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“Grey’s Anatomy” has been around since 2005 and might well be the best Shonda Rhimes show even today. Still, a show’s allure can hinge on many things, and one of them is a clever title.
The title “Grey’s Anatomy” riffs on Henry Gray and Henry Vandyke Carter’s 1858 medical book “Gray’s Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice,” and ties in with the name of main character Meredith Grey, so it certainly fits the bill. However, some of the early candidates for the show’s title were considerably less inspired.
In Entertainment Weekly’s exclusive excerpt of Lynette Rice’s book “How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy,” several people discussed the title ideas that bounced around before the show started airing as “Grey’s Anatomy.” Kate Burton (who played Meredith’s mother Dr. Ellis Grey) first heard about the show from her agent, who knew the project as “Surgeons.” Writers Harry Werksman and Eric Buchman revealed that ABC president Stephen McPherson’s dislike of the name “Grey’s Anatomy” led to a temporary new title, “Complications.”
Still, generic as those title ideas may be, the gold standard for bad “Grey’s Anatomy” title pitches must be “Miss Diagnosis.” Fortunately, this idea’s life span was roughly the same as the time it took to speak it out loud. “I also remember someone in the room pitching — and it might have been me, I hope it wasn’t me — somebody pitching the name ‘Miss Diagnosis,'” Buchman said. “I’m pretty sure it was a joke. Shonda just outright hated that.”
One alternate Grey’s Anatomy title was in serious consideration for a while
Out of those alternate titles, “Complications” seems to be the one that came closest to actually sticking. However, there was, well, a complication — namely, Atul Gawande’s 2002 nonfiction book “Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science,” which is a collection of stories about real cases from a surgeon’s point of view. When “Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes asked Eric Buchman to investigate and make sure that there wouldn’t be any worrying similarities, he soon discovered that some of the book’s stories weren’t that far removed from the central premise of the show.
“It was a good book, and there were similarities because they’re both about what’s it like to be a young doctor working for a hospital for the first time,” Buchman said. “There were things that would overlap.” Despite this, it appears that ABC was committed enough to the “Complications” title to take steps to secure it. “I heard that ABC went and optioned the book just so they could officially use the title, but I do not know who made the call to go back to ‘Grey’s Anatomy,'” Buchman said.
It is, of course, impossible to say how “Grey’s Anatomy” would have fared with a title like “Complications.” However, seeing as how “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 22 debuted in 2025, it’s very hard to question the title the show ultimately landed on.