Cristina Yang

Dr. Cristina Yang
File:CristinaYang.jpg Cristina Yang
First appearance	"A Hard Day's Night"
Created by	Shonda Rhimes
Portrayed by	Sandra Oh
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Title	M.D., Ph.D., FACS
Occupation	Surgical Resident at Seattle Grace Hospital
Family	Helen Rubenstein (mother) Dr. Saul Rubenstein (stepfather)

Cristina Yang is a fictional character on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy. The character is portrayed by actress Sandra Oh, who won a Golden Globe and a SAG Award in 2006 for the role. Sandra Oh has since been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series at the 2007 Emmy Awards.

Background

Cristina Yang is a doctor of Korean descent and a native of Beverly Hills, California. Raised Jewish (her mother converted upon re-marriage to oral surgeon Saul Rubenstein), she has at times referred to herself as Jewish, although she believes only in science and is a strong atheist, implying that she is likely a Humanistic Jew. Her biological father died when she was nine years old in a car accident, where she watched him bleed out before help arrived. Despite being dyslexic, she has a B.A. from Smith College, an M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine, graduating first in her class, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Oncology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Overview

Cristina is incredibly focused and driven (even more so than the others) and is always excited about the chance to scrub in on a surgery. Extremely competitive, she even resorts to stealing and hijacking patients if it means getting in on an exciting surgery. Cristina has excellent surgical skills, and was the intern with the most medical knowledge during her first year at Seattle Grace. However, she has difficulty conveying her feelings and dislikes being touched by anyone, including her mother. Her bedside manner has improved, but she finds it hard to empathize with most patients.

Cristina values logic and practical thinking above emotional reasoning, but has undergone several emotional situations since becoming an intern. Because of the traumatic experience of watching her father die, Cristina is unable to handle the emotional loss from the thought of losing her loved ones. While she initially grappled with the concept of expressing her feelings, Cristina has gradually become more comfortable with sharing her inner thoughts. Nevertheless, she is still considered the least emotional of all the interns. Despite rough patches with all (especially George and Izzie) Cristina's closest friends at the hospital remain Izzie, George, Alex, and most of all Meredith, her best friend and "person".

Character History

Season 1

Cristina Yang became an intern at Seattle Grace after graduating at the top of her medical school class from Stanford. On the first day of the internship, she hit it off with Meredith Grey. Cristina soon fell out with her because she felt that Meredith was given surgeries because of Derek’s favoritism and her famous mother, Dr. Ellis Grey. However, Cristina apologized to Meredith and the pair soon became fast friends. Her frequent sarcastic remarks and lack of tact made it hard for people to like her, but her fellow interns gradually took to her ways and became friends with her as well.

She is touched by the fact that Burke admitted to having made a huge error in a surgery. Cristina followed Burke into the on-call room, locks the door and they have sex. Burke tried to get Cristina to define their relationship, but a commitment-phobic Cristina brushed him off. She found out she was pregnant and scheduled an abortion.

Season 2

Unable to deal with her emotions about the pregnancy and impending abortion, she distanced herself from a bewildered, frustrated Burke, telling only Meredith about her pregnancy, as she was her emergency contact 'person'. Meanwhile, her covert relationship with Burke came out into the open after George saw them kissing and told Meredith and Izzie. After the Chief told Burke that he could only be interim Chief of Surgery if he was prepared to sacrifice his personal life, he decided to break up with Cristina. Cristina, hurt by his decision, decided against telling Burke about her pregnancy. However, while in surgery with Burke she collapsed from an ectopic pregnancy and her left fallopian tube burst. Burke was shocked to find out about the pregnancy, but Cristina reminded him that he broke up with her. Despite that, he was the only one whom she allowed to comfort her when she could not stop crying from her grief.

The couple reconciled and officially became a couple. On their first official date, Cristina and Burke realized that they have almost nothing in common. Burke also noted that Cristina is “very hard to get to know” and she agreed. Although their relationship was dysfunctional, it was still going strong as they were clearly in love with each other.

Their different beliefs cause more obstacles in their relationship. Burke's spirituality differed from Cristina's. She began looking down on Burke for beliefs she considered irrational, while Burke was hurt and angry she wouldn't accept his spirituality.

Cristina’s commitment issues resurfaced when Burke surprised her with a key to his apartment. She believed they weren't ready in their relationship to live together. Cristina introduced Burke to her extremely messy apartment and lifestyle, but Burke accepted her for what she was. She eventually agreed to move in with Burke, but secretly kept her old apartment. When Burke found out, she gave up her apartment.

During Burke's surgery after he was shot in the arm, she panicked and fled, her turbulent emotions preventing her from keeping him calm. This impacted her deeply, for she knew it wasn't like her at all to be controlled by her emotions in such a way. She begged the Chief to teach her how to suppress her emotions so she could become a great surgeon, but he refused, saying that he wouldn't be responsible for destroying what made her human.

Season Three

Burke discovered he had developed a hand tremor during his recovery. Cristina helped him disguise his tremor using a covert partnership. She managed Burke’s surgery schedule and scrubbed in on all his surgeries. However, her exclusivity to rare surgeries incited jealousy and suspicion from the other interns. George, after witnessing one of Burke’s hand tremors, confronted Cristina about it. She frantically denied it, but suffered a crisis of confidence and eventually confessed everything to the Chief.

Cristina’s actions jeopardized Burke’s chances of becoming Chief of Surgery, and Burke saw this as a huge betrayal. Both parties refused to talk to each other after the fallout, jeopardizing their relationship. Cristina eventually broke the silence, and Burke asked her to marry him. Cristina was stunned and only accepted his proposal after eight days of hesitation.

When Meredith was unconscious after falling into the water during the ferry crisis, Cristina fled after she realized she could not deal with the fact that her "person" was dying. Burke encouraged her to confront her feelings, and she burst into the trauma room and insisted that the doctors try to revive Meredith again. Meredith soon woke up, and an overwhelmed Cristina happily told Meredith that she was getting married to Burke, and Meredith was the one person she wanted to tell.

Cristina's life was further complicated when her former professor and lover, Colin Marlow, arrived at Seattle Grace. In a bid to win her back, he repeatedly came onto her and tried to sabotage her relationship with Burke. On top of that, he joined the race for Chief of Surgery, so as to compete with Burke and impress her. Marlow was not convinced by Cristina's affections for Burke. Marlow humiliated Burke in the operating room by belittling Burke's knowledge of cardiothoracics, and relegated Burke to just observing the surgery. Marlow tells Cristina she had compromised herself for Burke, and was no longer the competitive and driven person he fell in love with. Cristina unknowingly let her personality gradually erode away by constantly giving in to Burke's decisions about their wedding and their relationship. This went up to the extent where she opted to go ahead with Burke's lavish wedding plans, which was the complete opposite of what she wanted.

On the day of her wedding, Cristina remained plagued by self-doubt. She realized that her love for Burke was changing her into someone else. Desperate, Cristina insisted on coming to the hospital that day to make a surgical "cut" to feel like herself again. As she gathered enough courage to walk down the aisle, Burke called off the wedding, realizing that she could not continue the way they were living now. Cristina returned to their apartment, finding all of his prized possessions gone. She is both incredibly relieved and saddened, bursting into tears, and begging Meredith to take off her wedding dress. She and Meredith went on a "honeymoon" to Hawaii during the timeskip to make up for the canceled marriage.

Season Four

In the beginning of the fourth and current season, it is revealed that Burke had left the hospital and moved to an unknown place, leaving no contact information so he could make a clean break with Cristina. She finds it hard to get over Burke, but is managing to cope. A turning point comes when Burke's mother arrives to talk to Cristina, a woman just as tough and difficult to deal with as she is. Cristina is at first terrified of the meeting, but finds Mrs. Burke to be disarmingly understanding. She acknowledges that Cristina had loved surgery more than Burke, and that it was best that she now wouldn't have to compromise herself the way she would've had he stayed. She assures her that as a strong woman, she would heal, and encourages her to study cardiothoracics like she'd planned to. She even envies her, wishing that she could've been "born in a different time" so she might've been more like Cristina.

Sometime later, Dr. Hahn arrives to perform a surgery in Seattle Grace. She immediately dislikes Cristina for her affairs with Marlow and Burke and prevents her from scrubbing in on the surgeries. Cristina angrily confronts her about it at the end of the episode, only to find that the Chief has just hired her as the hospital's new Head of Cardiothoracics. In the following episodes, Dr. Hahn begins preventing Cristina from scrubbing in on any cardiothoracic surgeries.

Callie has recently moved into Cristina's apartment. The two seem to now share a mutual bond since both their lovers have left them. Cristina also had a rilvalry with fellow resident Isobel Stevens after Izzie decided to try the cardiothoracic pathway, with Erica Hahn choosing Izzie for surgeries over Cristina. However, Izzie was not "hardcore" enough, so the rivalry ended between her and Cristina just as quickly as it had begun.

Cristina still tries to win the affections of Dr. Hahn, with each attempt being brutally rebuffed. This is due to the fact that Cristina reminded Erica Hahn of a younger version of her. When news of Burke winning a Harper Avery award reaches Seattle Grace, Cristina feels betrayed for not being credited, and starts to act unusually, like singing Madonna's "Like A Virgin" while harvesting hearts from cadavers, refusing to talk to Dr. Hahn when she tries to bring Burke's arrogance up, and cleaning her messy apartment. She later admits to Dr. Webber, after she puts Burke’s name on her "Date and Tell" form, that she helped performed his surgeries for him when he had hand tremors, but he does not mention her in the article at all. She was his hand, but is now a ghost because Erica does not let her perform any procedures, and that Burke seems to have moved on and she is still in the same place, walking the same halls that Burke did, and living in Burke's apartment, and that the way her life is now is "unbearable".