(Series Review) "The Pitt" (2025) - Season 1

By Vani P Nair -

(Series Review) “The Pit” (2025) - Season 1


I used to be an aspiring medical student at one point of time in my life. I am not even sure if that is a thing, but I still experience this pull I can’t shake for anything remotely close to medicine and doctors. I do realize it a place frequented by the sick and the infirm, where pain and loss creates a miasma of despair all over the place. Having said that, it also the place where one is relieved of pain and misery, where the initiated perform their magic on human physiology and wins us more days on this planet. I guess it is all a matter of perspectives. I feel reassured and safe when I am in a hospital and I tend to look at the bright side of the place. There is this inherent respect I feel for these warriors, not for their station life, rather for their raw spine of resolve and their willingness to pursue a career that is slowly turning into a life hazard owing to the excessive and unwarranted violence directed against them on a daily basis. Since I didn’t have access to the esoteric world of medicine being an outsider, I tried to satiate my desire through medical dramas and documentaries. No matter the number of shows I watch, the child like wonder and amazement ceases to abandon me. I must make it known that I am aware of the yawning gap between the reality and these fictionalized renditions. They could be poles apart, but I still feel the magic every time an individual in white coat, with a stethoscope draped around the neck, flits across the screen. 

The fifteen episodes of this medium-paced medical drama stands for the fifteen-hour work shift at the fictional Pittsburg Trauma Medical Hospital. The ER is ominously nicknamed “The Pitt”, with Dr. Robby (played by Noah Wyle) acting as the de facto department head. To the outsiders it is like any other day, but for Dr. Robby, it is the day he lost his trusted mentor Dr. Adamson to COVID, in front of his own eyes. The repeated ringing in his ears during trying situations attests to the PTSD that he is yet to address for his own good. I guess there is a reason why they say doctors make the worst patients. Noah Wyle was right in place with this role and I was wondering how he could have pulled it off so well. That is when I googled him, only to find out that he played Dr. John Carter in the hit drama series ER for over one and a half decades. I loved how Dr. Robby was written in the series. He doesn’t come off as a know-it-all misanthropist genius or somebody with a perfectly stuck moral compass, capable of holding his own no matter what. He has his moments of meltdown and exhibits diffidence in the face of death and misery.

From drug overdose to homelessness, every patient in the series opens our eyes to the diverse backgrounds that the sick come from and the variegated challenges that the doctors are forced to face on a daily basis, which extends way beyond mere patient care. The ethical rules surrounding medical practice may be clearly defined in the texts, but its application in real life situations poses unforeseen challenges for the medicos. The constant negotiation between the care givers and the bystanders in this regard has been beautifully portrayed without going overboard with dramatic flourishes. When a third-year resident takes an inordinate amount of time (by the ER standards) to treat every single patient, Robby interferes and reminds her of the harms of defensive medicine without being explicit about it. The series also makes it known how racial and sexual prejudices work both ways, creating a dysfunctional setting full of unnecessary drama and tension between the medical practitioner and the patients.  The physical and mental toll that this vocation has on those in the medical field becomes readily apparent through this series. It becomes more of a challenge considering how individuals are more often than not weighed down by one’s own personal baggage. It becomes a near impossible balancing act that they are expected to keep up on a day-to-day basis.

Care giver syndrome, compassion fatigue, presenteeism, medical gaze, and desensitization, in addition to other matters, finds expression in this medical drama in ways that doesn’t romanticize it. What contributes to the element of thrill in this drama is the fact that at no point of time is anybody a hundred percent in control of the activities in the ER. There is always a possibility of things falling off the precipice into the abyss. But, resolute actions from the most unexpected participants in the nick of time ends up saving the day for everyone. Here, there is no hero; only the more experienced and the less experienced, who constantly endeavor to compliment each other. I must say this series is an excellent material for anybody doing their research in medical humanities. It offers what can be considered to be the closest to the real kind of ER saga, filled with research potential. I enjoyed watching it.  

 

 

 

 

  

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