Which ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Series Regulars Had the Shortest Runs on the Show?
Grey’s Anatomy’s remaining original stars — Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson, and James Pickens Jr. — are now credited in more than 460 episodes of the ABC medical drama. And that’s 23 times the longevity of the show’s shortest-serving series regular.
As you’ll see below, series-regular status on Grey’s does not necessarily mean long-term employment. Sometimes actors decide to take an early exit from the production… and sometimes they’re given their walking papers. Here are the former Grey’s stars with the shortest series-regular runs.
10. Greg Germann as Dr. Tom Koracick: 63 episodes
Germann was a series regular from the start of Season 15 to the end of Season 17 — when Koracick decides to leave Grey Sloan to help Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) with the Fox Foundation in Boston — though the actor has guest-starred in five episodes since then. “It’s weird,” Germann said in a Shondaland interview upon his exit. “It’s a new kind of feeling, both that this is exactly right and also, ‘Wait a minute; these are my people.’”
9. Isaiah Washington as Dr. Preston Burke: 61 episodes
After an on-set dustup with costar Patrick Dempsey (and T.R. Knight), Washington was fired Grey’s, and Burke leaves both Seattle and Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) after calling off their wedding (though he does make a one-off reprise during Cristina’s Season 10 farewell). Washington reflected on his firing in the book How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, saying, “I did everything that the producers and the network asked me to do. I came back under great stress, and thought I was doing the job I was hired to do. I thought that was going to speak for my future at Grey’s, but apparently that wasn’t the same vision that the network and studio had for me.”
8. Martin Henderson as Dr. Nathan Riggs: 53 episodes
Henderson became a regular in Season 12 as Riggs became Meredith Grey’s (Pompeo) first substantial post-Derek romance. Midway through season 14, however, Riggs decided to resume his relationship with once-missing, recently-rescued girlfriend Megan Hunt (Abigail Spencer). Henderson told Deadline at the time that he only had a short-term contract with Grey’s, but Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter he left because studio and/or network execs “didn’t love” the Meredith–Riggs storyline.
7. Kate Walsh as Dr. Addison Montgomery: 46 episodes
Walsh became a series regular in Season 2, Episode 7, “Something to Talk About,” and left the show after the Season 3 finale, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” to lead the six-season spinoff Private Practice. She has since guest-starred in eight other Grey’s seasons, however.
“It’s incredible to be back,” she told People in August, after her Season 22 role reprisal. “But the younger set of actors who are the new set of interns, they grew up watching the show. You’re like, ‘Oh, hi!’ … It’s funny to be the elder statesman of the show.”
6. Scott Speedman as Dr. Nick Marsh: 40 episodes
Technically, Speedman was just a series regular for Seasons 18 and 19. But as Meredith periodically returns to Seattle and leaves again, so too does Nick, now her fiancé. As of the time of this writing, Speedman has recurred in a dozen episodes from Season 20 onward, even as he stars in the ABC series R.J. Decker.
He explained to TV Insider this April that he toggles between Los Angeles, where Grey’s films, and Wilmington, North Carolina, where R.J. films, calling it “tricky but doable.”
5. Midori Francis as Dr. Mika Yasuda: 38 episodes
The actor behind the “Y” of Grey’s Anatomy’s “MAGYK” intern group, Francis joined the show at the start of Season 19 with the rest of her onscreen intern cohort. But she left the show in Season 21, Episode 8, “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” too traumatized by her sister’s death at Grey Sloan to continue working at the hospital.
Deadline reported ahead of Francis’ exit that the decision was amicable and that the actor had been looking to branch out in her career.
4. Richard Flood as Dr. Cormac Flood: 27 episodes
Grey’s made Flood a series regular at the start of Season 17, and he scrubbed out for the last time in Season 18, Episode 10, “Living in a House Divided,” as Hayes resigns after learning about Owen’s (Kevin McKidd) off-the-books assistance to terminally ill veterans.
“I’m always eager to see what else is out there and try and stretch myself in different directions and do different types of TV and film,” Flood told Deadline. “Three years was perfect for me, so I was very happy.”
3 & 2. Gaius Charles as Dr. Shane Ross & Tessa Ferrer as Dr. Leah Murphy: 24 episodes
Charles and Ferrer both joined the show as guest stars in Season 9, their characters part of Jo Wilson’s (Camilla Luddington) intern class.
They became series regulars with the Season 10 premiere but left after the Season 10 finale, as their contracts weren’t picked up for Season 11. On screen, Ross goes to work with Cristina in Switzerland, while Murphy loses her job due to sub-par surgical skills. She later returns to the hospital, but not as a full-timer
1. Brooke Smith as Dr. Erica Hahn: 20 episodes
Smith is the only former Grey’s star who wasn’t a series regular for a full season of the medical drama, and her firing still seems unjust, with reports that ABC execs had issues with Hahn’s relationship with Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez).
The actor joined the show in Season 4, Episode 5, “Haunt You Every Day,” and left in Season 5, Episode 7, “Rise Up,” as Hahn and Callie break up.
“I was floored when they told me [I was being let go],” Smith told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “It was the last thing I expected.”
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