The Deserved Success of The Pitt

Promotional material for The Pitt, showing the streaming platform HBO Max and Noah Wyle.

Erica Dybas- Outreach Editor

The Pitt is the latest show breaking into the Hospital genre. Like its (sort of) predecessor ER, Pitt follows a group of doctors (including Noah Wyle) throughout one shift as they navigate the struggles of the ER, all while dealing with their own personal issues (like drug addiction). The show is based on the chaotic hospital system of cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore that get easily overwhelmed and are unable to keep up with the sheer volume of patients.

While the typical ER show is extremely unrealistic (like Grey’s Anatomy), The Pitt touches on very real issues in the hospital. The show depicts how overcrowded the ER is currently and the many issues now plaguing the hospital system. One of the ways the show does this is with a psych patient (playfully nicknamed the Kraken), who is kept down in the ER, despite NEEDING to go to a psych bed (because there is no room for him in psych AND it is cheaper to keep him down in the ER). In the end, the patient ends up peeing on one of the poor medical students there because the ER is not built to administer medication routinely. Another example of this realism is the patient Doug Driscoll. Doug Driscoll goes to the ER for chest pain and, after waiting for over nine hours, he ends up punching the Charge Nurse in the eye. This interaction is painfully realistic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Healthcare workers accounted for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries in 2018. The Pitt truthfully portrays the reality that many healthcare workers do get assaulted and threatened while just trying to do their jobs. Furthermore, healthcare workers in the United States don’t have the same protections as other professionals, like bus drivers. In the United States, bus drivers are protected by laws that make assaulting them a felony. There is no such law for healthcare workers in the United States. It is clear that this show took precautions to ensure the show was accurate to the realities of the ER.

The show truly does not shy away from the nature of being in the ER. The long wait times, the abuse of staff, the pestering of hospital administrators about “patient satisfaction,” etc. Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, the show thrives BECAUSE of its realism. I highly recommend The Pitt to anyone looking for a gripping, dramatic show.