2012 Boards

The 2012 Boards were the oral boards for 2012, which took place in San Francisco.

Timeline
At the start of their fifth year, the residents started studying for their oral boards and worried more about their surgeries, as each one could come up as a scenario for their oral boards. April and Jackson studied together and Alex used several interns to quiz him.

Richard approached Callie to mentor someone. Richard suggested Meredith and Callie shot it down initially, but ultimately agreed and they started working together. ("Have You Seen Me Lately?")

After working with Meredith, Callie proclaimed her ready for her test when she was unable to psych Meredith out. Meredith then assembled the other residents at her house and started to teach the Torres Method to them, calling it the Grey Method. ("Support System")

The day before the boards, the residents took a bus down to San Francisco to a hotel where the boards were being administered. However, worried about Morgan and her baby, Alex flew back to Seattle. When Arizona saw that, she forced him to go back to San Francisco.

Meredith got sick and started to vomit uncontrollably. The vomiting continued to the next day as they got ready for their exams.

The night before, April got into a fight with a resident from another hospital and had sex for the first time with Jackson, upsetting her. Jackson also found out his mother and Richard had sex, rattling him. ("Moment of Truth")

During their sessions, Jackson was rattled by hearing his mother, who was an examiner herself, through the wall of the room he was in.

April started freaking out about having broken her promise to Jesus by having sex. This led to her sweating profusely and unable to concentrate on her exam.

Alex arrived late, missing his first session (of three). His examiners were unimpressed, even when he said he missed the session because he was with a patient. He became upset with the examiners when they gave him what he felt was a trick question, ranting at them that he missed his first session for the best reason, being a doctor.

Meredith continued to vomit in between answering questions. Her examiners, visibly disgusted, tried to convince her to stop and take the exam later, but she insisted she could do it and answered the questions.

Cristina quickly became frustrated with her examiner, who was an older man. He spoke slowly and was unimpressed with Cristina's more modern approach to medicine. He ultimately packed up and left with 20 minutes left in her final session.

After the scores were tallied, Catherine heard from a friend that one of the Seattle Grace doctors didn't pass and she worried that it was Jackson. When the residents got back to the hospital, they were able to access their exam results and learned that it was April who hadn't passed. ("Let the Bad Times Roll")

Characters Present

 * Meredith Grey
 * Cristina Yang
 * Alex Karev
 * April Kepner
 * Jackson Avery
 * Catherine Avery
 * Richard Webber
 * Craig Thomas
 * Keith Collier
 * Kevin Banks

Notes and Trivia

 * Jackson went to Mark's on Valentine's Day and Mark helped him study. ("All You Need is Love")
 * Alex ultimately passed, meaning he got perfect scores on his second and third sessions.