Great news over at Grey’s this week. Kim Raver is becoming a permanent member of the Grey’s Anatomycast and best of all, she may be replacing Katherine Heigl. ABC confirmed yesterday that Raver’s character, Dr. Teddy Altman, aka “Desert Storm Barbie”, has been made a series regular.

According to E!, “Katherine is definitely still under contract [with Grey's Anatomy] but it’s no secret she wants some time away from Grey’s to be with her baby and shoot movies, so bringing on Kim helps with that.”

 E!’s source also said that Kim will appear in 11 of the remaining 12 episodes this season. “The producers and ABC execs love Kim,” one insider told E!. “They are invested in her for the long haul.”

For fans of  Cristina (Sandra Oh) and Owen (Kevin McKidd) there’s no need to panic, the producers like them too and don’t plan to split them up just yet. Kevin (Owen) and Sandra (Cristina) are apparently still shooting romantic scenes together for later episodes. “They were shooting a scene recently,” one eyewitness said, “and Cristina kept laughing because Kevin had just had his hair dyed a little more red than usual. She kept saying, ‘It’s so distracting!’”

Are you excited about Kim sticking around on Grey’s? What about Katherine Heigl?