It’s an instance of art imitating life! According to a new statement, it turns out that, in season 17 of the long-running medical TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, there will be a COVID-19 storyline!
The announcement was made by the series’ executive producer during a chat with Entertainment Weekly!
‘We’re going to address this pandemic for sure. Quaranstreaming: Comfort TV That Keeps Us Going. There is no way to be a long running medical show and not do the very medical story of our lifetimes,’ she dished.
And that was not all! Vernoff also said that the writers actually meet with medical specialists every single year to make sure the storylines are as accurate as possible but this time, things were quite different.
She explained that ‘Every year, we have doctors come by and tell us some of their stories, and usually they are telling their funniest or their craziest stories. This year, it’s felt more like therapy. The doctors come in and we are the first people they are talking to about these types of experiences they are having. They’re literally shaking and trying to not cry, they are pale, and they are talking about it as war – a war that they were not trained for.
The executive producer then told the news outlet that ‘And that has been one of our big conversations about Owen, is that he is actually trained for this in a way most of the other doctors are not.’
As fans of Grey’s Anatomy know already, she was referring to the character of Owen Hunt, who is a veteran on the show.
Listening to all those ‘painful’ stories from the real-life doctors they got in contact with made Vernoff feel like the show has not only an ‘opportunity’ but actually a ‘responsibility’ to share some of those tales with the world amid this global health crisis.