Each of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play...That's up to you.
[voiceover] Being chief is about responsibility. Every single surgical patient in the hospital is your patient. Whether you're the one who cut them open or not. The scalpel stopped with death. You need to be able to look at a family. And to tell them your team did everything they could to save someone's job. The husband, the wife, you get caught up. Taking care of other people's families. And a responsibility... it makes you you take care of other people's families. And you sacrifice your own.
The contest is a lion fight. So chin up, put your shoulders back, walk proud, strut a little. Don't lick your wounds, celebrate them. The scars you bear are the sign of a competitor. You were in a lion fight, Stevens. Just because you didn't win doesn't mean you don't know how to roar.
[to Erica] Yang flew solo, you should be celebrating, because that means you're doing your job. Teaching her how to save a life. Residents are like puppies, eager and enthusiastic, and you need to learn how to teach without crushing their spirit. Now you want to work here with my residents, then you need to do better. You need to be a better teacher.
Choosing who gets the first solo surgery isn't just about who has the best surgical skills. Or who's logged the most hours in the O.R.. It's about the highest form of trust. The trust to put a patient's life into one of our residents' hands. And for the first time that I can recall, every single attending picked the same person. Dr. Yang. However, Dr. Yang is out of the running. She is going to pick the winner instead. Dr. Yang will post her decision on the O.R. board at 4 p.m. Also, since your interns are still banned from the O.R., the winner will be allowed to pick a fellow resident to scrub in with them. Good luck.
[to Bailey after she complains to him about Arizona Robbins while on peds rotation] Dr. Bailey, you thought Shepherd was just a haircut. You didn't like Hahn and you think Dr. Sloan is a hussy. Can you name any attending that you thought was good?
[to Derek] I'm worried about my hospital dying. I made some calls to replace Kinley. No one wants to come here. I can't keep a cardiac surgeon on staff. Burke quit. Hahn quit. Dixon's autistic. My OR roof collapsed, the whole place flooded. The interns are literally chopping each other into little pieces. No wonder we're number 12. Twelve!
I have responsibilities, to make this hospital the best medical facility it can be, to repair what I've broken, even if it was twenty years ago. If I am now the bad guy, if I am now the villain here... well... so be it.
[voiceover] I've seen a lot of surgery residents come and go in my time and they're all addicted... to surgery. It comes before food, before sleep. It becomes the most important thing, the only thing. What they don't know is that living on that high can eat them alive. Some make it through they come out on the other side. They survive with their sanity intact. They become better doctors and stronger people. I didn't. I broke it. I didn't kill anybody and I give thanks for that every day. But I hurt people. Scared the hell out of myself. I am 45 days sober today. I am Richard and I am a grateful and recovering alcoholic.
[While he's speaking to attendings, residents, interns nurses in the auditorium.] I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health of my patients will be my number one consideration. I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after my patient has died. [voiceover] I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession. My colleagues will be my sisters and brothers. I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, race, political affiliation, nationality, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient. I will maintain the utmost respect for human life. I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat. I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor.
[to Mr. Clark] I've lived. I've really really lived. I've failed. I've been devastated. I've been broken. I've gone to hell and back. And I've also known joy. And passion. And I've had a great love. See death for me is not justice. It's a... end of a beautiful journey. And I'm not afraid to die. The question is, are you? A life in prison or an afterlife... with your wife. Me or you? Your choice.
[to Mark] You're a good doctor, and you may one day make a great chief of surgery. But you're a plastic surgeon, chief Sloan. You're a perfectionist. And you want everything by the rules so it'll end up pretty. Well, I don't need pretty. And I don't need perfect. What I need is for this to work. And what's gonna make it work is for me to take out that tumor and put these healthy organs inside my very sick patient. It won't be pretty, but it will work, and it will keep my patient alive.
[to Bailey] You were a child when you married Tucker. You're an adult now. You know the world's an ambiguous place. You know that love doesn't conquer all. It conquers some stuff. The other stuff kicks the living crap out of love.
[voice over] When you become an intern, there is a ceremony where you get your white coat. Like magic, you are a doctor. My parents came to my white coat ceremony, I can still picture them, so happy...so proud. They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die, you see things in your life, the important moments --the moments that tested you, the moments that made you who you are. I don't know about my life flashes before me, I was thinking about my white coat... it's the moment my life started, same fitting should be on me when it ends
[voice over] We're all gonna die. We don't get much say on how or when, but we do get to decide how we are gonna live. So do it, decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? kinder? more compassionate? Decide. Breathe in...Breathe out...and decide.
Grey's Anatomy · 1,393 quotes
Webber
