Ellen Pompeo Honors Healthcare Workers In Her Scrubs And Mask As Grey’s Anatomy Goes Back To Work

ellen pompeo grey's anatomy abc

There were very few TV fans who weren't disappointed early this year when several shows had to stop filming until the teams behind those series could figure out the best ways to keep everyone safe on set. Grey's Anatomy was one of the many shows which saw its season end before the planned finale, having wrapped a whole four episodes early. Now, though, they have returned to production, and star Ellen Pompeo is honoring healthcare workers as she gets back into her scrubs and mask.

Having Season 16 of Grey's Anatomy end with Episode 21 might not seem like a big deal to many viewers, seeing as how that would be a full season for most shows, but the long-running medical drama had been given a whopping 25 episodes to tell its story. Obviously, things have changed a lot since Ellen Pompeo and her co-stars had to stop filming, so now that she's returned to set, she's taken to Instagram to pay tribute to all the real healthcare workers who've risked their lives to keep the rest of us safe. Take a look:

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Man, I love Ellen Pompeo. The star was probably one of the first to give public thanks to healthcare workers shortly after things had to shutdown in March. Now that she's finally back on set with co-star Richard Flood and everyone else, she's making it known that she has much love and respect for all of those who have given their lives to try and keep us healthy, as well as everyone who's still on the front lines despite the hardships they're facing on a daily basis.

As she noted in her post, Ellen Pompeo is dedicating Season 17 to all the healthcare workers out there, and the show is certainly set to deal with our current health crisis in a very real way. Showrunner Krista Vernoff was able to confirm that Grey's Anatomy would do some resetting before filming the new season, so that they could bring some very real scenarios that healthcare workers are dealing with to the show, as opposed to simply starting with what would have been the last few episodes of Season 16.

Vernoff said the producers and writers have been having talks with healthcare workers, so that they can not only show what dealing with the pandemic has been like from a dramatic standpoint, but also "how we keep alive humor and romance while we tell these really painful stories." Luckily, this means that not only will the series be able to give fans some real world situations to ponder, but also continue to show us some of that Grey's levity we love, and where things stand with the many twisty romantic relationships they've given us.

That, of course, includes what's going on with Meredith, DeLuca and the new character played by Richard Flood, Dr. Cormac Hayes, who was brought in last season after Karev and his portrayer, Justin Chambers, left Grey Sloan Memorial behind. So, fans can enjoy looking forward to seeing how Meredith works out her feelings for both of the complicated men now in her life.

Grey's Anatomy will be back on ABC at some point this fall, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates. To see what else you can watch in the coming weeks, check out our fall premiere schedule!

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.