Television Review: THE
PITT
Photograph by Warrick Page / Max
by Monalisa Tailor, MD
I remember being an undergraduate pre-medicine student, eagerly watching ER. Noah Wyle was Dr. Carter, learning the process and working up in the ranks. Little did I know that actual emergency rooms did not operate the way the TV show did. Fast-forward 20 years, I’ ve grown in my medical knowledge and have years of clinical experience behind me. I know better than to rely on a TV show to reflect my current experience. However, now enter The Pitt, a television drama, focusing on one day in a busy Pittsburgh hospital. Each episode is one hour in the shift and as any ER doctor can tell you, their shift does not end perfectly at the 12-hour mark.
In this case, the season of The Pitt is 15 episodes or a 15-hour ER shift. Noah Wyle plays Dr. Robinavitch, or Dr. Robby. He’ s the senior attending on shift, mostly calm, cool and collected. He provides adequate teaching opportunities and supervision, sharing his clinical knowledge with his trainees. Knowing this actor previously played a physician, adds an air of gravitas to the character of Dr. Robby: you believe his attending status. You feel the trust and knowledge that he has in order to care for the people coming into his ER.
The other marker of The Pitt for me was how real it felt to our own experience. The team is constantly triaging the most urgent patients, the waiting room is filled with patients questioning“ What’ s taking so long?” The ER even has the frequent fliers, as they sober up and are on a first name basis with the ER staff. The students and residents are rotating in because it’ s the first day on service and you’ re trying to teach them the ropes.
We can all find something to relate to in The Pitt. The administrators come down to ask why the patient satisfaction scores aren’ t higher and what they could be doing to better please the patient. In The Pitt, the patients are boarded in the ER because there is no staff on other hospital floors for their admission. In one of the episodes, a nurse is assaulted, which is a frightening but real concern in our world.
The cases coming into the ER vary in their presentation, but the underlying aspect to these cases are these human interactions. On one side you have a family not wanting to discuss end of life as their elderly father comes in from a nursing home. Flip to the other side, a family is losing their young son after an accidental drug overdose. There is a mom who is well, only presenting in the ER to get her son help. And all at the same time, you come back to the hospital staff dealing with their struggles, compartmentalizing one room to the next to keep going with their day. Dr. Robby is dealing with COVID-19 flashbacks and the anniversary of losing his mentor. Another physician is dealing with her own pregnancy. When the patient comes in unvaccinated and the parents won’ t let the team initiate care, the frustration is palpable with the medical team.
The Pitt manages to humanize the patients, physicians, nurses and hospital staff. Though, I’ m not going to lie to you, some of these episodes are hard to get through. This is not a show you watch on your bad day or most stressful day. You may break down and cry with Dr. Robby as he processes the day and the secondary trauma he recalls. This may be the best way to have your family and friends understand what you deal with on a daily basis. I learned about the history of Freedom House Ambulance Service, and how it impacted the creation of paramedics and ambulances to respond to emergencies.
I also think as we start our new transitions with July, this TV show may help capture our experience and help us process the emotions of what we deal with on a daily basis. This outstandingly accurate show does reflect our current experience and makes it palatable for viewers to begin to understand. Thank you to The Pitt creators and Noah Wyle for bringing this empathy to the big screen.
Dr. Tailor is a practicing internal medicine physician at Norton Community Medical Associates: Barret.
24 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE