After joining the long-running medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” at the start of its sixth season, Sarah Drew’s trauma attending Dr. April Kepner bid farewell to the fictional Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (née Seattle Grace Hospital) during the season 14 finale. At the time, Drew seemed happy with her nine-year turn as the timid, anxious intern turned trauma surgeon and U.S. Army veteran. When news broke that she and Jessica Capshaw, who played pediatric surgeon Dr. Arizona Robbins, would both leave after the season 14 closer “All of Me,” Drew was effusive in her praise for the show and its creator, Shonda Rhimes.
“I got to tell stories I believed in. I got to work with [producers] Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers and learn from the best,” Drew told The Hollywood Reporter. “I got to work with an incredible community of people that I will have lifelong friendships with […] It’s hard for me to come up with anything I could be angry about.”
By 2024, though, Drew was singing a different tune. During an appearance on the “Call It What It Is” podcast (hosted by Capshaw and Camilla Luddington, the latter of whom still plays Dr. Jo Wilson on “Grey’s Anatomy”) in October of that year, Drew said to Capshaw, “We were unceremoniously let go in a way that felt really mean and unjust. And, because of that, the outpouring of love was so enormous it was like you were sitting there watching people say all the things that they love about you after you’re dead.”
To be honest, and with all due respect to Drew, April was almost written out of the show twice, so I think, with that considered, she had a pretty good run on the series! Shortly after her arrival in season 6 — she’s one of a handful of interns from a competing hospital and residency program, Mercy West, who comes to work at Seattle Grace when the two hospitals merge — April is fired after she forgets to check a woman’s airway after a fire, leading to the patient’s death.
Then, at the close of season 8, April takes her medical board exams with her colleagues Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh, who left the series at the end of season 10), Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers, who suddenly and unceremoniously departed in season 16), and Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), and April is the only one who doesn’t pass. She briefly loses her job again but is ultimately rehired. So what else happens to April on “Grey’s Anatomy,” and how does her story “end” in season 14?
