Jamie-Lynn Sigler is returning to TV after a three-year break to play a Grey’s Anatomy doctor with multiple sclerosis.
“If you told me 20 years ago that I would play a role on one of my favorite shows, not having to hide my MS but having it inspire a story, I would have never believed you,” she wrote via Instagram on Thursday, December 11. “For anyone out there… your story isn’t over yet.”
Deadline confirmed that Sigler, 44, will appear in the January 15, 2026, episode of the hit ABC series. She will play urologist Dr. Laura Kaplan, who is living with multiple sclerosis. Kaplan is called to Grey Sloan by Dr. Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) to offer advice to Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.), who revealed his cancer diagnosis during the season 22 fall finale.
According to the outlet, the role was specifically created for Sigler. She originally opened up about her MS battle in 2016, nearly 15 years after she was diagnosed.
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“I already had a big career. It was difficult to accept,” she said during a Fox News appearance, adding that she wanted to speak out as a way to advocate for others. “I think a lot of the time when people are dealing with any chronic illness you can feel very isolated, you can feel alone, you feel like people don’t understand.”
She continued: “I wanted to be somebody that says, ‘I get it, I feel you, I hear you, I go through what you go through, and I understand.’”
Sigler’s casting comes weeks after Grey’s alum Eric Dane had a guest role on NBC’s Brilliant Minds as a firefighter with ALS, a condition he was diagnosed with in real life. (He is also set to reprise his role as Cal on Euphoria, played Blythe on Countdown and will appear in the upcoming series Kabul.)
“I have been diagnosed with ALS,” Dane said in an April statement. “I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter. I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working and am looking forward to returning to [the] set of Euphoria next week. I kindly ask that you give my family and I privacy during this time.”
Dane, 53, recalled when he noticed symptoms of the illness that causes loss of muscle control while affecting nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
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“I started experiencing some weakness in my right hand. And I didn’t really think anything of it at the time, I thought maybe I’d been texting too much and my hand was fatigued,” Dane explained on Good Morning America in June. “A few weeks later, I noticed it’d gotten a little worse. I went and saw a hand specialist, who sent me to another hand specialist. I went and saw a neurologist, and the neurologist sent me to another neurologist and said, ‘This is way above my pay grade.’”
More recently, Dane said in the future he will be pursuing roles that incorporate his real-life illness.
“I am fairly limited in what I can do physically as an actor, but I still have my brain and I still have my speech. So I am willing to do just about anything. I’ll take on a role. But I think from here on out, it’s going to have to be ALS-centric,” he said earlier this month at a virtual panel discussion in collaboration with advocacy organization I AM ALS.
He concluded: “It’s going to be very difficult for me to play any other role where … you know, look at the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and I’m fine with that. I’m grateful that I can still work in any capacity.”
