Meredith’s Alzheimer’s study showed she never lost one

central character trait, despite what her success as a doctor might have suggested.

Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey looking disturbed in front of a

purple background in Grey’s Anatomy season 20 episode 3-3
Custom Image by Antonella Gugliersi.
Warning! SPOILERS about Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 3 ahead.

Summary
Meredith’s persistence in pursuing the Alzheimer’s study secretly shows her consistent tendency to prioritize her morals over rules.
Meredith’s actions in enlisting Amelia and Teddy highlight her repeated willingness to involve others in risky behavior.
Despite potential consequences, Meredith’s defiance of authority for the sake of her research falls in line with her past behavior resulting in rule-breaking if she could have helped or saved someone.
Meredith’s Alzheimer’s study story is one of the biggest in Grey’s Anatomy season 20 and its centrality highlights how one of Meredith’s main traits persisted through the years no matter how much she grew. Ellen Pompeo having appeared in two out of the at least four Grey’s Anatomy season 20 episodes she is set to due to the Alzheimer’s study showed the full weight of her bombshell revelation in Grey’s Anatomy season 19’s ending. Meredith’s Alzheimer’s research almost cost her the research job, but pursuing it secretly with Amelia hints her career might not yet be out of the woods.

With Grey’s Anatomy season 20’s beginning being indissolubly linked to the interns’ lack of compliance with the rules they should have followed as doctors and specifically interns, Bailey had the chance to remind Meredith of the many mistakes her class made. Grey’s Anatomy’s earlier seasons were after all overflowing with unethical actions to help patients usually started by Izzie or Meredith, highlighting a disregard for the rules if that contrasted with their moral code. However, Grey’s Anatomy’s later seasons focused more on the surviving members of MAGIC’s surgical proficiency than their insubordination tendencies, implying they disappeared as the surgeons grew.

Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey and Midori Francis as Mika Yasuda in Grey’s Anatomy
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Secretly Continuing The Alzheimer’s Study Proves Meredith Hasn’t Changed
Convincing Amelia & Teddy Also Shows Meredith Is Yet Again Not Alone In Her Misbehavior
While Meredith’s findings shocked her mentors and coworkers in Grey’s Anatomy season 19’s finale despite uncovering enough to warrant her excitement, they also prompted Richard to categorically forbid her from publishing them if she wanted to continue having a career in medicine. His reaction was mirrored by Catherine in the Grey’s Anatomy season 20 premiere when she threatened Meredith with dismissal if she continued her Alzheimer’s research. It didn’t take long for Meredith to decide to ask Amelia to continue the Alzheimer’s research secretly, completely ignoring Richard’s advice and Catherine’s order, risking her job and livelihood on her research’s promise.

Despite the massive consequences she would have to face if discovered, Meredith never considered stopping the research, instead finding alternative ways that could have let it continue. Having fully pulled Amelia on board in Grey’s Anatomy season 20, episode 3 meant potentially jeopardizing someone else’s career too, and while neither took the matter lightly, both came to the conclusion it was too big a research to stop if there was a chance to potentially cure Alzheimer’s in the future because of it. Their shared approach showed they never considered following the rules, not if that stopped the advance of medicine.

Meeting Catherine while she was trying so hard to avoid her unexpectedly gave Meredith a solution for her research money problems in the form of Teddy offering her discretionary funding. Having Grey Sloan Memorial’s chief’s support surely helped her research, but it also meant involving someone else in a secret that could end all of their careers. Teddy might have approached the research practically and with a deep belief in Meredith’s hunch, but it also made Meredith’s ability to convince anyone to break the rules evident, something that happened throughout Grey’s Anatomy whether Meredith was a resident or an attending.

Meredith Justified Her Early Misbehavior In Grey’s Anatomy With Her Good Intentions
Despite Acting Deeply Unethically, Meredith Often Only Jumped In To Help People
Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey in Grey’s Anatomy season 7 episode 19
Meredith’s residency years were riddled with foolish but selfless choices – like putting herself in front of a gunman to protect others in Grey’s Anatomy season 6 or inserting her hand over a bomb inside a patient in Grey’s Anatomy season 2 – and deeply unethical courses of action. However, whether she decided to go through with cutting Denny’s LVAD wire with Izzie so that he could be sick enough to deserve a new heart or tampering with Derek’s Alzheimer’s study to give Adele the active agent instead of the placebo, Meredith’s heart was always in the right place.

Meredith rarely apologized for doing what she believed was right, even if that could have led to her dismissal or worse. This was especially evident in Adele’s Alzheimer’s story, introduced in Grey’s Anatomy season 7, episode 17. Meredith’s monologue in the episode highlighted how surgeons liked to see themselves as “renegades” and “gangsters with scalpels” instead of the rule followers they were. However, two episodes later, Meredith went against her own description by messing with Derek’s study, invalidating it, only so that Adele could receive the drug, showing she could hurt anyone if pursuing what she saw as right.

Meredith’s Medical Success Hid Her Tendency To Always Abide By Her Morals – No Matter The Law
Meredith Almost Lost Her License To Practice Medicine For Her Insurance Fraud
Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey in Grey’s Anatomy season 15 episode 23-1
Meredith’s Harper Avery win cemented her success as a surgeon, and her progressively more groundbreaking surgeries almost made everyone forget that Meredith followed her moral compass no matter what the law or the rules said. However, Grey’s Anatomy season 15’s ending reminded everyone that no matter how much Meredith could have had to lose, she always abided by her morals. Putting her daughter’s name in Gabriela Rivera’s records so that the child could get top-level and immediate care briefly landed Andrew DeLuca in jail and almost lost Meredith the license to practice medicine, and she still refused to apologize.

Two pictures of Meredith Grey are shown
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The hearing over Meredith’s license proved a stage from which to back Meredith’s ideas about the broken system from some of the doctors and patients who came to support her but never showed Meredith’s remorse. Meredith’s approach of skirting or flat-out disobeying the rules if it meant she could have helped someone thus stayed the same from Grey’s Anatomy seasons 1 to 20, and it was just proven yet again by Grey’s Anatomy season 20’s Alzheimer’s study storyline, as abiding by Catherine’s order would have met going against everything Meredith stood for through the years.