It’s been over a decade since Sandra Oh said goodbye to Grey’s Anatomy, and fans are still grieving her exit.

The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actress rose to fame playing Dr. Cristina Yang on the hit ABC medical drama in 2005. She was a staple on the Shonda Rhimes-created show for 10 seasons until she left the cast in 2014, telling The Hollywood Reporter at the time that she had been contemplating the decision since the end of season 8.

“I’ve gone through a lot of therapy over this,” Oh told the outlet in August 2013. “I started thinking about it because I had to prepare myself. I gave myself two years to emotionally let go. At the end of last season, Shonda took me aside and said, ‘What are your thoughts?’ I said, ‘I’m ready.’ ”

Since her departure, the Killing Eve star has fielded questions about potentially reprising her role on the series, which will air its 23rd season in October 2026. Her answer has been more or less the same since she retired her scrubs and stethoscope 12 years ago.

“I don’t feel the need to revisit, but I also profoundly understand the audience’s love for this character because I’ve seen it for the past 10 years,” Oh told Entertainment Weekly in March 2025. She added that exits and new faces are essential for the longevity of Grey’s Anatomy, saying, “Here we are more than 20 years later, and I think the show’s really still going strong.”

So, why did Sandra Oh leave Grey’s Anatomy? Here’s everything the actress has said about her exit and whether she would ever play Dr. Cristina Yang again.

Rhimes approached Oh about her future on Grey’s Anatomy after season 8

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oh started thinking about exiting the show during contract renegotiations in May 2012, after Rhimes asked her if she wanted to continue her character.

“I had a real heart-to-heart talk with Shonda, and she was great,” she later told Entertainment Weekly. “I’m so grateful at that point in our relationship she had enough confidence and trust and respect in me to say, ‘This is your choice.’ And so I took it really seriously.”

Oh finally came to the decision while walking in “deep in the woods” in Vancouver, eventually signing a two-year contract that would take her through season 10.

Oh said she felt like she “created a full character”

Both when she announced her departure and in the years since, Oh has shared that she felt ready to walk away because Cristina’s arc — which included surviving a plane crash and navigating her on-and-off romance with Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) — was comprehensive and complete.

“I felt very much like I did my job,” the Grey’s Anatomy alum said on the Dinner’s On Me podcast in July 2026. “I feel like I created a full character. I feel I grew the character [in] 10 years time, where it’s a believable growth. People grow in 10 years, and I think she really did grow.”

Her character’s exit on Grey’s Anatomy was planned

Oh had two seasons to emotionally prepare her Grey’s Anatomy departure and say goodbye to Cristina, a lengthy timeline she’s acknowledged as a rarity in television.

“The privilege was to actually plan an exit and all the writers to be able to plan the exit to support that,” she said on Dinner’s On Me. “So that was a real, real gift.”

That exit involved Cristina accepting a new role running a cardiothoracic department in Switzerland, offered to her by none other than her ex-fiancé Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington).

Though Oh hasn’t appeared in the series since 2014, her character has been kept alive through texts, on-screen mentions and phone calls.

In season 11, she appeared via body double at Derek Shepherd’s (Patrick Dempsey) funeral to support her best friend, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo).

Oh has said multiple times that she wouldn’t reprise her role

Over the years, Oh has been adamant that she has no plans to return to Grey’s Anatomy, telling Entertainment Weekly that her answer has “always been a hard no.”

Speaking to Extra in April 2019, the actress said she’s moved on “creatively” and she echoed a similar sentiment during a May 2021 appearance on the Los Angeles Times‘ podcast Asian Enough.

“In some ways, you do your work as a bubble and you let it go,” she said. “I left that show, my God, seven years ago almost. So in my mind, it’s gone.”

When Oh was asked again three years later, she told Entertainment Tonight that while Cristina was “near and dear” to her heart, not to expect to see her on the show “anytime soon.”

“She was ready to move on, and so have I,” the actress said in April 2024, a notion she doubled down on a year later.

While speaking on The New York Times’ The Interview podcast in June 2025, Oh revealed that she had opened up to the idea of reprising her role because of “the deep appreciation” she has “for the people who appreciate Cristina.”

However, she still wanted to honor her wants too. “But for me, I think to really be true to the people who enjoy your work, you have to be true to yourself,” Oh continued. “So at this point, I don’t think so.”

Her former Grey’s Anatomy costars would “love” to see her return

In addition to the fans, there’s one other person who would like to see Oh come back as Cristina: her costar on-screen love interest, McKidd.

The longtime Grey’s Anatomy star, who joined the show in 2008 for season 5, told PEOPLE in May 2022 that he would “love” for Oh to come back — even though he doesn’t think she will.

“Every time I see her, I’m always needling her, going, ‘Come on, come on. Just one,’ ” he added. “Maybe one day she’ll say yes. I’m always working on her.”

Part of his goading is due to the unfinished business he thinks their characters have.

“There’s such a love between Cristina and Owen, and when they said goodbye to each other, they didn’t really get a proper goodbye with each other,” McKidd told PEOPLE in March 2024. “Cristina was up there in the gallery and Owen was stuck in the OR, they literally just nodded at each other and she had to leave.”

The actor went on to hypothesize about where Oh’s character would have ended up by each other’s sides, believing that she would still be on “this single-minded track.”

Whatever twists of fate could bring them together again, McKidd was sure about one thing, “It would be really great television.”

Oh said she loves that “people still love Cristina”

Though she has no plans to return to Grey’s Anatomy, Oh has said that she’s touched by how much people still admire her character.

“I love that people still love Cristina,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in June 2024. “When there is a 15-year-old girl — and she wasn’t even born [when Grey’s premiered in 2005] — who then comes to me and is like, ‘I’m in medical school because of Cristina,’ I love it.

Oh continued, “I never, ever forget how important Cristina is. I never do because those 15-year-old girls find me, and now 10 years on, I have much more appreciation for their appreciation.”