One of Grey's Anatomy Storylines Was Based on a Writer's Real-Life Lie
Writers of the show Grey's Anatomy have been praised often for the accuracy of the medical procedures and protocols shown taking place in the hospital, with a wide spectrum of diseases, illnesses, and injuries depicted coming into Grey Sloan hospital daily, along with a strong focus on the drama and personal lives of the doctors and residents working there.
The sad reality is that hospitals often deal with incurable illnesses and injuries, one of these heartbreaking illnesses is cancer. In some cases it is treatable, but in other cases, it can only be delayed and death is inevitable. There have been many cancer patients featured on Grey's Anatomy, and their stories often bring fans to tears.
What fans didn't know was that behind the scenes, the writers of the show were experiencing the pain of cancer first-hand, or that's what they were led to believe.
In the beginning, Elisabeth Finch, a former writer for Grey's Anatomy, had a team of writers and friend's on the show rallying for her as she fought a rare form of bone cancer known as chondrosarcoma. The creator of the show Shonda Rhimes had hired her as a writer despite her diagnosis, and she received immense support whilst working on Grey's. One fellow writer even reported seeing her losing hair, having to take breaks to go and vomit, and only being able to eat saltines.
Imagine their shock when they found out that this particular writer had come up with an elaborate story of her own. It was later discovered that Elisabeth Finch had lied about it all, she had no cancer of any kind, but it was too late. The writers of the show had already gone as far as incorporating a storyline in the series that focused on her health battle, to honor her bravery.
"I told a lie when I was 34 years old and it was the biggest mistake of my life. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and got buried deeper and deeper inside me," Finch told The Ankler Dec. 7, adding, "I've never had any form of cancer."
In the series, Dr. Catherine Avery is diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, with Elisabeth feeling that it was important that the storyline included the doctors telling Catherine the truth about the likelihood of her chances of beating it. After all, Elisabeth was the self-proclaimed expert on all things cancer.
Inevitably, Elisabeth's lies came crashing down on her after going years of fooling everyone close to her, with her then-wife reaching out to the producers of Shondaland to tell them the truth, as Elisabeth refused to come clean. Understandably, she was and remains exiled, having left the writers' team before they had a chance to dismiss her. She knew what her fate would be. It seems sad that Grey's Anatomy had to lose a talented writer, and that her lies were immortalized in the series through Catherine's storyline, but it can be a lesson to all that one cannot live a lie forever, the truth will always come out.