17 of Our Favorite Doctors on Grey’s Anatomy

14. Amelia Shepherd

Amelia’s story is so unfortunate no matter what side of the tracks you’re standing on. As an obvious stand-in for her brother, Derek, Amelia comes to Seattle for a fresh start. Instead, she gets an overdose of Meredith at her most bitter, a dead brother and a bunch of people who remember her more for her drug addiction days.

In addition to witnessing her father’s murder at age 5 and overdosing at a young age, Amelia always felt the most affected by the things happening in Derek’s life. They were pretty close until they weren’t, leaving Amelia to throw herself into neurosurgery for just a semblance of a normal life. For us Private Practice aficionados, we know most of Amelia’s tragic backstory consisted of addiction, losing her baby and leaving her stable boyfriend. But when she gets to Seattle and becomes a doctor at Grey Sloan, she lives in Derek’s shadow and Meredith blames her for making his transition to D.C. easier.

Despite all this, Amelia becomes a great surgeon. She keeps Richard’s secret and befriends Maggie Pierce, then she saved Nicole Herman’s life when no one believed in her. No matter how much good she does, she still ends up being the last to know about Derek’s death and treated like an outcast.

Though no one can replace Derek, Amelia stands as the best Shepherd-adjacent in Seattle.