Derek Shepherd

Derek Christopher Shepherd is a fictional character on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy. The character is portrayed by actor Patrick Dempsey, who won a People's Choice Award in 2007 for the role.

Childhood and growing up
Derek was born to a working, lower-middle class family in New York, and is the only son in a family of five children. His father died when he was still quite young, but he and his sisters overcame their less-than-privileged beginnings, and all five Shepherd children completed medical school and became doctors. Nancy is an OB/GYN, and Kathleen is a psychiatrist.

As a child, Derek had no hair products, so had a large afro, acne, a weight of 110 pounds, and played the saxophone in the school band.

His father died because of two murderers that wanted his watch. This event forms a large part of Derek's moral compass, and impacted on him when one of his patients in season five was a serial killer. Derek's morals were challenged, evidenced by Derek being unwilling to treat the patient, but also unwilling to let him die to have his organs harvested.

Derek's childhood best friend was Mark Sloan, who came from a wealthier but emotionally deficient background, and was like a second son to the Shepherd family.

Personal life
Although he is sometimes annoyed by his overbearing mother and sisters, he is nonetheless aware of their closeness and has no doubt that all four of his "very girly" sisters would be at his bedside if he were ever sick. His profound hurt over Mark’s betrayal is compounded by his view of Mark as his brother, the one constant male influence in his life since the death of his father as a child.

He has nine nieces and five nephews among his sisters, but no children of his own; Addison admitted that she wasn't ready for children, although Derek wanted them.

At the hospital, he managed to stay friends with Addison, even after their divorce, and was best friends with Burke, but was left without friends when they both left Seattle Grace. He was broken up with Meredith, Bailey didn't want to have a drink with him, and the Chief said he didn't drink. With nobody to talk to, Derek started to talk to Mark again, and they became best friends. He also bonded with Lexie Grey, and after getting back together with Meredith, he became friends with her friends. After a rough start with Owen Hunt, he became good enough friends with him, too.

Romantic life
Derek married his medical school girlfriend, Addison Montgomery, c.1994, and the two began their residencies, studying under Dr. Richard Webber. Following residencies and fellowships, Derek and Addison quickly became very successful in their respective fields. They appeared to lead an affluent lifestyle, owning both a Manhattan brownstone overlooking Central Park and a home in the Hamptons, as well as running their own private practices. However, their success and busy workloads put a strain on their marriage, and the two grew apart; the emotional distance eventually drove Addison to cheat on Derek with his best friend, Mark. After discovering Addison in bed with Mark, Derek declared the marriage over and relocated from a private practice to Seattle Grace in Seattle, accepting a job offer from his former teacher, Dr. Richard Webber, as Head of Neurosurgery at Seattle Grace Hospital and trading in the brownstone for an Airstream trailer on 40 acres of rural property on Bainbridge Island. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Derek met his wife Meredith Grey at a bar and went home with her for a one-night stand, only to discover the next day that she was a new surgical intern at the hospital. Although she initially rejected his advances as inappropriate due to their working relationship, Meredith eventually agreed to date Derek, although he did not tell her about his marriage. His charismatic, charming personality and good looks earned him the nickname “McDreamy” among Meredith and her friends. However, their fledgling relationship came to a sudden halt when Addison arrived in Seattle for a consult upon Richard Webber's request.

Addison had also brought divorce papers, but made it clear that if Derek was willing to give her a second chance, she wanted to give their marriage another try. Derek struggled over his choice, but ultimately, his sense of obligation to his marriage vows won, and he left Meredith to return to his wife. Family is very important to Derek. His decision to work on his marriage was based largely on his sense of obligation to Addison as his family, the woman with whom he shared "eleven birthdays, eleven Thanksgivings, and eleven Christmases".

The choice was not as simple as Derek had anticipated, and he found that he still had very strong feelings for Meredith, even as he tried to repair his marriage to Addison. Shortly before Christmas, he confessed to Addison that Meredith had not just been a fling, but that he'd fallen in love with her; Addison was willing to wait it out, although the situation was complicated further when she and Derek took in Meredith's dog, Doc. Although Derek eventually admitted that the problems in their marriage were partially his fault, his love for Meredith continued to make him emotionally distant from Addison. When Meredith began dating Finn Dandridge, Doc's veterinarian, Derek became so withdrawn and consumed with jealousy that Addison confronted Derek about his ongoing infatuation with Meredith, and even asked Meredith if she was sleeping with Derek.

At a hospital-sponsored prom for the chief's dying niece, Derek and Meredith's emotional affair reached the point of no-return. After a heated argument in an exam room, Derek and Meredith had sex, but before they could discuss the implications of their actions, Meredith was called away to deal with Izzie, whose fiancé had just died.

The next day, Addison found Meredith’s panties, which had been left in Derek's tuxedo jacket, and pinned them to the hospital bulletin board, while Derek went to Meredith's house and professed his love to her for the first time. Their reunion, however, was not immediate.

Initially, Derek felt immense guilt over the breakdown of his marriage with Addison, and went to the hotel room where she was staying to apologize. Instead, he was appalled to find out that Addison, in a drunken stupor, had called Mark in New York to fly to Seattle for a "trans-continental booty call". To Derek's disdain, Mark decided to take up a position at Seattle Grace in a bid to woo Addison back.

Although he and Addison acknowledged the end of their marriage and began divorce proceedings, Meredith was less certain, and decided to date both Derek and Finn before making a decision between the two. While they were dating, Meredith was admitted for an appendectomy, and Finn's concern for her during her illness led Derek to reconsider his pursuit of her. As she recovered from surgery, he told Meredith that he was walking away, freeing her to be with Finn, whom he considered "the better guy". Meredith, however, had already decided that Derek was "the one" for her, and broke up with Finn. She kept the break-up from Derek for another week, and made the unfortunate timing mistake of telling him just after Addison had confessed that she and Mark had not just been a one-night stand, as she had led Derek to believe, but had actually lived together for two months after Derek left for Seattle.

Meredith's introduction to Derek's family was no less problematic; she stopped by the trailer one night to talk to Derek and discovered a strange woman lying across Derek's bed and Derek, wearing nothing more than a towel and a very startled expression. She would later learn that the woman was Derek’s sister, Nancy, but the explanation of the misunderstanding did not make Meredith any more appealing to Nancy, who continuously referred to Meredith as the "slutty intern". Derek defended Meredith, leading Nancy to acknowledge Derek's feelings for her, but Nancy encouraged her brother to take some time to figure out what he wanted rather than worrying about the women in his life.

Following Nancy's advice, Derek asked Meredith for time to take some space for himself, and then embarked on a very brief camping trip, which only cemented his desire for Meredith. He found her in the very place they had first met—Joe's bar—and they agreed to start their relationship over from the very beginning.

Eventually, Derek and Meredith grew distant, and as the distance between them grew, Derek was tempted to accept a drink from a woman he met at Joe's during Burke's bachelor party, but ultimately refused. The next day, he admitted meeting the woman (who unbeknown to both, was Meredith's half-sister Lexie) to Meredith and confronted her over her level of commitment to their relationship. He told her she was the love of his life, but asked that she end the relationship if she was not equally committed. Meredith did not address the issue, and instead focused her energies on Cristina's wedding, leaving her relationship with Derek uncertain. After Burke left Cristina at the altar, Meredith made an announcement to the guests that seemed to imply she had given up on her relationship with Derek as well: "It's over....so over."



After the 17-day vacation, Meredith and Derek see each other for the first time since the wedding and both meet Meredith's half-sister, Lexie. Later, Derek pulled Meredith aside to ask if their relationship was over, and she said it was, but they end up kissing and having "break up sex". They later say that their relationship is S&M (sex and mockery) only. Derek, thinking about his addiction to have sex with Meredith, tells her that he wants more; he wants to marry and have kids with her, as well as have a life time with her. Meredith, as she is, says she needs time and walks away, but they continue to have sex. Throughout this, Cristina helps Meredith with her relationship and tries to help her find out what she wants.

Although they were still physically close, they weren't yet emotionally close or in an actual relationship. After Derek went on a pity date with Sydney Heron, Meredith was concerned about him dating other women, so she announced to him that she didn't want him to see other women, and even if she wasn't enough for him right now, she was trying and was scared that she would lose him. She tells him not to say anything yet, so he was unable to tell her that he had just kissed Rose, a nurse who he'd been getting to know and flirting with over the last few days.

Finally, after dating Rose and the clinic test, he went back to Meredith. Rose was angry at him and accidentally stabbed him once with a scalpel in bloc before realizing she was no longer the nurse every surgeon wanted, so she moved to another service. Meredith asks him to live with her, which he agrees to, saying she was a wood deer and that they would take baby steps, showing he will show all the patience she needs, though he jokingly asked her about marriage, which seemed to scare her. He wanted to force Alex and Izzie to move out, but Meredith didn't, so he told her again that he would wait until she was ready. When he discovered her mother's diary, he had a conversation with Mark, where his friend asked him about the trailer. He answered that he was more likely to be kicked out by the end of week, so he keeps the trailer, but she wanted him to stay, so he lends her his trailer so she can read the diary with Cristina.

His mother came to see him and meet Meredith. After talking with the true Meredith, she told him she was the "good one" and gave him the ring his father wanted him to have for the "one". After accepting the ring, he begins to plan a proposal to Meredith. He was surprised after learning that she'd like having a baby. Since he had not mentioned it and assumed she would fear the commitment, he then knows she is ready for marriage. He told Mark he was going to propose, who told Richard Webber, Owen Hunt, and Callie Torres, but keeps it secret from Meredith. Mark was helping him to propose when he recieved a call and aborted the grand proposal.

During his depression over his mortality numbers and the death of Jen Harmon, Derek moved out of the house and back into the trailer, after lounging on the couch for several days. On learning of the ring, Meredith confronts Derek at the trailer, where he pushes her away by saying that he couldn't be fixed and this is what he really wanted. He shows her the ring, only to bat it away with a baseball bat.

After being chastised by Richard, Meredith went to see Derek again. Derek asks her that if he wasn't a fancy doctor, would she have been in love with him. Meredith answers no, but deflects, giving Derek Izzie's CT scan and telling him that she wouldn't respect somebody with a gift like his who walked away.

A clean-shaven Derek proposes to Meredith inside an elevator, which is decorated with scans of all the surgeries they did together. He recounts the stages of their relationships as they played out during each case. Lastly, he shows her the post-op scans of the different lives they have saved over the years, and, of course, Izzie's brain. "You got me into the OR," he tells her. "If there is a crisis, you don't freeze, you move forward. You put the rest of us to move forward because you've seen worse, you've survived worse, and you know we'll survive too. You say you're all dark and twisty; it's not a flaw, it's a strength. It makes you who you are. I'm not gonna get down on one knee, I'm not gonna ask a question. I love you Meredith Grey, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you." "And I want to spend the rest of my life with you," she says, and they kiss. As Izzie received treatment for her cancer, Meredith allowed her to plan the wedding for Derek and herself, in which Izzie took great joy in. However, on said wedding day, Izzie begins to see Denny again and Bailey and Derek look into the cause of this hallucination. They discover another tumor, too small to be seen normally and too small for Derek to operate safely on. With the news of Izzie dying and her previous comments about spending her life with Alex, Derek and Meredith decide to give their wedding to Izzie to give her the happiest day of her life. Meredith and Derek got married by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note and signing it like a contract, instead of going to City Hall as Meredith had wanted.

Career
Professionally, Derek is regarded one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. His services result in two million dollars worth of annual revenue for the hospital. Derek has performed numerous complicated, risky procedures, including a stand-still operation, two double-barrel brain bypasses, and separation surgery for adult conjoined twins.

His confidence was shaken slightly when his surgery to repair a gunshot injury on a colleague, Preston Burke, resulted in Burke’s hand developing a tremor, but Derek remains a competent and skilled surgeon who has not forgotten the importance of compassion and bedside manner when dealing with patients.

Derek's professional life hit an obstacle when Richard Webber announced his plans to retire. Derek had originally been promised the chief position when Richard offered him the job in Seattle, but was surprised to find that the position had instead been offered to Preston Burke. When word got out about Richard's retirement, Addison and Mark joined in the race for chief. Eventually, Webber came to a decision. He offered the Chief position to Derek, but Derek declined it and instead encouraged Richard to stay on as Chief.

Derek's confidence took another blow when he accidentally clipped an aneurysm on a pregnant woman during surgery, remarking that it was unlike him. While Addison is in Seattle tending to her brother, she consults, and Derek suggests a risky procedure, despite knowing nothing of the procedure or its risks, feeling immensely guilty over clipping the aneurysm and will do all in his, or Addison's, power to keep her alive. Unfortunately, she dies later in surgery, upsetting her husband, who calling Derek a murderer. This sends Derek into a depression. Later, at a deposition, he learns more of his patients have died than survived and he walks out of Seattle Grace.

While in his depression, pushing Meredith away and being almost constantly drunk, Bailey sends Callie and later Owen to try and bring him back. Derek, however, talks to both of them and makes them feel depressed over those who they have "killed", prompting them to start drinking with him, until Richard comes along and shouts at him, telling him he is in a much better position than he was.