Grey's Anatomy Universe Wiki

Hello! Welcome to Grey's Anatomy Universe Wiki! On this website you can read character, actor and episode pages, or if the pages don't exist already or they can be improved, you can edit them! You can also view images and have discussions on blogs! Please create an account and join the community, it is absolutely free!

READ MORE

Grey's Anatomy Universe Wiki
Grey's Anatomy Universe Wiki
Advertisement

You know, I went to your house because I thought I was going to die today but it made me realize how badly I want to live and that I wasted years of my life trying to avoid pain. And I went to your house to say that I never should let you walk away and to say that I want to live a whole life with love and mess and pain and you.
Nick Marsh to Meredith Grey

Nick Marsh is a transplant surgeon currently working in Boston. He previously worked at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and after that he was Director of the Residency Program at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. He is currently in a relationship with Meredith Grey.

Quick Answers

What is Nick Marsh's specialty in the medical field? toggle section
Nick Marsh is a transplant surgeon.
Provided by: Community
What significant event happened to Nick Marsh after a surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital? toggle section
After operating at Grey Sloan, Nick collapsed. He'd returned to work earlier than his doctor advised after receiving a kidney transplant. An ultrasound showed a clot cutting off the blood supply to his new kidney, which Meredith was able to remove.
Provided by: Community
Who is Nick Marsh dating in Grey's Anatomy? toggle section
Nick Marsh is dating Meredith Grey.
Provided by: Community

History[]

Meeting Meredith[]

Five weeks after having a kidney transplant, Nick came to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to retrieve a liver for a long-time patient of his. After the surgery, he collapsed in a hallway because he returned to work earlier than recommended. Meredith did an exam and ran some labs. He flirted with her and they talked and laughed while waiting for the results to come back and they got to know a bit about each other. His labs were inconclusive, so Meredith did another ultrasound, which showed a clot in his renal vein cutting off blood flow to his new kidney. While she rushed him into surgery, Nick entrusted Meredith with the code for his niece's college fund and asked her to make sure Charlotte attended college, just in case he didn't make it. His worry was unnecessary though, as she was able to remove the clot and save his kidney.[1]

Reconnecting with Meredith[]

Nick was leaving a bad date at the restaurant where Meredith was having dinner with David Hamilton. When he was leaving, they exchanged a brief look. Intent on meeting her, he took a chance and guessed she would be staying at the five-star hotel near the hospital. He waited for her at the bar and had an employee escort her to the bar upon her arrival. She said thought he hadn't seen her, but he replied that she's hard to miss. Over drinks, he told her about his terrible date while when she mentioned that she had recently ended a relationship. He told her that Charlotte wanted him to thank her for saving his life saying that's the deepest conversation he could get from her from a loud dorm. Meredith was happy for him since when they first met, he told her he wanted for his niece to go to college. Even though he was happy for Charlotte, he said his house felt too quiet. Meredith talked about having survived COVID and Nick understood the pressure she was feeling to make the most of her life after her miraculous survival. After another drink, he escorted her to her room. She shared that she was staying for a few more days and repeated she would not be inviting him, which wasn't his intent. They flirted a little as he walked off.[2]

He returned to her hotel room to slide a note under her door with the intention of not waking her up but got caught since she was still awake. He wanted to ask her out on a date without waking her up since he had forgotten to ask for her number. She agreed to a date by the lake. Later in the day, she glanced at Nick while walking Amelia back to the car. In the evening, she arrived in the hotel lobby all dressed up only to spot him in casual clothes. He asked her to change and drove her out to his favorite spot by the water. As they listened to the sounds of nature and stargazed, he said he had pulled back on his hours to enjoy life more because he was missing the good little things around him. He then inquired about the top secret project that she was in town for. She admitted to being scared of saying yes due to fear of public failure given the high stakes. Nick knew her well enough to know that she was ready to trade in her safe and comfortable situation in Seattle for the project. He wasn't a safety person either and told her it would be one hell of a ride no matter the outcome. Later that night, she accepted Hamilton's offer.[3]

Meredith ended up accepting the position in Minnesota, splitting her time between there and Seattle. Nick ran into her in the parking lot after having just performed a liver transplant. He invited her to dinner that night. She accepted and told him to get some rest, after which she headed into the building as he smilingly stared after her.[4]

When David threw a tantrum, Meredith sought out Nick to gain intel on David. Nick knew that Hamilton has Parkinson's and was using a lot of his money on the project. Seeing who was involved in the project, he assumed that David Hamilton wanted a solution to his problem. Meredith was surprised that Nick knew anything about her project. He told her that David was not in it for the greater good. Meredith was disappointed that she fell for his charm and thought of him as an investor rather than a desperate surgeon. Nick pointed out how hard it must be for David to feel himself become obsolete and advised her to cut him some slack yet not let him walk over her. She took his advice and smoothed things over with David. At the end of the day, they met on a rooftop terrace for another date and ended up sharing their first kiss.[5]

After the success with the Parkinson's Project, when David Hamilton offered Meredith a position at Mayo, she decided to accept the offer, as she felt that people at Grey Sloan still saw her as the intern she once was. Knowing that the residency program was struggling, Nick suggested that Meredith stay until the program was secure. He also offered to help cover staff shortages.[6] Despite their efforts, the residency program was shut down and Bailey quit, so Jackson offered Meredith a job as Chief of Surgery. She decided to stay and told Nick to go back to Minnesota.[7]

After six months without talking to each other, they met again due during a big bus accident which led multiple organ donors to Grey Sloan with several transplant surgeons there, including Nick. Meredith asked him to stay and do a triple organ transplant for a patient of hers since it was the first day of the new residency program and she couldn't be away in a OR for so many hours. After this long procedure, Nick thanked Meredith for the surgery because it was the first time he had done a triple organ transplant. She stopped him when he tried to leave, asking him stay and offering him the job of Residency Program Director at Grey Sloan, saying he was the best for the job.[8] After thinking about it, he said yes and started working at Grey Sloan. To Meredith surprise, he was professional towards her, while she expected an email or for him to go to her office, so at the end of the day, she paged him to talk about a budget request for new component of the residency program. Then she segued into her asking him why he he barely spoke to her all day. They got interrupted by Owen and seeing how busy Meredith was, Nick told her to talk to him if she had any doubts about the program. Before he could leave the office, she asked him to talk. He said they didn't have time for that "back and forth" because people were always asking for her. Meredith told him that when he got back to Minnesota, she went numb and that's why she didn't call him and assured him that she still loved him. Nick asked her to dinner but she said no, but instead she asked him to go with her to Zola's presentation for the North Pacific scholars, which he accepted.[9]

Before the Catherine Fox Award ceremony, Meredith sent a text to everyone she trusted, including Nick. She shared a new theory on Alzheimer's that she wanted to present to the board. Richard, Bailey, and Amelia said that she risk her funding and her reputation if she told them. After everyone left her lab, Nick stayed and Meredith asked Nick what he would do. He responded by asking her if she had come so far to follow the rules, adding that it would piss him even more. She decided to expose her research.[10]

Awake Kidney Transplant[]

Nick came to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to perform a kidney transplant on Tom Costello while Tom was awake. When Meredith told him that she was doing a biopsy on Catherine and asked him to, he invited Richard to join the surgery to distract him. The transplant went well, despite Tom's constant questions and anxiety and a missing sponge that was located on Nick's shoe. Nick told Meredith he believed it would be the future of kidney transplants.[11]

Personality[]

He sees himself as an easy person to talk to and he isn't a comfortable person. Nick sees adventures as something that can go well or poorly, but either way he likes to try and do it so he can know if the outcome is worth it.

After his kidney transplant, surgery and Charlotte were his priorities but when he reconnected with Meredith he told her that he had cut back his hours because he was missing everything around him, like a trail behind his house, and what he calls "the perfect silence": sometimes at night he'd drive by the lake and would lay down, open a beer, listen to the nature and stargaze. This way he could enjoy time for himself and be in the moment.

Relationships[]

Romantic[]

While he was hospitalized at Grey Sloan, he flirted heavily with Meredith and the two chatted for hours as they waited for his lab results. At the end of the day, Meredith confided in Alex that Nick made her feel something for the first time since she lost Derek. She described him as "smart, funny and hot."[1]

When Meredith began traveling frequently to Minnesota to develop a cure for Parkinson's, they struck up a relationship.

When he told Meredith he was falling in love with her, he mentioned that he doesn't fall in love easily and he has done so very rarely in his life. Even with the distance between Seattle and Minnesota, their relationship got developing and after the success of the Parkinson's project, Meredith got an offer from David Hamilton so she could join Mayo Clinic as Chief of General Surgery and have control over The Grey Center. After some time, she decided to leave and take the new job without knowing the residency program at Grey Sloan was on probation. Nick saw how the people in the hospital felt about her leaving and he didn't want her to resent him in the future so he moved to Seattle, using his personal days off to work as locum tenens at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to help her and the hospital so the program would not be shut down and she could leave without feeling guilty or in bad terms with the people she knows.

Despite their work, the residency program got shut down, Bailey quit, giving Meredith the key of the chief's office and Jackson pressured her to stay and save the place. Meredith told Nick to go back to Minnesota because she had a lot of work to do for the hospital.[12]

For the next six months, neither of them tried to contact the other until Nick came back to Seattle to retrieve an organ. Maggie saw him in line talking with Winston while waiting for his turn and went to Meredith's office to tell her to go talk with him, adding that even Zola noticed how sad Meredith had been and had asked her for Nick's phone number so she could call him and ask him to return. Meredith went to Nick and asked him to do a triple organ transplant on her patient and he agreed. After the transplant was completed, Meredith offered Nick a job as an attending and Director of the Residency Program, an offer he accepted.[13] On Nick's first day at Grey Sloan, to Meredith surprise, he was professional towards her, while she expected an email or for him to go to her office, so at the end of the day, she paged him to talk about a budget request for new component of the residency program. Then she segued into her asking him why he he barely spoke to her all day. They got interrupted by Owen and seeing how busy Meredith was, Nick told her to talk to him if she had any doubts about the program. Before he could leave the office, she asked him to talk. He said they didn't have time for that "back and forth" because people were always asking for her. Meredith told him that when he got back to Minnesota, she went numb and that's why she didn't call him and assured him that she still loved him. Nick asked her to dinner but she said no, but instead she asked him to go with her to Zola's presentation for the North Pacific scholars, which he accepted.[14]

When Zola started having panic attacks, Meredith took her to work. Zola was supposed to stay in her office, but she left and was trying to find an O.R. gallery when Nick saw her on the hallway. Instead of taking her back to her mother's office, they both went to the skills lab. He was surprised by how fast she could work on a simulator and asked Zola if Meredith had ever show her any of that. She said no and she'd never been in a skills lab. Kai Bartley was visiting Amelia in Seattle and came to the skills lab and in the short time they and Nick talked about his new job and them saying David Hamilton wasn't happy about not having someone with Meredith's capacity to attract the best people, Zola finished a cognitive puzzle. Kai was impressed, saying most adults couldn't even do it that fast. Nick paged Amelia and Maggie, since Meredith was still in surgery, and the three of them were impressed seeing how fast she was able to complete other tests and were talking about what should be done for Zola. Later, Kai explained to Meredith that Zola needed more challenges and not having tasks at her level could lead to anxiety and panic attacks. Nick told Meredith they had discovered a big part of the puzzle and now they had an idea of how to help.[15]

In the process of finding an appropriate school for Zola, Meredith accepted a job in Boston. She and Nick did not talk about this decision. While preparing for a surgery together, Nick told Meredith that he understood that her family needed her, but also told her that he felt like she didn't consider him part of her life because she took the job without even thinking about talking to him and didn't ask him to do anything. Meredith told him that she wanted to fight for them but every answer felt bad. Nick said it felt bad because there wasn't a good answer because he couldn't ask her to stay but if he left he'd be deserting the new class she put together.[16]

On the day Meredith was leaving to Boston, there was a party at the hospital. Nick went to Joe's bar and while asking for a drink, Taryn Helm told him that she was going to tell him the truth and not pretend to respect his decision making because she wasn't working at the hospital anymore and so she told him that Meredith was in love with him and that he was being a fool for letting her go without a fight. Nick got into his car and tried to get to the airport in time to get to Meredith, but when he realized that he couldn't, he stopped on the side of the road and called her. When she picked up the phone, Nick told her that he loved her and added, "I fell in love with you since the first day I met you. I fell in love the second day I met you and I've loved you every minute of every day that I have known you", but after he had shared his feeling for her, Meredith pretended not to ear him and took of to Boston.[17]

While going to Boston for the Catherine Fox Award ceremony, Nick had a terrible flight experience and thought he was going to die. That experience made him go to Meredith's place so they could work things out, but a man opened the door, making Nick think that Meredith had moved on. After the ceremony, Meredith went to Nick's hotel room and slid a note under his door. Nick opened the door and asked her what she wanted and Meredith admitted that she did pretend not to hear him when she left Seattle because she was overwhelmed with the fact that she had to move and everything else going on and added that it could sound stupid, but told him that what she thought that what she should do on that moment was to focus on her kids. She told him she missed him. He asked about Michael, the man who had opened the door, and she told him that he's Zola's tutor and that he exclusively dates men. Liking the fact that Nick went to her house for her and with Nick happy to know that she was single, they resolved their issues with Nick explaining that he wanted to live a full life with her. They got back together.[18]

Familial[]

Parents[]

His father used to take him to the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada. His dad would get a look on his face that Nick would like to experience.[1] His dad left his family when Nick was 12 years old.[19]

His mother died when he was fifteen of heart failure while waiting for a heart transplant. He described her as "impossibly smart" and he likes to think she's proud of him.[1] Until his father left him and his mother, his neighborhood was his whole world. After Nick's father left, his mother bought an RV and over spring break, they went to the Grand Canyon. Until then, he'd never been outside of Minnesota and it made him realize there was this big beautiful world were no one knew or cared he was the kid whose dad left him. His mother showed him there was more than the place and realities he knew and he was thankful for her gesture.[20]

Erica and Charlotte[]

After his sister, Erica, bailed due to her struggles with drug dependency, he took in his niece, Charlotte, and raised her as his own saying it was the best thing he ever did. She was sixteen at the time of his hospitalization.[1] He doesn't see his sister much because she has an uncanny ability to break his heart and enrage him all in once. Whether she's sober or not, she lies to him without remorse. Despite that, he struggles to say no when she asks for something and so the distance he established is the easiest way to avoid a heartbreak and to keep his and Charlotte's lives on track.[21]

He is very protective of Charlotte and always did his best for her. When Nick took Meredith to his cabin for a romantic weekend, Charlotte showed up with her boyfriend whom Nick hadn't met before and didn't like very much. Over dinner, his niece told him she wanted to leave college for a while so she could travel and spend some time in Costa Rica. Nick wanted her to finish school first, causing a conflict between the two of them. Later that night, Meredith told Charlotte she reminded of herself at that age. Meredith encouraged them to talk and Charlotte explained to Nick that she wanted to get a chance to mess up a little alone without him telling her what was good for her. He explained that he did it so she didn't have to struggle and to help her keep from becoming like her mother, but Charlotte stopped him and asked him to give himself some credit because if it weren't for him, she couldn't even dream about traveling the world. She assured him she would get back to college, that he did a great job raising her, and she was grateful for him. Nick agreed to give her more space, but asked to meet her the next week so they could talk about the places she would be visiting in Costa Rica.[22]

Friendships[]

His best friend donated a kidney to him. They have been friends since they were five years old, used to go camping every summer and played Little League together. After Nick's mother died, he leaned on Brian, spending a lot of time at his house, saying he "practically lived there". He and his wife helped Nick raise Charlotte.[23]

Career[]

While in college, Nick was diagnosed with ADHD. He thought that it would prohibit him becoming a surgeon, but he got the help he needed and it became something he managed like any other thing.

He became a world-class transplant surgeon.[1] During his surgical residency, he had a fondness for all the specialities, especially cardio and neuro, but he couldn't sit still and wanted to travel, which transplant surgery afforded him.

As an attending, he teaches that the organ isn't just an organ. He insists on teaching his students that to be a great transplant surgeon, it's important to remember that an organ it's one of the greatest gifts a human being can give to another human being and they can not forget the person who gave the gifts. Unlike most of the transplant surgeons, when he has the opportunity, Nick likes to meet the people who have lost someone, offer his condolences, and get to know a little about the person who is donating the organs.[24]

He was involved in a study on liver transplant with HIV-Positive organ donors and recipients that required a lot of travel.[25]

He is studying stem cell therapies and xenotransplantation and successfully did a xenotransplantation with a genetically-modified pig kidney.[26] Nick was later nominated for the Catherine Fox Award for his work in xenotransplantation.[27]

After the residency program at Grey Sloan restarted, six months after the shut down, Meredith offered Nick the job to be in charge of the program because she said he was the best teacher she knows and how much he cares about people.[28] Nick accepted the position.[29]

Nick made several changes on the program, doing exactly what Meredith thought he would do. As new director, Nick set up a mixer with the nursing staff and attendings and provided an extra hour of sleep, monthly passes to a yoga studio and a "Lunch and Learn" where the department gave the interns protected time for lunch once a week, with rotating attendings lecturing.[30]


Notes and Trivia[]

  • He was on dialysis for only a month before his kidney transplant.[1]
  • He believes that doctors make the worst patients.[1]
  • Before his mother died, he had never considered a career in medicine.[31]
  • When asked if the fact that his mother was on the transplant list influenced his career, he said it didn't.[1]
  • He was the first member of his family to go to college.[1]
  • After his kidney transplant, surgery and his niece Charlotte were his priorities.[32]
  • Nick did his residency in D.C. and his fellowship in Minnesota.[21]
  • He does not wear a personalized scrub cap as an attending.
  • Nick hardly yells, especially at work.[33]
  • He's usually very punctual, saying it comes with being a transplant surgeon: being late can lead to an organ not being viable.[21]
  • He likes to fly.[1]
  • His favorite place to do a transplant is San Diego,[21] but his first triple transplant was at Grey Sloan.[34]
  • The cabin he owns was his first big purchase. He bought it to have a place where he could turn his brain off and relax.[35]
  • His plan B was to be a shoe salesman.[1]
  • His "food of choice" to survive college was pasta.[36]
  • He doesn't like History.[37]
  • He declared himself "too math-dumb" to pull Charlotte out of a hole in her Calculus class, when asked if he wanted to call someone when he got hospitalized at Grey-Sloan.[1]
  • He likes to cook.[38]
  • He likes running and cycling.[21]
  • He kept his important documents in the third drawer of a green cabinet at his place in Minnesota.[1]
  • He found out he has ADHD when in college and takes medication to manage it.[39]
  • Inconsistent with the Mayo Clinic's scrub colors, he and his transplant team wore maroon scrubs to the organ retrieval instead of dark green scrubs.
  • He had a 71 episode gap between his lone appearance as a guest star and his upgrade to series regular.

Gallery[]

A more complete gallery with pictures of Nick Marsh can be found here.

Notable Episodes[]

These episodes are Nick-centric or are otherwise very informative about his life:

Memorable Quotes[]

Appearances[]



References[]

Advertisement