‘Grey’s Anatomy’: After 450 episodes, these people have stuck around

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”

If Linda Klein really thinks about it, her Hollywood ambitions took root when she was 6, playing make-believe in her big brass bed: “I was wanting to be on TV … so dreams do come true.” She just went about it differently than most — she trained as a healthcare professional first.

She was working as an operating room nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when she heard that one of the neurosurgeons was tapped to write an episode in the first season of “Dynasty.” He had been asked to enlist a nurse — who would turn out to be a friend of Klein’s — to be on set, standing by. (“She was in charge of neuro, I was doing open hearts,” Klein recalls. “And I just remember seeing the script from ‘Dynasty’ at her house and I was like, ‘How do you have this? Why do you have this? Because I was a die-hard ‘Dynasty’ fan.”) While on set, the friend met the medical technical advisor on “Trapper John, M.D.,” a “MASH” spinoff — that show filmed on the same lot and was loaning their equipment to “Dynasty” — who invited her to reach out if she ever wanted to watch filming. Klein wanted in.

“We called her up and headed down to watch filming,” Klein said during a recent call from the set. “Apparently I walked right up to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’ My friend moved to Hawaii and never wanted to do it again. And I haven’t stopped.” Klein went on to work on projects like “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Chicago Hope,” “Oceans Eleven” and “Nip/Tuck.”

“Grey’s,” though, has been her longest gig in Hollywood.

She was the fourth person hired on the show — before any actors were attached — earning her place after laying out her vision for a scene in the pilot featuring Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the operating room. “Shonda said, ‘I see this as a big ballet; I want to make McDreamy and Meredith come together while they’re doing surgery,’” Klein recalls of the interview. She’s been there ever since.

Klein began as the medical technical consultant and has taken on many roles since then: producer, co-executive producer, actor (as background performer “Nurse Linda”), director and now executive producer. She’s also godmother to actor Kevin McKidd’s two youngest children.

“I don’t know that we’d be making the show without Linda Klein and all the work that she’s done,” Rhimes said in a separate interview. “She’s grown creatively as a director, too, and really has spread her wings here. That’s the thing we’re proudest of, is that so many people have stayed and found other worlds in which they can work and that we can create opportunities.”

She spends most of her time trying to help “Grey’s” be as correct and true to reality as possible with its medical portrayals. She’s helped oversee roughly 1,300 medical procedures on the show — “They will write all this stuff and I would have to figure out how to make it come alive onscreen,” she says. But “Grey’s” is a nighttime drama, not a documentary, so she’s learned what battles to fight. Her greatest source of pride on the job, she says, is teaching actors how to be doctors.

“I’m like a drill sergeant, to say the least,” she said. “I’ve sent a lot of them to watch surgeries to get the real effect. They’re great. I try to keep it simple and set it up and say, ‘Just do this and this and this.’ And if they don’t, they get the wrath of Linda Klein. Nobody wants that.”

At the moment of the call, Klein was in the middle of triaging an emergency situation on the set — “I wanted to use these Giraffe Warmers, beautiful NICU baby warmers,” she said through exasperated breath. “We had them and then they broke and now I’m trying to track them down and people are emailing me and I don’t have time for email because I have 1,000 emails.”

But she’s grateful to have a crisis to triage.

“There isn’t a day or time that I don’t walk down the steps of my house and thank the Lord because none of this would have been without the show,” she said. “They said the other day at the 450th celebration, ‘Let’s see 500!’ I don’t know.” She pauses before adding with a laugh: “There’s days like today when I go, ‘I don’t know if I can do this much longer.’ But I’ll be retiring on this show. There’s no ifs, ands or buts.”