Here are the three commandments of becoming a surgeon, according to a recent med school grad:

1. No lying, no crying.

2. Eat and sleep whenever you get the chance.

3. Don’t mess with the pancreas.

But there appears to be a fourth cardinal rule at work in Seattle Grace Hospital:

4. Motherhood and surgery don’t mix.

You don’t mess with the pancreas because it’s basically a big, mysterious bag of digestive enzymes—an extremely delicate, temperamental organ that affects the surrounding systems in unpredictable ways. And you don’t swap your scrubs for a maternity dress for the same reason—becoming a mother sets off a chain reaction through the psyche and heart that irrevocably changes the way you practice medicine. A good surgery is clean, precise, and free of complications. A good mother-child relationship is exactly the opposite.

In the surgical wing of Seattle Grace, mothers, by definition, are patients—passive and in distress. Pregnancy is presented as a medical problem to be solved, a crisis to be averted, a mire of complications. For a surgeon to save others’ pregnancies, she can’t possibly have a family of her own. Her life must always come second to her job. Motherhood is a distraction, and distractions make for sloppy surgeries.

ELLIS GREY: WORST MOTHER, BEST SURGEON

Dr. Ellis Grey had no illusions about the choice she had to make when she had a  …