
Board Of Directors
Only one member of the board of Seattle Grey is known, compared to Grey Sloan Memorial, where the board members are Jackson, Meredith, Miranda and Richard. The known member of Seattle Grey's board is the chairman Lawrence "Larry" Jennings, one of the worst patients in the series. He was once admitted when a candiru fish from the Amazon lodged itself in his urethra.
Larry is also one of few characters on the show that are academic doctors and his badge reads Lawrence Jennings, Ph.D." Other doctors with Ph.Ds are Dr. Cristina Yang, Dr. Alma, Dr. Helen Fincher, Dr. Paul Stadler, Dr. Katharine Wyatt, and Dr. Rebecca Froy.
The Intern Appy
There is a long-standing tradition for new interns at Seattle Grace Hospital known as the Intern Appy. The tradition started with the very first set of interns and it involves tasking the most promising intern with performing an appendectomy on their first day.
The Intern Appy isn't intended to make the chosen intern look good. Instead, it's aimed at making them mess up so that other interns get to dial down their enthusiasm and become more willing to learn.
A Total Of Three Employees Have Been Fired
The Seattle Grace employees that have had their contracts terminated include Nurse Olivia Harper, Scrub Nurse Ann and Dr. Megan Nowland (the only doctor to get fired). Megan was laid off after Seattle Grey merged with Mercy West. After her dismissal, she filed a lawsuit, claiming she had only been fired because she was pregnant.
Olivia Harper also suffered the same fate as Megan and was dismissed in the merger. Arizona's favorite scrub nurse, Ann, wasn't lucky. The dismissal put her in a terrible situation because she was a single mom with three children.
The Hospital Was Mentioned In Another Show
In Season 4 of FOX's teen drama, The O.C., Summer Roberts' father, Dr. Neil Roberts, gets a new job at Seattle Grace, forcing him to leave Orange Country and move to Seattle.
Eager to get started, he says: "The hospital is famous for being wonderfully quirky. It's called Seattle Grace." However, Dr. Neil Roberts never appears on Grey's Anatomy.
Doctors With Hospital Privileges
As is the case with most major hospitals, there are doctors that are free to show up and work at Seattle Grace Hospital on specific assignments, despite not being members of the general staff. They can use the OR, access patient records, administer medications and use all the labs.
The doctors with special privileges are Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery from Oceanside Wellness Group, Dr. Virginia Dixon, Dr. Kent from Mercy West Medical Center and Professor Colin Marlow from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Number Of Non-Medical Staff
Only five non-medical Seattle Grace staff members have any kind of plotline. There's the HR representative Wayne Sheehan, who worked with Adelle Webber to develop a "Date & Tell" policy. This happened after Mark Sloan was accused of taking advantage of nurses, one of the many shameful things he did. There's also Daisy, who works in Billing. One of the patients named Stu happened to be her ex-boyfriend.
Richard Webber's administrative assistant, Patricia Murphy, is also part of the non-medical staff, and Barclay Faust is the associate director of the residency program and seen interviewing Izzie. Jon was a physical therapist who was seen helping Clara Ferguson with her prosthetic.
The Exact Locations Of Departments
Seattle Grace is a big hospital but the locations of most departments remain a mystery to the viewer. Only the locations of two departments are revealed in the show and this is all thanks to someone pressing a specific number on the elevator.
The Psychiatry Department is located on the fifth floor. This detail emerges through Mark Sloan, who heads there to get therapy. The Oncology department is on the sixth floor of the building.
Filming
Most fictional locations in TV shows are based on real-life ones and the inspiration for Seattle Grace Hospital is Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The interiors of the two hospitals are very much alike.
However, filming isn't done at Harborview but in Los Angeles on a customized set. The outside shots of Seattle Grace as seen in the series are from the Fisher Plaza, which houses ABC's Seattle affiliate KOMO.