Grey’s Anatomy: 6 times a doctor fell in love with a patient

Izzie Stevens and Denny Duquette

It was only Grey’s Anatomy‘s second season when the first major doctor-patient romance was introduced, and it certainly set the tone. Not only was it a huge storyline at the end of Season 2, but it managed to play out all the way to the dramatic Season 5 finale.

Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) checked in to Seattle Grace in need of a heart transplant. His name was too far down on the transplant list, though, so his chances of staying alive looked slim. That was until Izzie Stevens intervened numerous times in his treatment. After weeks of trying different options to keep him alive, she quite literally took matters into her own hands when she famously cut Denny’s LVAD wire to move his name up on the list.

As a result, Dr. Burke “stole” a heart from Dr. Hahn and managed to get the heart to the hospital’s premises before being shot in an unrelated conflict. In the meantime, Izzie and her fellow interns worked like crazy to manually pump Denny’s heart while the “who cut the LVAD wire” game began.

In the end, Denny got his new heart and basically proposed to Izzie, only to suffer a stroke and die while she was out of the room. Somehow, that wasn’t the last we saw of Denny. His ghost reappeared in Season 3 when Meredith almost drowned, and then again numerous times in Season 5 as part of Izzie’s hallucinations thanks to cancer. What a mess.

So, what’s the lesson to be learned here? Grey’s doctors need to keep it professional with their patients because heartache is the only result. Let’s just hope we never have to endure one of these storylines again.

All seasons of Grey’s Anatomy are now streaming on Netflix.