On the next Grey’s Anatomy episode 9×11 “The End is the Beginning is the End” to air this Thursday fans will see Derek recovering from his nerve transplant. The question still remains, will Derek be able to preform surgery again? We now have the answer.

In Grey’s Anatomy episode 9×09 “Run, Baby, Run” Derek’s sister Lizzie comes to Seattle to donate some nerves to Derek. Callie was convinced this was the best way to get full function back to his hand. It almost didn’t happen, as Derek didn’t even know Meredith was calling his sisters to try and get one of them to donate! Lizzie did come after all, even though Derek wasn’t happy about it he did go through with the surgery. Still fans were wondering if this surgery would work or would it fail like his first.

While speaking with the show’s creator Shonda Rhimes TV Guide got the answer. The short answer is, yes he does go back to preforming surgeries. But the explanation that Rhimes gave may scare you. She explains, “The way the show takes a turn, it’s not in the direction you think it’s going to go. Derek getting back into surgery, while being very important, really turns out to be — I don’t want to say minimized — but it gets overshadowed in the face of something else.” So what overshadows Derek’s great triumph? It’s actually the result of the lawsuit that the doctors have put against the hospital for their plane crash. As we know, thanks to previews released today, the doctors were rewarded $15 million each for their suffering.

With $15 million for each doctor that’s a total of $75 million the hospital has to shell out to Cristina, Meredith, Derek, Arizona, and Callie (who’s getting the money for Sophia as Mark’s daughter). Could this mean the hospital will be suffering because of the reward to the doctors? That could result in layoffs, downsizing, or even shutting their doors.

What do you think Rhimes was referring to?

Photo credit: ABC/Danny Feld