Lessons from Cristina Yang

She's got her priorities straight

Television will never be the same. Cristina Yang, the sassy and smart surgeon from Grey’s Anatomy has left after 10 seasons.

I’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy for as long as I can remember. I remember being upset that I had to go to my fourth grade open house, because I was missing the crucial episode where one of the characters was moving from Seattle to Los Angles. It’s been something I’ve watched with my mom for almost a decade.

I’ve learned life lessons from the show: whenever there was a teen pregnancy, my mom would also comment to me about the importance of protection and being smart. She even went thorough a phase when she wanted me to be a medical researcher because of the show. I, unfortunately for her, had other ideas.

What I’ve gained most from Grey’s and Cristina is that it’s ok to be the best. She is a woman who isn’t afraid to prove that she works harder and practices more than any other surgeon her age, male or female. She demands excellence from everyone around her, instead of kowtowing to everyone else. 

Who needs a white dress?

I touched on the topic of marriage earlier in this blog, but Cristina puts it all to shame. She was married, once, but it happened on her terms and she didn’t both wearing a white dress, saying it was racist and sexist. When her husband wanted kids, she refused to agree because she didn’t want to have to sacrifice her award winning medical career. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to go out and get it. That type of role model was important for me as I’ve gone through high school and countlessly chosen academics or extracurricular activities over trying to be a social butterfly that I’m not.

Most importantly, Cristina taught me how to be a friend. That sometimes it’s ok to bond with someone based not on what you both like, but on the ‘dark and twisty’-ness that you both have been through. Friendships aren’t just gossiping and sharing hair/makeup trips at a nail parlor/hair salon. Cristina’s friendship with Meredith involved the two of them putting each other first, over their significant others, even when it involved kicking the significant other out of bed. There was no ‘hierarchy’ of boyfriend/girlfriend over friends that can sometimes evolve with modern relationship.

I appreciate that Shonda Rhimes, the creator/writer of Greys’s didn’t choose to end Cristina’s life when Sandra Oh, the actress who played Cristina, decided she was through, as Rhimes has done with so many other characters. I can continue to believe that Cristina is off doing wonderful things in Switzerland, still free of the ties that she refused to let bind her, living her feminist icon cardio god life.

Cia♀,

Charlie