Grace Holloway works as a heart surgeon in San Francisco, California, at the turn of the millennium. When the seventh Doctor is brought into her operating room after he walks out of the TARDIS and straight into a hail of gang bullets, she dismisses his pleas not to operate as the ravings of someone slightly off his rocker. Thinking that his double heartbeat signifies a problem, Grace attempts to fix it, and in the process manages to kill the Doctor - the only companion in the history of the series to have done so, and unlike Turlough, she wasn't even trying. When the Doctor regenerates, he manages to convince her to help him, and Grace goes on to assist the Doctor against the Master's scheme to steal his body.
Aside from her passion for cardiology, Grace is an opera fan. Listening to an aria during surgery helps her to relax and focus. She is a warm person who cares for her patients, and she is also a person of high ethical standards and honesty. She has a ready sense of humor and can work herself up into a bit of a panic when confronted with an unknown situation, but the dimensional transcendence of the TARDIS barely fazes her. Grace is also afraid of heights. She can use a gun, but seems unaccustomed to doing so.
Grace has shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes. She dresses casually, but dons a lab coat for work and is happy to get dolled up for the opera.
Her declinal of the Doctor's offer to accompany him at the end of their adventure together makes Grace one of only two characters to have achieved companion status despite only accompanying the Doctor for one story. However, the other - Sara Kingdom - might have continued travelling with the Doctor had she not died (or if, as with Grace, she had been brought back to life by some mysterious energy from the TARDIS), whereas Grace decided to call it quits.
