The night before Meredith's internship begins, she has a one-night stand with Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a stranger she meets at Joe's Bar. She discovers the next day that he is a recently hired attending; the new head of neurosurgery at her new workplace, Seattle Grace Hospital. Meredith is assigned to work under resident Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), and befriends her fellow interns, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) and George O'Malley (T.R. Knight) .