Meet Meredith Grey, a woman trying to lead a real life while doing a job that makes having a real life impossible. Meredith is a first year surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital, the toughest surgical residency program west of Harvard. She and her fellow first-year interns were students yesterday; today they're doctors in a world where on the job training can be a matter of life and death. Such is the world of "Grey's Anatomy," ABC's midseason medical drama about young people struggling to become doctors and doctors struggling to remain human. It's a world filled with intensity, humor, sex and pain, in which the interns discover that neither medicine nor relationships can be defined in black and white -- real life only comes in shades of grey.

The surgical staff tries to be optimistic as a young woman clings to life after a brutal attack. Meanwhile Meredith puts her career on the line to save a newborn in the hospital nursery, and the other interns learn that it takes more than just medical knowledge to be good at their jobs.

When the annual bicycle messenger race takes place in Seattle, the hospital emergency room fills with an assortment of injuries, causing the interns to compete for the most severe cases. Meanwhile, Derek and Burke compete for the chief resident position, and while Derek continues to pursue Meredith romantically, a patient flirts with George.

Cristina’s encounter with a former nurse, now a patient at Seattle Grace, changes her forever; Derek and Meredith treat a construction worker who has miraculously survived an injury but is now faced with tough decisions about his future; and a patient recognizes Izzie from a lingerie ad, which makes her the subject of hospital gossip.

An exhausted Meredith thinks she may have made a mistake during surgery, which could jeopardize her career. Meanwhile Izzie’s plan to throw a party for her new boyfriend goes completely awry, and Alex deals with a patient who is addicted to painkillers.

Alex gains the trust of Annie, a nervous patient with an extraordinarily large tumor, only to humiliate himself in front of her later. Meanwhile Derek chooses Meredith to assist with an elderly Parkinson's patient who may need surgery -- but Bailey disapproves of their relationship and is determined to make Meredith suffer -- and tensions escalate between Burke and Shepherd.