Gretchen (Let the Angels Commit)

Gretchen is a law student who intentionally burned herself to get out of taking the bar.

History
Gretchen came into the ER with partial thickness burns on her palm. She initially said that she was making tea and burned her hand. However, when Mark Sloan came to look at her burns, she said that she'd burned her hand making soup. He noted that the burn was deep, so she must have held onto it for a while. She said it was too bad because she was supposed to take the bar again on Friday. She'd failed the bar before. Mark said she'd be able to take the test, which upset her.

Izzie went to Meredith with her concerns that Gretchen had hurt herself on purpose, but Meredith initially brushed her off. When Gretchen was told she wouldn't need skin grafts, she asked if that would take longer to recover, which raised Meredith's suspicions. Meredith tried to confirm her story of how her hand was burned. Izzie, despite not being permitted to speak to patients are part of her probation, asked Gretchen if she'd burned her hand on purpose. Gretchen admitted that she couldn't fail the test again. Failure was all she was known for her in her family.

Because she had harmed herself, Meredith had her admitted to the psychiatric ward for 72 hours to get treatment. When she realized where they were, she tried to leave, but they said she needed help.

Familial
In her family, she was known as the failure.

Notes and Trivia

 * She'd failed the bar five times.