Why Watching The Pitt Feels So Cathartic for ER Doctors Like Me

For an emergency medicine physician, a typical shift is a front-row seat to the worst days of people’s lives—a whirlwind of drama, frustration, quiet victories, devastating losses, and unfiltered humanity. And then, it’s onto the next patient’s room to do it all over again.

Maybe that’s why, as an emergency medicine attending physician in Chicago, I love The Pitt. My team’s work life is reflected onscreen, and watching the show evokes powerful emotions—at times, it feels as if the entire health care system rests on the shoulders of this small group of doctors and nurses. The show offers audiences a raw glimpse into a health care system on the brink. It shines a light on complex, urgent issues—hospital boarding, limited resources, and the mounting toll of trauma and mass casualty events—that affect both patients and the people working tirelessly to save them. 

I’ve heard that it’s an intense, gruesome watch for some. But as tense and uncomfortable as it may be, we should not shield our eyes from the show and the humanity it displays, nor should we avert our gaze from the reality unfolding in communities and emergency departments across the country. The show makes us bear witness to young lives lost to overdoses, families grappling with heartbreaking end-of-life decisions, and the rising tide of violence against health care workers. Our nation’s ER teams feel these things in our bones.

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Part of the show’s value is how cathartic it is for those of us in emergency medicine to watch. It provides an outlet for a hidden truth I have come to recognize in my own emergency department: we often avoid confronting the emotional weight of our work. The Pitt reminds us not to. 

The show’s star, Noah Wyle, is a familiar face to many of us in emergency medicine—first as Dr. John Carter in the iconic 1990s medical drama ER, and now as Dr. Robby in The Pitt. For many in health care, one scene from ER has never faded: it captured a feeling we know all too well. In that moment, Dr. Carter, burdened by self-doubt, wondered if he had what it took to be a doctor, to carry the weight of healing others. What helped him most was a simple, reassuring act of kindness—an attending physician telling him it would be okay, and that he “sets the tone.” Nearly thirty years later, Dr. Robby is still doing just that for the next generation of emergency medicine physicians. He teaches, he heals, he cries—and above all, he feels. He still sets the tone.

Like the health care workers on the show, I remember the patients who did not make it—the ones our teams fought hard to save. We carry their memory with us, hoping the lessons we learned will help us save the next life. In that way, we honor them.

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In The Pitt, like real life, patients wait—sometimes for hours—just for a chance to be seen by an ER doctor. Long waits in the emergency department are not caused by inaction—they are the result of a health care system pushed to its breaking point. Like in The Pitt, your emergency department team is prepared and working around the clock. But even when hospital beds are available, there are often not enough nurses to care for the patients who need them.

Imagine your mother, your child, your partner—lying on a stretcher in a hallway, waiting hours for a bed. A monitor beeps steadily beside them, but no one comes, because in too many hospitals the only nurse nearby is already racing between too many patients in too few rooms. It is not indifference—it is the weight of a broken system pressing down on too few shoulders. We are trying to heal people within a system that is unwell itself—stretched thin, underfunded, and unable to keep pace. The emergency department is not failing you. The system is.

In a world that often looks away or changes the channel, choosing to truly witness what The Pitt depicts is an act of courage. That’s what I feel when watching this show. It reminds me that in the quiet moments between the chaos, it is our presence, not perfection, that has the power to heal—to remind people that they are not invisible.  

This system is ours. So is the responsibility to fix it.