Shane Ross

"I want to be in charge of my education, and I choose you. You can say no, but I will badger you until you say yes."

- Shane Ross to Cristina Yang

Shane Ross was a surgical resident at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. He currently is a resident at Klausman Institute for Medical Research under Cristina Yang.

Early Life
Almost nothing is known about Shane's life before his internship. He does not tell anything about his early life.

Internship at Grey Sloan Memorial
Shane was one of the new interns brought into the program along with Jo Wilson, Stephanie Edwards, Leah Murphy, and Heather Brooks.

When Cristina was in the hospital, he and Heather stood outside her hospital room and talked about her until she threw a vase at the window to scare them off.

He was part of the group of interns who listened outside the on-call room while Bailey was in there with Ben.

He favored Neurosurgery and was constantly on Derek Shepherd's service. When attending a skills lab taught by Derek on inserting central lines, he continuously interrupted the lecture to ask Derek about a chordoma Derek had removed in 2003.

When Cristina came back from Minnesota, she dubbed him "Happy" and then "Dopey." After working with her a little bit, he decided that he liked her.

When he cried when they had to deliver the news that he was dying to Graham Cunningham, Cristina coached him not to get emotional in front of the patients.

Shane was excited to work in outpatient surgery with April despite the other interns' reluctance to work with April, whom they had deemed, "The dud." After a day of working with her, he and the other interns were lined up to compete to scrub in on the surgery to fix Derek's hand. Employing skills taught to him by April, Shane talked to Derek as if he were any other patient and reassured him, landing himself a spot on the team.

After Derek's surgery, he had to play ping pong for his rehab and Shane played with him. Shane initially let Derek win, but when Derek offered him the chance to scrub in on a surgery if he won, Shane stopped letting Derek win.

When Derek disliked the posters of him all around the hospital, he assigned Shane to deface all of them.

After Derek was told that he needed to work with interns other than Shane, Heather Brooks was assigned to his service. After being impressed by her reflexes, he told Shane that he needed to spend some time on other services so he could get a more rounded surgical education. He blamed Heather for the change and told her he wasn't going quietly.

Even after being reassigned to another service, Shane continued to check in on Shepherd's patients. Derek confronted him about this, saying he needed to find the specialty where he could shine.

During the super storm, he was left to close Meredith's abdomen after her c-section. However, there was excessive bleeding. Shane had to re-open her abdomen and find the bleeding. He located the bleed in her spleen. Meredith talked him through the procedure until she passed out and he was left to finish the surgery without her help. Heather Brooks had gone for help and brought back Miranda Bailey, who still hadn't operated since her MRSA scare, and she finished the surgery.

Guilt Over Heather's Death
Even after having worked all day night during the superstorm, Shane helped out in the ER when the victims of the mudslide were brought in. While coming back with supplies, he met with Derek, who asked him to page Heather for him so she could take his patient to have scans taken. Soon after, Bailey asked Shane to go look for Dr. Webber. He met Heather on her way to the ER and told her Derek asked her to find Webber. Heather listened to him and took off to the basement. Shane himself took Derek's patient to radiology for the scans. However, Derek insisted Heather did further examinations, but she was nowhere to be found. Shane went looking for her, only to find her electrocuted in the basement. Heather and Richard were taken up and Shane scrubbed in with Derek to operate on Heather's subdural bleed. Derek thanked Shane for having found her in time. He stayed silent about the fact that he sent Heather to find Richard. In the beginning of the surgery, Shane was optimistic she would make it, but this changed when Derek had to perform a temporal lobectomy, which would cause memory and motor deficits but save her life in the end. Shane then blurted out it was his fault, but Derek, who didn't get it, insisted it wasn't, convincing Shane to hold it together and continue operating with him.

During the surgery, Heather started crashing. Derek ordered Shane to get Owen as he started CPR, but Shane returned with Owen, Derek had given up CPR. Shane ran to the hallway to get some fresh air, where Jackson asked him how Heather was doing. Feeling guilty, Shane didn't reply and ran off. The interns got the night off to mourn her death, while Derek ordered them to stay in the hospital and wait for Heather's mother to arrive. They tried to come up with Heather stories to tell her mother, but a guilty Shane stayed silent all day. When Maura Brooks arrived and received the bad news, the interns took her to the locker room to clear out Heather's locker. Maura noticed how devestated Shane was when he started crying. She hugged him and guessed he must've been close with her daughter. At the end of the day, a depressed Shane decided to ride out with the firefighers to the mudslide, with the other interns deciding to come with him. They noticed he was extremely upset by Heather's death and wanted to show support, as they were all he had.

A week later, Shane worked on Richard's case and distanced himself from the other interns, who started learning for their intern exam. Richard was refusing a feeding tube and Bailey let him refuse it. Shane didn't agree with this and contacted Meredith about it. She told him to be proactive and order the tube already, which he did. Richard and Bailey found out and Richard ordered to get him some soup. Shane noticed how difficult it was for Richard to swallow it. As Bailey and Meredith went to take another look at Richard's swallow studies, Shane entered Richard's room and got ready to place the tube. He named what could happen if Richard kept on refusing the tube. Shane was determined to place the tube, as he wouldn't let another person die. Offering to place the tube now instead of Meredith having to do it herself, Shane placed the tube, saving Richard's life. He did what had to be done.

After Heather's death, the interns began all sleeping at Alex's house and studying. Jo was waiting for Alex to proposition her so they could have sex and Alex was waiting because he thought she was still grieving, so he said they could stay there as long as they wanted. Jo went to the others and said that they needed to leave.

On the night of the fundraising gala, Shane and Stephanie got to cover the ER solo. April warned them to call an attending if things would go over their heads. A couple of junkies were soon brought in, one of which developed serious heart defects. Shane was loving it all, calling it like whack-a-mole. Stephanie thought they needed help, but Shane said there wasn't anything they couldn't handle. Stephanie questioned this, but it was what they had been working towards all year. This was their shot and when another trauma was coming in, he asked Stephanie if she wanted to call for help or be a rock star. She joined him in choosing for the latter. The junkie tamponaded and Shane performed a pericardiocentesis on his own, still thinking of himself as a rock star. Stephanie got worried over the patient's condition and called Yang, who ordered to get Shane and the patient to the OR immediately. In the OR, Cristina complimented his courage and said he was a shark, which is a good thing as the best surgeons are. She allowed him to make the decisions in the OR and the surgery turned into a success. After the high of the surgery, Shane went back to the ER where Stephanie was cleaning up a trauma room. They agreed they were rock sharks and he kissed her, only to be pushed away by Stephanie as Jackson walked in. Shane just went back to work and enthusiastically started working on the victims of a multi-car mashup.

Soon after, Shane worked on Richard's case again while also being on Meredith and Cristina's service, complimenting the latter's surgical skills. Meredith constantly used him to have messages delivered and when he reported back, he awkwardly turned away as Meredith was pumping. This made Meredith notice how awkward he could feel.

Shortly after having passed the intern exam, Shane discovered that there was accidentally made a personal lab coat for Heather Brooks. He stormed out, leaving the other residents wondering if something was wrong. He didn't say a word after the exam and didn't come to celebrate with them. Due to his guilt over Heather's death, Shane asked to be let off Derek's service after the day. Derek replied that he specifically requested him, as he wanted to make up for how he treated him earlier, when he constantly chose Heather. However, Shane switched services earlier when he proposed a very creative fix for Cristina's patient, suggesting they use glue used for brains to fix Cristina's patient's AVM. During the surgery with Cristina, she complimented him about the fix, saying he was full of surprises. At the end of the day, Shane purposefully burned his bridge with Derek when the latter asked him to scrub on Mickey's surgery. Shane refused to, leading to Derek telling him to get over the feeling of being second choice after Heather. Shane then clearly stated he did not want to work with Derek anymore. At the end of the day, when Stephanie tried to make it clear that their kiss didn't mean anything to her, he said he already forgot about it. He had just done in the heat of the moment and he pointed out that, contrary to him, she was still talking about it. She noticed how much he's changed and asked herself what happened to him.

Shane was reminded of Heather again on Halloween, when a patient kept on refusing to be examined by him as she wanted to wait for Dr. Brooks. Advised by Dr. Bailey, Shane didn't tell the patient Heather died and tried to find hospital records of the woman so he could start to treat her, but he couldn't find any. Stephanie pointed out to him that Heather used to help the homeless and uninsured under the table. When the patient collapsed, she had no other option but to let Shane treat her. Shane even refused to scrub in on a surgery to stay with the woman. He then told the patient that Heather died a couple of months ago and she confirmed his suspicion that Heather treated her under the table. She didn't want to get Heather in trouble, which is why she wanted to wait for her. Shane gave her free asthma inhalers, like Heather used to, and promised her he would be her doctor from now on. When asked if he was as good as Dr. Brooks, he replied he wasn't, but he would be eventually.

After he helped Heather's old patient on Halloween, Shane started concentrating on his work. While on Cristina's service, he read an article on an experimental procedure involving a 3-D printer and convinced her to try it on the deteriorating Glazier baby that had a serious heart defect. Cristina initially refused, because they would have to interrupt Meredith's research to use her 3-D printer, but Shane managed to convince her. They destroyed Meredith's model that was being printed in order for them to start printing.

Derailment
While being on Cristina's service a lot to help on the Glazier case, Shane did more than just concentrating on his work. He was constantly drinking energy drinks to always be on the top of his game and acted quite rude to anyone that wasn't Cristina. He unnoticedly came into the patient room when Cristina told Alex she needed to have sex, as she's better at her job when she's getting laid. He informed her their conduit had failed and they needed to print another one. Seeing Meredith was supposed to have the printer according to the schedule that they worked out, Cristina had to tell her that they would need the printer longer. Noticing she didn't want to tell Meredith, Shane said he'd have Stephanie tell Meredith. He then told her he was available in case she wanted to get her "yaya's" out, just for the sake of the work. He complimented her looks, but Cristina declined. Shane harshly told Stephanie they would need the printer again, but in the evening, the conduit was flawed again. This meant they would need the printer for more time, again. When Meredith came to tell them she really needed the printer and kept on picking on Cristina for failing to modernize medicine with her flashy procedure, Shane came to Cristina's defense, saying it was enough now. He blankly yelled Meredith was making this professional issue about her friendship with Cristina, whom he says initially refused to do it because of that friendship. "You'll get the printer tomorrow, doctor Grey!" he yelled, forcing Meredith to leave. In return for standing up for her, Cristina kissed Shane.

Soon after, they started off a sexual relationship, with Shane constantly doing his best to please her in bed. On the day of the surgery on the Glazier baby, Shane offered the last two gallery seats to two of his fellow residents. Shane had the idea to film the entire surgery so other surgeons from all over the country could watch and learn. He hadn't told Cristina about this, as he made this executive decisions after having gotten emails from surgeons all over the country, but he offered her to veto any of the decision. However, she agreed to the plan. During the surgery, Shane brought in the 3-D printed conduit, which they successfully placed inside his body, though Nathan soon started crashing. Cristina ordered Shane to stop the cameras. After the surgery, Nathan was placed on an ocillator. Shane ended up in an elevator with Meredith. When asked how he was doing, he told her not to be smug. He acrimoniously congratulated her for her successful procedure, admitting that Meredith won and that he and Cristina lost. She tried to talk to him about the way he had been speaking to her lately, but he just walked off. Meredith went to talk to Cristina about Shane's changed behavior, but Cristina says he's just being focused on the work. Cristina was paged to Nathan's room, where she and Shane saw that Nathan had stabilized. They celebrated it with a little victory dance.

Shane figured out how to edit his hours in the system so he could make it look like he was working less than he actually was. He drank energy drinks to stay awake. While Cristina was at April's wedding, Jimmy Evans had a heart attack. Shane and Leah took him into surgery by themselves rather than call Cristina. While in surgery, Shane got in over his head. Leah sent someone away to call someone to help, but Shane continued to insist that he could do it. He snapped and referred to the patient as "she," so Leah ran out of the OR herself to get someone. She brought back Richard, who managed to talk to Shane, who was having flashes back to when he told Heather to go find Richard in the basement, and get him to leave the OR while Richard tried to fix what Shane had done. Shane left the OR and appeared almost catatonic in the elevator as he left.

Recovery
After leaving the OR during Jimmy's surgery, Shane went to a bench outside the hospital and fell asleep.

Three weeks later, Shane came back to work. Owen assigned him to work with him. In surgery, Owen quizzed Shane on embryology. Over Richard's objections, he continued to ask questions, believing that Shane should know about it. When Shane apologized for not knowing the answer, Owen said that Shane should be apologizing to Jimmy's family and kicked him out of the OR.

Shane went to Alex to apologize, but Alex tackled him and started punching him in the face. Cristina and Meredith broke up the fight and Cristina took Shane to treat his wounds. He told Cristina that he was trying to make it right. He didn't believe he deserved to feel better. She agreed with him that he deserved for Alex to punch him. Then she told him that Ashley Glazier had sent her a photo of Nathan with food all over his face. Normally, the photo would be annoying, but this one is miraculous. She said it was due to Shane having the idea and pushing her to do it that Ashley was even able to take that picture. It was a good decision and she tells him to make more of those going forward.

Richard's Teachings
When a case came in of two sisters, one of who had developed three kinds of cancer in her lifetime, Richard told the residents to do research on Li-Fraumeni, as that's the condition the girl had. They did the research and developed a treatment plan, but Rory Williams had already died.

At Richard's birthday party, Owen asked him to be director of the residency program because he noticed how well he'd been mentoring the residents.

Derek, warned that he wasn't teaching enough, took all the residents to work on a case with him that he had rescheduled several times. As the OR wasn't available until 1 AM, he then took them to the ER to work on the incoming patients, including having them work on a patient who was already dead so they could work with real brain tissue. When a man came in with scissors puncturing his forehead, they took him into an OR for a controlled extraction. Then they went back to the case of Nova Jenkins. Each of the residents took a turn to step up to the microscope and ask a question so they could learn.

Cristina's Trial
Shane worked with Cristina on her HLHS trial. He screened patients so that she only had to look at their hearts. When a patient came in who didn't meet the criteria for the trial, but who was desperate, he tried to talk to Cristina about her. However, Cristina was firm that she didn't qualify and told Shane that she wouldn't add the patient to the trial.

When a virus was going around the hospital, Shane passed the conduit babies over to Stephanie because he was worried that he was sick and he didn't want to jeopardize the trial. In exchange, he agreed to take her weekend calls for a month and be her swap monkey for two months.

Leaving Seattle
When Cristina prepared to leave Seattle to move to Switzerland for her new job, Shane came to her and begged her to take him with her as he didn't want his education to stall and he wanted to continue to learn from her. She agreed to take him with her.

Personality
Shane is initially shown to be awkward, overly competitive and a suck-up. He goes out of his way to flatter the primary surgeons in order to receive attention and favors, primarily from Derek Shepherd who he idolizes. He has also shown to be jealous and insecure, particularly when he was replaced on Derek's service by Heather Brooks. His inability to cope with being less naturally gifted than Heather at neurology led to him even going so far as lying to try to steal surgeries from her, an action which ultimately caused Heather's death, something for which Shane has never confessed. He can also be somewhat arrogant (such as when he believed April Kepner to be attracted to him and when he was shocked to be replaced as Derek Shepherd's intern).

Shane is well-liked around the hospital (by his fellow interns and the attendings). April and Derek have especially taken a liking to him. Derek has also noted that Shane is an extremely hard worker. He goes out of his way to please and is definitely a schmoozer. However, as time progressed following Heather's death, Shane became more aggressive and disrespectful towards others, even the attendings. He showed ambition that rivaled Cristina's in her intern year (though lacking Cristina's innate talent), leading to her giving him the nickname "Sharky". While operating on Alex's father, Shane had a psychiatric episode and became convinced that he was operating on Heather.

Stephanie Edwards
He kissed Stephanie after a long night in the ER with her. Jackson walked in just as she pushed him off. He later said that he just did in the moment, and forgot about it shortly after. Stephanie did remember, though she believed him when he said it didn't mean anything to him. She then forgot about it too.

Cristina Yang
After hearing Cristina talk to Alex about how she needed to have sex because her work suffers when she doesn't, Shane offered his services to her as stress relief.

Shane and Cristina embarked on a sexual relationship after they worked together to save a patient and make medical history. After he spoke for her on the press conference about the procedure, she brushed him off when he proposed to have sex again, and told him they were not going to do that anymore.

Later, after the non-fraternization policy was enacted, Cristina asked Ross if he ever felt like she had compromised his education or if he felt pressured to do things for her. He assured her that he didn't.

April Kepner
Shane had a good professional relationship with April starting when he helped her during "lumps and bumps" day.

When April invited Shane to Bailey's wedding, he believed it was just a professional thing, a way to get to know the interns in a less formal setting. When Stephanie informed him that that was not the case, he panicked and planned a series of talking points so that things wouldn't drift in a personal direction.

When he confronted April about it, she informed him that she didn't mean it to be romantic at all, much to his relief.

Career
Shane was a surgical resident at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

He used to idolize Derek Shepherd and also enjoyed working closely with April Kepner. Because of his idolization of Derek, Shane wanted to work with him all the time and he picked neuro as his favorite specialty. When Chief Hunt forced Derek to mentor other interns, such as Heather Brooks, Shane thought Heather wanted to steal neuro from him. He told her he wouldn't let her steal neuro from him without a fight. However, when he caused Heather's death, he decided not to chase neuro anymore due to his guilt over her death, and thereby (quite agressively) declined when Derek offered him to scrub in on a neurosurgery.

During the gala evening, Shane manned the ER with Stephanie. He performed a pericardiocentesis on his own, and eventually scrubbed in with Cristina to continue operating on the patient. Since Cristina Yang told him during that surgery that it's good to be a shark, he enjoys working with and seems to be now favoring cardio, as Cristina chose him as the resident to assist on her 3-D printed conduit.

Shane left Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to work with and learn from Cristina Yang in Zurich at the Klausman Institute for Medical Research.

Notes and Trivia

 * He never wanted to be anything other than a surgeon.
 * In a "Sliding Doors" episode featuring Cristina Yang, Shane was awarded a Harper Avery Award.
 * After his move to Klausman Institute for Medical Research, it is very likely that Shane is now a cardiothoracic surgical resident rather than a surgical resident since Klausman's focus is on heart research.

Appearances
Shane Ross Shane Ross