Katherine Heigl "misses" being part of the Grey's Anatomy "family".

The actress is famed for her role as Dr. Izzie Steven on the popular ABC show, which she starred in from 2005 to 2010.

Katherine left the show because she wanted to focus more on her family.

The star recently appeared on The View and said she'd love her character to be introduced, although she hasn't being re-offered the role as yet.

"I think that for me, it's sort of I want them to know that I'm down with it if they want me to, but I completely understand if it doesn't necessarily work into [the story]. They've got a lot of storylines going on there," she told host Barbara Walter.

"Oh yeah, sometimes [I regret leaving]. You miss it... I miss it. I miss my friends. It was a great work environment in that we all got along really well, and it becomes a family. I spent six years with these people every day We grew up in a way."

Katherine's comments come after she asked the show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, to write her character back in.

The 33-year-old star recently discussed how much she's love to return to the programme that made her a household name.

"I've told them I want to. I don't know... being a showrunner and being a writer of a TV series like that is so complicated that I mean she's got how many characters are there now? There's a lot and so she's balancing about 40 different storylines, so I don't know if it fits in to their sort of vision for this season or next or however many seasons it goes," she previously said.

"I really, really, really want to see where Izzie is. I just want to know what happened to her and where she went and what she's doing now. My idea is that she actually like figures it out, and finds some success and does really well in a different hospital.

"She was always floundering you know, and so she was always one step behind the eight ball and I want to see that girl take some power back."

Katherine won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzie.