Derek Christopher Shepherd, M.D., also referred to as McDreamy, is a fictional surgeon on
the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy.
The character is portrayed by actor Patrick Dempsey, who was nominated in 2006 and 2007
Golden Globe for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series Drama for the
role, and the 2006 SAG Award for the Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Drama Series
award.
He was married to Addison Montgomery and is now happily married to longtime girlfriend
Meredith Grey.
Derek was formerly the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital, but abruptly
resigned as chief in the seventh season following the shooting.
Storylines Derek arrives at Seattle Grace Hospital as
the new Head of Neurosurgery from New York City.
He is a Bowdoin College graduate and attended Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons.
Derek was a student of the Chief Webber and was asked to come with an "offer he couldn’t
refuse" – the position of Chief of Surgery.
The day before he reports to work, he has a one night stand with Meredith Grey, whom
he meets in a bar, and discovers she is a new surgical intern at the hospital where
he works.
Although she initially rejects his advances, Meredith eventually agrees to date Derek.
His personality and good looks earn him the nickname "McDreamy" among Meredith and her
friends.
Derek's estranged wife Addison Montgomery arrives in Seattle, making it clear that she
wants to give their marriage another try.
Derek struggles over the decision but eventually returns to Addison.
However, Derek confesses he had fallen in love with Meredith to Addison and becomes
jealous when Meredith begins to date again.
At the hospital prom Derek and Meredith sleep together with Derek confessing his love to
Meredith the next day.
Derek later fights for Meredith against Finn and wins.
He feels guilty for ending it with Addison, but is angry when she seeks solace with Mark.
Addison leaves Seattle to work in a private hospital in LA.
After an accident at the scene of a ferry crash, Derek saves Meredith from drowning
and she becomes depressed causing a growing disconnection between them.
He meets a mysterious woman who, unbeknownst to Derek, is Meredith's half sister, Lexie,
who is a new intern.
He was given the chance by Richard Webber to become the next chief but declines.
Derek begins to push Meredith to make a greater commitment to their relationship than she
feels able to, and the pair break up yet again.
Meredith decides that she wants Derek to date only her, but finds out from George that Derek
kissed a scrub nurse, Rose.
Derek begins dating Rose and Meredith initiates a neurosurgical clinical trial on patients
with malignant gliomas, enlisting Derek as a consulting neurosurgeon.
Meredith and Derek grow discouraged as their clinical trial fails repeatedly, but the final
patient they treat survives, which leads them to rekindling their relationship.
Derek moves in with Meredith while their "dream house" is being built on his land.
Derek's mother, Carolyn, meets Meredith for the first time, ultimately approving of Meredith,
and tells Derek that Meredith does not see things in black and white and that he needs
that in his life.
She gives Derek her wedding ring to give to Meredith.
Derek falls into a serious depression and refuses to go to work after losing a pregnant
patient and being hit by a malpractice lawsuit.
When Meredith meets him later on, she reveals she knows about the ring and he bats it into
the woods and yells at her.
When Izzie Stevens is diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma, Meredith convinces
Derek to operate on her as he is 'one of about 20 people in the world who can save her.
He successfully performs the surgery, and proposes to Meredith in the hospital elevator.
Izzie begins to plan the perfect wedding but when, on their wedding day, Derek discovers
that Izzie has a second brain tumor, Meredith and Derek let her and Alex Karev marry instead.
Derek and Meredith marry by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note.
Derek is offered the job of Chief of Surgery for the second time after the board wants
to oust Dr. Webber.
Derek, being faithful as a friend to Richard, wants them to consider keeping him somehow.
During the merge of Seattle Grace with Mercy West, Richard and Derek do not agree with
how the situation is being handled, and their relationship begins to sour.
Derek learns from Meredith that the Chief has since resumed drinking and feels forced
to have Chief Webber removed as Chief of Surgery.
Having mixed feelings about Richard, Derek offers him two options: go into rehab and
possibly pick up where he left off after or quit.
He goes on to become interim Chief of Surgery/ After Richard recovers Derek gives Richard
a job as a Senior Attending Physician while waiting for the board to decide on having
Richard return to being Chief.
Later, Derek is severely shot by Gary Clark, the husband of a former patient, and is saved
by Cristina Yang who performed the surgery.
Derek quits being Chief when he recovers and learns about the miscarriage Meredith experienced
during the shooting, and they decide to keep trying.
Derek bonds with Cristina, as she operated on him with a gun to her head, by taking care
of her and taking her fishing.
Derek initiates a clinical trial hoping to cure Alzheimer's in fear of Meredith getting
the disease.
While working with Derek on the trial, Meredith tampers the trial by giving Richard Webber's
wife, Adele, the drug they are testing and not receive the placebo.
Derek and Meredith finally marry for real and think about adopting a baby girl from
Malawi named Zola.
When Derek finds out what Meredith did, he gets furious and is unsure whether he should
raise a child with Meredith.
Zola is taken away from Meredith after the social worker finds out she isn't living with
Derek.
Derek became distrustful of Meredith in the OR so they agree that Meredith wouldn't work
in neuro anymore.
The social worker comes back and announces they are the official parents of Zola.
As Meredith is near the end of her fifth year of residency, she and Derek are torn between
staying at Seattle Grace or leaving for Boston where Derek would work at Harvard while Meredith
would be at The Brigham Women's Hospital.
Derek, Meredith, Lexie, Cristina, Mark and Arizona Robbins are subsequently victims of
a plane crash.
Though he survives it, his left hand is mangled.
Following their rescue Derek learns that he may only regain eighty percent of his hand's
function.
He easily accepts it, thankful to be alive and considers being a teacher.
When Callie Torres tells him a more risky surgery could give him back full function
of his hand or reduce its function if it goes wrong, Derek agrees to the surgery and his
hand recovers well and Torres clears him to return to work but it is only weeks later
that Derek feels he is ready to operate.
Derek, Callie and Jackson decide to do nerve transplant for his hand.
Meredith, newly pregnant, goes behind his back and calls his sisters so they can donate
a nerve to him and Lizzie, Derek's younger sister, agrees to donate a nerve and the surgery
is a success.
The doctors of the plane crash including him receive $15 million of compensation and the
hospital goes bankrupt.
Derek, Arizona, Meredith, Callie and Cristina, with the help of the Harper-Avery Foundation
buy the hospital and becomes part of the board.
In the midst of a storm Meredith goes into labor having their first biological child,
a baby boy named Bailey.
After the birth of Bailey, Derek and Meredith take some time off before eagerly returning
to work.
Derek and Meredith struggle with being parents, full-time surgeons and board members so Derek
agrees to performing less surgery to spend more time with the kids.
This allows Meredith to succeed in her second year as an attending and make a name for herself.
He continues his research on brain mapping and it catches the eye of the President of
the United States and Derek receives a personal phone call from the President himself.
Development Casting and creation
When Patrick Dempsey auditioned for the role of Derek, he was afraid that he was not going
to get the part.
Show creator Shonda Rhimes' first reaction was: "The very first time I met him, I was
absolutely sure that he was my guy.
Reading the lines of Derek Shepherd, Patrick had a vulnerable charm that I just fell for.
And he had amazing chemistry with Ellen Pompeo."
Rhimes admitted that Dempsey's dyslexia threw her at first, particularly at the first few
table readings: "I did not know about Patrick's dyslexia in the beginning.
I actually thought that he didn't like the scripts from the way he approached the readings.
When I found out, I completely understood his hesitation.
Now that we all know, if he is struggling with a word, the other actors are quick to
step up and help him out.
Everyone is very respectful."
Isaiah Washington also auditioned for the part and when he did not get it, he said his
reaction was like "I'd been kicked in the stomach by 14 mules."
Washington was, however, later cast as Preston Burke.
Rob Lowe was also considered to portray Shepherd but turned the role down.
Rhimes describes Derek as typical "Prince Charming".
He was planned to be a doctor who doesn't really care about anything, who lives in his
"own" universe and has a big sex appeal.
A man who is charming, devilishly handsome and the type of guy every girl dreams of,
and a man that often makes the wrong decisions, and is often known as a jerk or the ultimate
heartbreaker.
Rhimes planned to have this kind of character from the beginning, because he was the kind
of guy whom girls fall in love with and a character whose storylines could easily be
changed.
Reception With the show concluding its second season,
Robert Bianco of USA Today said that Emmy voters could consider him because of the "seemingly
effortless way he humanizes Derek's 'dreamy' appeal with ego and vanity".
In the third season, Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger wrote that "the attempt to give
the moral high ground back to McDreamy was bad.
Dude, whatever happened in New York ceased to count in any kind of grievance tally once
you agreed to take Addison back and give things another guy.
You're the dick who cheated on her, you're the one who knew that she found the panties,
and still you act like her getting back together with Mark justifies what you did?
Wow.
I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike anyone on this show more than Meredith, but
congratulations, big guy."
Debbie Chang of BuddyTV noted the character's immaturity in the fourth season, saying: "The
only character who did not make me love him was Derek Shepherd.
How this character is still Shonda's golden child is beyond me.
Yes, we get it.
He's tormented by his love for Meredith, but that does not give him the right to lash out
at her when his clinical trial patients are dying.
If things don't go absolutely the way he wants them to, then he refuses to cooperate.
How immature can this man possibly be?
No amount of heavily styled hair or blue-blue-blue eyes is going to make me warm up to him unless
he admits to being the needy, desperate one in the relationship."
Entertainment Weekly placed Shepherd in its list of the "30 Great TV Doctors and Nurses".
The character was also listed in Wetpaint's "10 Hottest Male Doctors on TV" and in BuzzFeed's
"16 Hottest Doctors On Television".
His relationship with Meredith was included in TV Guide's list of "The Best TV Couples
of All Time".
Victor Balta of Today listed Shepherd and Sloan's friendship in its "TV's best bromances".
He called them "the most exciting couple on Grey’s," explaining "they’ve demonstrated
an easy chemistry that makes for some of the great comic relief around Seattle Grace Hospital
with their banter, sage wisdom on each other’s lives, and locker room-style teasing."
Their bromance was furthermore included in lists by About.com, BuddyTV, Cosmopolitan,
Wetpaint.
However, following the announcement of Dane's upcoming departure from the show, Mark Perigard
of the Boston Herald felt he and Derek "never clicked like you’d expect friends would.
Any scene they had together ranged from uncomfortable to forced."
References
External links
Derek Shepherd at the Internet Movie Database Grey's Anatomy at ABC.com