Audrey Lim

Dr. **Audrey Lim** is the Chief of Surgery at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. She is an attending trauma surgeon who replaced Dr. Jackson Han as the Chief of Surgery and Dr. Marcus Andrews after Salen Morrison gave up the hospital’s ownership.

## History

### Early life

Little is known about Lim's early life. As stated in Heartfelt, she grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. She was married to a man named Kashal at one point, and ended up getting divorced. She also had a goth phase as a rebellion against her parents and had a strong rivalry with Dr. Melendez, with whom she ended have a close friendship and with whom she frequently watched the *Spiderman* movies. In med school, despite being on birth control, she got pregnant and, not ready to be a mom, had an abortion.

### Season 1

In "Apple," Claire Browne comes into conflict with Lim over a patient, a shooter in an armed robbery involving Shaun and the patient’s racist behavior. Claire's actions cause Lim to publicly berate her and assign Claire to watch over the patient which proves fortuitous as the man's neck swells and he nearly suffocates. Lim arrives after Claire cuts open his neck to relieve the pressure and recognizes the problem as a rare complication that can occur and states its why she had Claire monitor the man. Later, Claire publicly apologizes to Lim in the operating room for her behavior. Lim not only accepts Claire's apology, but extends an olive branch to the young resident by acknowledging how much of a racist the man had been.

### Season 2

During season 2, Lim and Melendez begin a burgeoning romance, starting with drinks at a bar after Andrews decides to remain Chief of Surgery which ends with them sleeping together. Though they agree to remain friends afterwards, after Lim nearly dies, they both admit to having a deeper affection for one another.

In "Quarantine," Lim locks down the ER after a deadly virus kills two passengers from a flight from Malaysia. Lim, Shaun, Morgan and two nurses are left as the only medical personnel inside of the lockdown, particularly after Morgan's new love interest, Tyler Durness, falls ill with the virus. Lim works with Morgan to treat Tyler unsuccessfully and tries to comfort Morgan after Tyler dies. Lim subsequently realizes that she too is infected and isolates herself, leaving Shaun and Morgan to treat the patients trapped in the quarantine by themselves. After Santa Pete's bowel obstruction turns into a bowel perforation, Morgan is forced to perform emergency surgery in the ER with Lim guiding her from inside of her isolation room. Lim suddenly collapses while talking Morgan through a crucial part of the surgery.

In "Quarantine: Part Two," Morgan is able to successfully complete the surgery with Shaun's help and attempts to treat the critically-ill Lim with the help of Andrews over the phone. Morgan is left extremely worried about Lim's chances, particularly as the CDC's suggested treatment is the same one that failed to save Tyler and the passengers, but Andrews holds out hope as they caught Lim's infection early and have more time to treat her. While covering Tyler's body on Lim's orders, Morgan discovers that Tyler got infected due to a torn mask and thus the virus is not airborne; subsequently, Lim becomes the last person infected with the virus.

Despite Morgan's best efforts, Lim goes into respiratory failure and Morgan suggests using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, to oxygenate Lim's blood outside of her body and give Lim's lungs more time to heal. Though reluctant, Andrews talks Morgan through the procedure and Lim is also put on a ventilator for a brief time. A worried Melendez later has Morgan show him the still-unconscious Lim through FaceTime. After Shaun succeeds in delivering a baby via a difficult C-section, Morgan becomes alarmed when Lim's alarms go off and rushes to her side. To Morgan's shock and relief, Lim has regained consciousness and asks for some water while fixing the monitor lead which had fallen off of her finger. Lim compliments her resident on the "ballsy move" of using ECMO to treat her. Lim survives the virus and is later visited by Melendez as she recovers.

In "Aftermath," Lim continues to recover from the virus while facing a possible license suspension for tranquilizing a man during the quarantine. Lim works to maintain a professional distance from Melendez, frustrating him, especially since she rebuffs even his friendly concern as a friend and colleague. Lim eventually admits that she's had feelings for Melendez for a long time, but fears acting upon them due to her previous failed relationship and divorce. Melendez admits to feeling the same and they decide to begin a secret relationship with each other. When Lim is finally released from the hospital, Melendez picks her up and they drive off together.

In "Faces," Lim and Melendez have to work with their residents and Andrews to perform a face transplant from a brain dead patient onto a patient with a destroyed face. The fact that Melendez chose to defer to her judgment in their initial treatment of the brain dead patient causes Lim to question their relationship, but she decides against ending it.

In "Risk and Reward," the hospital gains a new Chief of Surgery in Doctor Jackson Han who works with Lim and her team on treating a baby with severe birth defects. After Shaun's troubles with empathy lead him to get into trouble with Han, Lim defends Shaun to her new boss and tries to keep him out of further trouble while at the same time, advocating that they withdraw care from the baby who Lim fears can't be saved and will only die slower from their attempts to help. Though Lim is able to fix the baby's bowels, her main concern, the baby's heart and lung troubles cause her to apparently be beyond their ability to save and the parents agree to discontinue treatment. However, at the last moment, Shaun comes up with a way for the team to successfully save the baby.

In "Breakdown," Lim continues to refuse to disclose her relationship with Melendez, even after Han's intervention clears them both with the medical board. Lim even panics at the thought that Shaun witnessed them together though this proves not to be the case. At the same time, Lim treats the newborn daughter of her old friend Laura who displays signs of shaken baby syndrome. Despite Laura's insistence that she never harmed her baby, Lim calls the police when the tests prove otherwise. Shaun ultimately exonerates Laura, determining that it was actually a birth complication, not abuse. Lim apologizes to her friend for not believing her and Laura accuses Lim of being unable to be vulnerable with anyone or to commit herself to a relationship which led to the demise of Lim's marriage to Kashal. Laura's words hit Lim hard and she decides to tell Andrews about her relationship with Melendez, finally committing herself to it.

In "Trampoline," Lim and Melendez make their relationship public by kissing in the middle of the ER and she treats a patient who attacked Shaun at a bar. After Shaun collapses from his injuries, Lim joins Melendez and Claire in trying to figure out what Shaun had been trying to say about the patient's condition and rejects Claire's suggestion of waking Shaun up as it could put his life in danger. At the end of the day, Andrews fires Han and rehires Shaun, leaving the position of Chief of Surgery open. Melendez points out that one of them could be offered the position, but it would put their relationship in jeopardy due to one of them ending up in a position of power over the other. After Lim admits that she wouldn't turn down the job, Melendez reveals that he already has in favor of her. Lim receives a call from Ms. Aoki offering her the position of Chief of Surgery as Melendez predicts, but it leaves the future of their relationship uncertain.

### Season 3

In "Disaster," Lim's new job as Chief of Surgery causes her and Melendez to go to HR to officially break up. However, the HR director recognizes that they are merely pretending to break up and in reality intend to continue dating in secret as they did before. The HR director officially accepts their explanation, but unofficially tells them that she knows they are not going to break up and she can't stop them and doesn't even want to. However, she warns Lim and Melendez that it will be harder than they think. Lim later holds a staff meeting announcing the new changes she will be making, including overtime for the nurses which neither Han nor Andrews allowed. Lim also announces that third-year residents will now be able to lead surgeries instead of waiting for their fourth year of residency.

Lim begins to experience problems when one of the nurses gives her attitude when Lim can't afford to hire new nurses to help out. Overwhelmed, Lim seeks the advice of Andrews who was fired from the hospital for his actions in firing Dr. Jackson Han. Following Andrews' advice, Lim refuses to hire new nurses, but instead buys new equipment to make their jobs easier as a compromise which pleases the nurses. Lim offers to rehire Andrews as the new attending surgeon, filling the vacancy left by her own promotion. Andrews ultimately accepts Lim's offer and she introduces the new attending to Melendez's pleased team.

In "Debts," Morgan and Park suck up to Lim in an attempt to get the first surgery, but she recognizes their efforts and tells them both off. After an impassioned speech by Morgan, Lim ultimately selects Claire to be the first resident to lead a surgery. At the same time, Lim and Melendez clash when the parents of a baby accuse him of messing up a surgery and causing their baby's current issues with both feeling like their romantic relationship is complicating Lim's handling of the case. Melendez asks if talking to him is weird for Lim, and they both agree that it is a little, but they're trying not to make it be. Lim herself leads the second surgery on the baby and she, Morgan and Park uncover a second unrelated condition with the same symptoms as the first Melendez fixed, exonerating him. With Melendez proven correct, Lim has him take lead on the surgery while she assists. Despite complications, the team succeeds in saving the baby and together Lim and Melendez give the parents the good news.

At the same time, Andrews treats a patient who had the side of his face destroyed while saving a young woman on the subway. Though the damage is so severe they are supposed to wire the man's mouth shut forever, Andrews later approaches Lim with an experimental procedure devised by Shaun to save the man's face and speech. Lim points out the extensive risks and after dismissing Shaun, tries to dissuade Andrews from bringing the surgery to the young man, suggesting that Andrews' own guilt and anger over the repercussions of saving Shaun is motivating him. With Lim refusing to order him to stand down, Andrews brings the surgery up to the patient who accepts. Despite complications, Andrews, Shaun and Claire succeed and Andrews privately admits to Shaun that Lim was right, but Shaun's actions that day proved to Andrews that he made the right choice.

In "Claire," Lim tells Claire she'll be fine for surgery and to never say she was nervous again. They are women, not white and do not have the luxury of public insecurity, because every step of the way they have to be twice as good as everyone else so she needs so suck it up because she has this. While Claire sits in the cafeteria alone Morgan and Alex sit down; she also reminds them that she's studying, while she packs up her belongings she runs into Shaun and says she got side tracked by a marlin. She is paged and meets with Lim who is there with Ms. Reynolds who is upset that Claire spoke to Michelle about a psychiatrist against her wishes. Claire tells Lim that she feels Michelle is a danger to herself and in the consult is required but Claire is off the case and Melendez will be performing the surgery.

In "First Case, Second Base," Shaun and Park visit a surgical candidate named Beth who has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Andrews approaches Lim, who has handpicked the world's most genial patient for Shaun. We soon find out that it was Park's chart, but Lim stepped in and handed it to Shaun. She defends her decision to Andrews, who accuses her of coddling the resident. She says that Shaun gets to keep this case, regardless of what the former chief thinks. Meanwhile, in the MRI room, Park admits to Shaun that he's a tad perturbed that Lim took the case from him, but insist that he's happy for his fellow doctor. After, the MRI reveals that Beth has extensive scar tissue and will in fact require a feeding tube.

Lim orders Park to break the bad news on Shaun's behalf, but when the men enter Beth's room Andrews forces Shaun to confront his patient. Soon after, Lim catches up to Shaun and Andrews in the surgical skills room and informs that Beth wants someone other than Shaun to perform the resection. A distraught runs out and heads to the bus, but Lim catches up to him. She tells him to come back inside and he follows her to Beth's room. Lim admits to Beth that Shaun's phrasing was unfortunate, but assures her that there was no deceit or negligence. Shaun has her full confidence in the O.R., but if Beth doesn't trust him, then he doesn't trust the chief of surgery, and they can arrange for her to transfer to a different hospital. Beth ultimately agrees to let Shaun perform the surgery again, and the procedure is scheduled the first thing tomorrow morning.

Deep into the esophageal resection Shaun freaks out. He takes off his surgical mask and walks out of the O.R. Park follows, as Andrews instruction, then Andrews pages Lim. Lim come down and tells Park to take over, but her refuses. He suggests that Shaun sees something that they don't, and tells his fellow doctor to breathe. He tells the others that there was a much larger area of tumor-free esophagus than he anticipated and that there's enough to perform an alternative, reconstructive procedure. This procedure will prevent the need of the feeding tube, but is too advanced for a third-year resident to perform. To resume, Shaun forfeits his first surgery and allows Andrews and Lim to take over while he walks them through it, step by step Lim assures Shaun that he'll get another chance very soon. Even though Beth's surgery was a success, Andrews still isn't confident that Lim made the right call on this one. His ultimate takeaway is that Shaun failed his first time up to bat. Lim disagrees with Andrews' assessment and applauds the teamwork it took to complete the alternative procedure.

In "Moonshot," Melendez and Lim, get into a very public argument at the nurses station over a high-risk procedure to remove a tumor from an aspiring astronaut’s lung. Dr. Glassman takes notice and calls them into his office. During the brief meeting, Melendez asks Glassman to look over the case, but he refuses. His chief of surgery is confident that the surgery will be a success, and that’s all he needs to know. He does however, bring up that if his chief and top surgeon can’t control their interpersonal quarrels, he’ll be forced to fire one or both of them.

Afterwards, Lim and Melendez converse privately. Audrey says she wants their relationship to work, but she wants to be chief too. She goes onto say that if he can’t find a way to work together with her as his boss, then something has to change. She even considers leaving St. Bonaventure and applying for a chief position at another hospital. Rather than let it get to that, Neil proves to his girlfriend that things can change by scrubbing in to assist her and Claire on surgery. Together, they manage to remove the patient’s tumor and save her lung.

Later that night though, Audrey hops on her bike and heads over to Neil’s home. She tells him that he was right all along, and that she’s not objective when it comes to him. She blew off his concerns about the surgery, and they can’t know for sure that it won’t happen again. She confesses that she doesn’t think that she can give Neil the unconditional support he deserves from a partner, and the objectivity he needs from a chief.As a result, she breaks up with him because she doesn't want to give up on her dream. Even if she loves him; in the end it's not enough.

### Season 5

In "Sons," while retrieving more glasses for Shaun's wedding, Lim is stabbed by Villanveva's stalker Owen, leaving her fate unknown.

### Season 6

In "Afterparty," Lim manages to call Andrews for help and he initiates a lockdown of the hospital. Andrews, Glassman, Shaun, Jordan and Lea rush to the two women's aid. With limited personnel available, Lea is called into service as a nurse alongside Asher's boyfriend Jerome. Shaun and Glassman argue about Lim's treatment with Glassman wanting to remove half of her liver while Shaun believes that they can save it all, arguing that Lim could lose ten years of her life expectancy otherwise. When Glassman leaves, Shaun disregards his orders, much to Glassman's fury. However, Shaun proves to be right and he is able to save Lim's entire liver. Lim later regains consciousness and thanks Shaun for saving her, but she experiences complications with the damage to her heart. With Owen also needing bypass after attempting to commit suicide by cop, Andrews and Shaun are forced to operate on Lim without it. Due to Lim's condition reminding Shaun of the death of his brother, he suffers a breakdown, but a hallucination of Steve and Lea are able to get him to focus. Shaun figures out the problem and he, Glassman and Andrews are able to save Lim's life with Villanveva also surviving her wounds. With his own life having been saved, a remorseful Owen is arrested for the attempted murder of the two women and a security guard.

The next day, Lim regains consciousness, but she can't feel her legs. After she is unable to move them against Glassman and Andrews' touches, Shaun is forced to tell her that Lim's injuries have left her paralyzed from the waist down.

In "Change of Perspective," three months later, Lim returns to work where she struggles to adjust to working with her new limitations. Lim eventually finds a solution that allows her to continue to operate and receives support from Glassman who is able to empathize with her due to his own struggles following Glassman's return to work after his brain cancer. Lim later suffers an emotional breakdown over her condition, blaming Shaun and declaring that she hates him, Shaun's risky surgery to save her liver having likely caused her paralysis.

In "A Big Sign," Lim performs her own investigation into her paralysis which was likely caused by her collateral vessels bleeding during the surgery, causing Lim's blood pressure to bottom out, leading to her cord ischemia and her paralysis. Glassman finally admits that he's not fine with Shaun's decision and is actually angry at him, but Shaun did what he thought was best and Glassman doesn't want it to be a mark on his career as a surgeon. Glassman is haunted by the what if's and admits that if he'd returned in time, he would've gone with the original surgery. Lim is thankful that someone sees her side of things, but Glassman suggests that it's not either or. However, Lim isn't so sure. Lim later confronts Shaun about paralyzing her and declares that while they can maintain a professional relationship, she can no longer be friends with him.

In "Shrapnel," Lim enjoys a relaxing day off, having apparently found some peace after her confrontation with Shaun. She also grows closer to the neighbor that she had vented to about her troubles with Shaun. At the same time, although Shaun claims to be fine with Lim ending their friendship, Lea believes that he is more hurt than Shaun lets on and Glassman accuses Shaun of isolating himself and running away rather than facing his mistake. Shaun insists that he did the right thing, although he genuinely does appear to be bothered by having likely paralyzed his friend and the fallout from it. At night, while thinking about the difficult treatment of his patient who almost required an amputation, Shaun has a sudden epiphany and tells Glassman that he knows how to surgically fix Lim's paralysis.

In "Growth Opportunities," Shaun reveals that Lim's paralysis comes not from damage to her spinal cord but rather from a spinal column deformity. Shaun believes that if they can fix the deformity, Lim's cord can heal, and she will regain her ability to walk. Andrews assigns Shaun and Glassman to come up with a solution while Lim prepares for a date with her neighbor with Morgan's help. However, while she has fun, Lim discovers that her neighbor had never thought of her that way. After Shaun and Glassman come up with a solution, Danni encourages Lim not to undergo the surgery and try to get her old life back. Ultimately, Lim takes Danni's advice and rejects the surgery, devastating Shaun.

In "Sorry, Not Sorry," with the encouragement of Glassman, Shaun finally speaks to Lim about her surgery, admitting that while he's not sorry for what he did, he is sorry for the pain that he caused her and Shaun misses Lim. Lim admits that while she's still angry and trying to work through it, she does miss Shaun as well. Lim later thanks Glassman for getting Shaun to talk to her and Glassman notices signs of movement as Lim adjusts her position in her wheelchair. As a result, Shaun and Glassman realize that Lim could potentially walk again.

In "Broken or Not," after Glassman sees signs of movement in Lim, he and Shaun come up with another, less risky surgery to restore her ability to walk. With Clay's support, Lim accepts the new surgery and thanks her friends for not giving up on her. Clay also gives her an open marriage proposal.

In "Quiet and Loud," three months later, Lim is able to walk again, albeit with the help of a cane, although this is suggested to merely be temporary as Lim mentions that she is relearning how to walk after her paralysis. She is now on good terms with Shaun once again, expressing concern for Lea when Shaun approaches Lim and Glassman for help with a surgery to fix some of the issues coming from Lea's previous miscarriage, although both are annoyed by Shaun's constant hovering during the surgery. After Lea experiences complications, Glassman and Lim are forced to rush her into emergency surgery, but they are unable to find the bleeding and nearly have to perform a hysterectomy. At the last moment, Glassman finds the source of the bleeding and he and Lim are able to save both Lea and the baby, determining that the bleeding was a result of complications from the previous miscarriage that would've always occurred. However, Shaun's insistence on having the earlier surgery and then on closely monitoring Lea in the hospital afterwards had saved her life. As everyone celebrates, Shaun and Lim share a hug with each other. During this time, Lim struggles with whether or not to accept Clay's marriage proposal. Although Lim ultimately decides to table the proposal for now, she asks Clay to move in with her instead.

In "The Good Boy," Lim becomes concerned by Danni's strange behavior, only to discover that she is performing an unauthorized surgery on her friend Vince in her apartment with Asher's help after Vince got shot in the leg. Citing her advice to Lim to not take Shaun's first surgery, Danni convinces Lim to help her, explaining that Vince, who is on parole, was the first one at her side when she lost her leg. Vince explains that he came back from serving in Afghanistan with PTSD, leading him to assault a man in a bar, but he's been getting help. Lim shows sympathy for Vince's situation, likely motivated by her own experiences with PTSD. When Vince's condition drastically worsens, they are forced to rush him to the hospital where the doctors are able to save Vince's leg.

In the aftermath, Lim recommends probation for both Asher and Danni, but Andrews advocates for Danni to be fired, citing her history of disobedience going back to Danni's first surgery while Asher has acknowledged his mistakes and didn't actually do anything until he had Lim supervising him. Andrews suggests that, having almost lost Shaun as a friend this year, Lim is acting out of fear of losing another friend. Lim later places Asher on probation and she reluctantly fires Danni for her actions. However, Lim has seen to it that the bullet was "misplaced" so that Vince's shooting doesn't have to be reported to the police. Lim urges her friend to learn how to compromise sometimes, warning Danni that, if she doesn't, it will hurt her not just as a doctor, but in life as well. Although Lim is sorry that things worked out this way, Danni isn't as she has saved Vince from either dying or going back to prison, both of which would've destroyed his family. Sure that she did the right thing, Danni is willing to live with the consequences.

In "Old Friends," Lim joins Morgan and Jordan in treating Sonja, a young woman with a pregnancy that is risking her life. Morgan urges Sonja to terminate the pregnancy which will kill her otherwise, causing her to clash with Jordan who has actually had an abortion. Lim reveals that in med school, she got pregnant and had an abortion as well when she wasn't ready to be a mother. Ultimately, with the pregnancy risking Sonja's life, Jordan convinces her to have the abortion as the baby will never survive and trying is only going to kill Sonja. Afterwards, Lim offers Morgan her help with Morgan's third round of IVF rather than letting Morgan do it by herself.

At the same time, former surgical resident Dr. Jared Kalu returns to the hospital, now a concierge doctor and seeking Shaun's help with his client Roland Barnes. With his passion for surgery reignited by the case, Jared approaches Lim as the Chief of Surgery about getting his residency at St. Bonaventure back. Although Lim doesn't have any openings for third year residents, she does have one for a first year resident which Jared accepts and joins Shaun's team as his new resident.

## Trivia

* She and Dr. Neil Melendez did their residency together. According to Melendez, at the time Lim dressed strangely and he competed against her until he realized that she was so brilliant that she wasn't competing back. In "Aftermath," Lim herself comments on how Melendez tends to compete against her in things and finds it weird when he stops.
* Lim has become one of the best trauma surgeons in the country.
* She is left handed.
* As seen in "Xin," Lim speaks fluent Mandarin.
* Its never made clear how Lim became infected with the virus in "Quarantine" and "Quarantine: Part Two" when it turned out not to be airborne. Tyler Durness became infected due to a ripped mask, but Lim had clearly been taking precautions right from the beginning to avoid infection.
* She was married to a man named Kashal, but for an unknown reason they divorced.
	+ In "Second Chances and Past Regrets," it's suggested that it was because Kashal was secretly in contact with his ex.
* She rides a Ducati, although Lim had to put it in storage after her spinal injury.
* According to Dr. Morgan Reznick in "Disaster", Lim is the first female Chief of Surgery at St. Bonaventure Hospital.
* As revealed in "Fault", Lim likes to play a video game called "Rocket League"

## References

1. ↑ "Quarantine: Part Two": Season 2. Episode 11. [[]] (writer) & [[]] (director). [, ].
2. ↑ "Middle Ground": Season 2. Episode 2. David Shore (writer) & Steve Robin (director). [October 1, 2018].