Series similar to Grey’s Anatomy offer peak drama that keep viewers glued to the TV screens week in and week out, and after two decades of storytelling, the series keeps coming back for more. The essence of Grey’s Anatomy isn’t just the medical cases, though that is important. Grey’s Anatomy is a hospital drama with plenty of drama when it comes to cases and illnesses that arrive at the hospital. However, it is also a show about people, how they work together, and how those relationships ensure they save lives when the time comes.
The show’s emphasis on connection and family is what makes the series so special. The show has friendships going through ups and downs, relationships struggling to stay together during trauma, and, at the center of it all, is the understanding that empathy and humanity are the most important things to bring through life. The show also has a lot of romance and a lot of laughs. Grey’s Anatomy spin-offs captured the essence of this show, and others have done the same.
10.The Night Shift (2014-2017)
4 Seasons, 45 Episodes
The Night Shift was a medical drama on NBC that followed the night shift of a Texas military hospital through tumultuous, sometimes unbelievable, events. Not only is this series a medical drama, but it has the same found family trope that Grey’s Anatomy does. The main protagonist was in the Army and worked directly with many other hospital doctors. His girlfriend also works in the hospital, which leaves plenty of room for longing across hospital corridors.
Each episode follows multiple cases and allows the doctors to explore their own emotions through their patients. There’s romantic tension, there’s endless drama, and it could be the perfect start to moving on from Grey’s Anatomy. The series only ran for four seasons, although it does have some familiar cast members, including Ken Leung from Lost and Scott Wolf from Party of Five. It was a fun little show, but it never really hit the depths of the storytelling of Grey’s Anatomy.
9. Younger (2015-2021)
7 Seasons, 84 Episodes
Sometimes, it can be hard to watch two shows of the same genre directly following each other. Younger is the perfect follow-up to Grey’s Anatomy because they have the same bones but have plenty of differences. Younger follows Liza Miller, a 40-year-old woman pretending to be 26 to bypass ageism in the publishing industry. It uses comedy and romance to navigate the complicated and messy world that Liza creates.
While Younger is far removed from a hospital setting, the main focus is the friendships and romances surrounding people working together.
While Grey’s Anatomy and Younger differ greatly, they both feature engaging love triangles and a lighthearted foundation. Both series also emphasize the importance of strong female relationships, surpassing any love triangle. While Younger is far removed from a hospital setting, the main focus is the friendships and romances surrounding people working together. While the publishing industry is a different beast, the characters in Grey’s were always more important than the medical cases.
8. New Amsterdam (2018-2023)
5 Seasons, 89 Episodes
New Amsterdam has much in common with Grey’s Anatomy, but it specifically shares interdepartmental relationships within their respective hospitals. In New Amsterdam, the show focuses on not just the ER or surgery departments but also the psychological and neurological services. These are two departments that don’t always get a lot of screen time but are extremely important to how real-life hospitals are run.
Both shows make an effort to have cases that bring together staff from all departments to make the shows more dramatic, but also to be more representative of what hospital cases look like. The series ran for five seasons on NBC. While Grey’s focused on an intern in Meredith to bring fans onto the show, New Amsterdam instead chose to focus on the hospital’s medical director (Ryan Eggold), which gave a very different look at how things were run.
7. 9-1-1 (2018)
The First Responders Of Los Angeles Working Together
9-1-1 is a hit first-responder show formerly airing on Fox before moving to ABC. This show follows a group of firefighters from Station 118 in Los Angeles through their emergency calls. It is also the perfect mix of two Shondaland shows that aired on ABC. It has the medical aspect of Grey’s Anatomy and the first-responder aspects of Station 19, a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off showing the first-responder teams that brought patients into Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
9-1-1 utilizes mass emergencies like Grey’s Anatomy does, as the showrunners want to start and finish each season with a bang. Cases get wilder and wilder as the seasons go on for both of these shows, but the plot still manages to feel grounded in family and love. 9-1-1 also had a sister series called 9-1-1: Lone Star that was just as good, if not better at times, but it remained on Fox, which meant it ended up canceled after just five seasons, ending in 2025.
6. The Resident (2018-2023)
6 Seasons, 107 Episodes
Led by stars Matt Czuchry and Emily VanCamp, Fox’s The Resident had a slightly different take on a hospital drama because, while it does focus on patient cases, there’s also a large emphasis on the politics that surround hospitals and the money that goes into them. Grey’s Anatomy is not afraid of plots like this, covering things like hospital ownership, shifting of power dynamics, and the government interfering with caring for patients.
There is plenty of heart in The Resident, and there are many characters to root for. However, examining political effects on hospitals from a different perspective is a fascinating way to approach a genre that’s so populated. It really goes a long way in making the show different from series like Grey’s Anatomy while not losing focus of the characters and people that make the hospital dramas such required viewing for many fans.
5. How To Get Away With Murder (2014-2020)
6 Seasons, 90 Episodes
Shondaland is a production company responsible for a vast network of series. Shondaland shows are filled with strong female leads and complex stories. Its creator, Shonda Rhimes, was not only responsible for Grey’s Anatomy but had several other hit shows, including one called How To Get Away With Murder. The show is led by Viola Davis, who plays Annalise Keating—a law professor who invites a group of students to work with her in her law practice—and never chooses the expected path.
As they share a creator, Grey’s Anatomy and How To Get Away With Murder both explore having strong women in male-dominated fields and being faced with seemingly impossible decisions. There are a lot of differences between Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder, especially since the latter show is a murder mystery and not a hospital procedural, but the strong female characters are something most fans can really latch onto.
4. Private Practice (2007-2013)
6 Seasons, 111 Episodes
Mentioning Grey’s Anatomy spin-offs without talking about Private Practice would overlook one of Shondaland’s most underrated shows. It ran for 6 seasons before it was canceled. It followed Dr. Addison Montgomery, an OB/GYN who specializes in fetal surgery and medicine. She was on three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and was a hugely popular character before producers gave her a spin-off show.
She ran her own practice, and like in the parent series, she was a powerful leader and an empathetic doctor. This series adopted the same heart and the same bones as Grey’s Anatomy, and it was successful because of it. Fans of Addison also got more from her when Private Practice was canceled, and the character returned to Grey’s in seasons 18 and 19.
3. The Rookie (2018)
The LAPD’s Oldest Rookie
The Rookie is another procedural show on ABC, but it follows a police precinct in L.A. rather than a hospital. Following a 40-year-old man who decides to become the oldest rookie LAPD police officer later in life, the series shows John Nolan’s (Nathan Fillion) journey through his rookie campaign and how he grows as an officer and a person. Like Grey’s Anatomy, the lighthearted banter and great cast of characters are set against the backdrop of solid relationships and intense emotional moments.
It’s easy to fall in love with these characters, just like in Grey’s Anatomy. The two shows are also similar in that Grey’s Anatomy started with Meredith Grey as an intern, learning the steps in the hospital before eventually moving up the ladder into more prominent roles within the hospital. Nolan did the same, starting as a rookie and now serving as a veteran officer who helps train rookies on the force himself.
2. All Rise (2019-2023)
3 Seasons, 58 Episodes
All Rise is a courtroom drama with several homes, including CBS and OWN. It follows a judge as she learns about the pressures and politics surrounding her job. This show, like Grey’s Anatomy, celebrates diversity and differences in the workplace. The cast has great chemistry and very interesting cases to follow. While it takes place in a courtroom and not a hospital, the drama is on par, and the relationships are just as indulgent as in ABC’s hospital drama.
All Rise ran for two seasons before CBS canceled it, but it was popular enough for OWN to pick it up for a third and final season to wrap up the story. Like on Grey’s Anatomy, where Meredith Grey fought to do the right
thing, even in the face of adversity, All Rise saw former prosecutor-turned-judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick) trying to do the same, as an idealistic woman trying to make a difference in a system that was in no way equal and fair to those involved.
1. ER (1994-2009)
15 Seasons, 331 Episodes
ER is the closest show to Grey’s Anatomy in terms of story focus and longevity. Both follow a core group of doctors in a hospital that experiences mass catastrophes and the deaths of main characters. ER also has an extremely star-studded cast. Actors like George Clooney, John Stamos, and Linda Cardellini all played a huge role in the show, and there were countless guest stars over the years.
Grey’s Anatomy and ER alike spend seasons creating characters to connect with, and both are not afraid to kill characters to further the heart of the show.
Grey’s Anatomy and ER alike spend seasons creating characters to connect with, and both are not afraid to kill characters to further the heart of the show. Both shows have made fans aware that no one is safe, not even the main characters, as the idea of ending seasons on massive moments that change everything is a hallmark of the genre these shows perfected. Full of medical drama and romantic plots, ER is like picking up right where Grey’s Anatomy left off, just with slightly more dated video quality.
