[voiceover] My mother used to say this about residency, "It takes a year to learn how to cut. It takes a lifetime to learn not to." Of all of the tools on the surgical tray, sound judgment is the trickiest one to master. And without it, we're all just toddlers running around with ten blades.
“Sympathy For the Devil” · Season 5, Episode 12
In this episode: Meredith Grey (2), Mark Sloan (2), Callie Torres (1), Arizona Robbins (1), Lexie Grey (1)
Why do you have to live in Meredith's attic? How am I supposed to sneak out of here with that frat party going on downstairs? Don't you kids ever sleep?
They're cleaning the house for Dr. Shepherd's mother.
Mrs. Shepherd's coming... to Seattle?
So?
So that woman practically raised me, taught me right from wrong. If she found that I was... with you, that we were... You're Meredith Grey's little sister. You are forbidden fruit. You are twenty-five. You're a fetus.
Twenty-four. I skipped third grade.
I feel dirty.
Pain and agony for a little bit of pleasure, I get it.
If that's bad, why don't you stop sl— doing what you're doing.
Because it doesn't feel bad when I'm... doing it. It's good. It's great. And maybe if you weren't so scared of getting burnt you'd feel the same.
You know, I used to walk tall around here. I used to walk tall. And then came George. He took off at least an inch, and Erica went and left me that shaved off a few more. I got shorter. All that humiliation, it makes you shorter, so yeah, I am scared of getting hurt, because one more personal disaster right now would cut me off at the knees.
[to Alex] You don't think that I know that they just pulled the plug on the kid? You don't think I get that? You don't think I know about the tiny, tiny coffin they're going to stick him in? I know about the tiny coffins. I see them all the time. In my sleep. So if you don't mind, I'm going to keep talking relationships and rainbows and crap. And I'm going to make plans for tomorrow. Because that's what you do, Karev, you make plans. You have to. You turn your back on the tiny coffins and you face forward, until the next kid.
[voiceover] We're human. We make mistakes. We mis-estimate. We call it wrong. But when a surgeon makes a bad judgment call, it's not as simple. People get hurt. They bleed. So we struggle over every stitch. We agonize over every suture because the snap judgments, the ones that come to us quickly and easily without hesitation, they're the one that haunt us forever.
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