An Actual ER Doctor Weighs in on The Pitt
How real is it? Why is Noah Wyle so hot? A TELL ALL
Recently I overheard some of my undergrad students conferring over their mutual crush on Noah Wyle. I’ve noticed it’s extremely popular for their generation to become obsessed with 90s television, so I assumed they were talking about ER, the show that made George Clooney a household name and convinced an entire generation that medicine could be high-stakes and occasionally shirtless.
But nope — they are in fact consuming the same Noah Wyle content I am: The Pitt. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Wyle is back in scrubs not as a fresh-faced Clinton Era Dr. John Carter, but as a traumatized post-COVID Trump Era Dr. “Robby” Rabinovich. It’s interesting to me to consider how my generation and theirs might be processing Wyle’s hotness differently. For Millennials, Wyle was bound up in idealism. We saw his entire professional trajectory take place — med student to resident to attending. Gen Z is meeting the actor where he is now — surviving not on hope but endurance, navigating hospital bureaucracy and trying to do his job for MAHA patients who don’t want to wear masks.
I wouldn’t have guessed Dr. Robby would become such a heartthrob, but I understand it. In a year that’s filled with people who think RFK Jr. should be our Secretary of Health and Human Services and that the phrase “deep state” belongs in a medical chart, Dr. Robby’s weary competence feels, somehow, erotic. He’s not trying to start a podcast. He’s not blaming “cancel culture” for malpractice suits. He’s just showing up, barely holding it together, and doing his job in a world that’s crumbling around him — a world where hospitals are underfunded, unions are under attack, and basic science is up for debate on Instagram. In the apocalyptic absurdity of our current political landscape, a guy who quietly cares feels like the last sex symbol left.
In the conversation that follows, I talk with a practicing ER doctor who trained in one of the busiest trauma centers in the country, worked through COVID, and, like Dr. Robby, is still showing up. We discuss The Pitt’s accuracy, ER myths, and yes — the internet’s thirst for fictional doctors.
We’re going to keep you anonymous so you can Do Real Talk, but can you tell the readers about yourself? Specifically your experience working in Emergency Departments?
I started working in Emergency Medicine in 2005. I got to train in Chicagoland's busiest trauma center and have worked in those kinds of Emergency Departments ever since. Thankfully, I've never had to care for the victims of a mass shooting, but I have been involved in mass casualty events, like when a plane ran off a runway onto a busy city street.
Did you become a doctor because of George Clooney or because of Noah Wyle?
Mekhi Phifer aka Greg Pratt, I have met many of my best friends by initially being a jerk to them. But seriously, a big reason I went into Emergency Medicine is because that's where many of the best stories are. Maybe that's what makes it good TV?
I think this show has captivated audiences both because of its real time structure and its commitment to researching what it's actually like in an ER. What do you find realistic about this show?
The actual medicine is very real. The patients in the show look and act like the patients I see in real life, and the staff in The Pitt act like the people I work with. The show portrays symptoms and treatments in ways that I find quite convincing, and we really do get a lot of bodily fluids on us! I also appreciate that The Pitt portrays the emotional fallout that working in an Emergency Department can cause, and that the health care workers are imperfect. Like Dr. McKay - she seems like someone who is pretty awake to bias and wants to provide good care for all patients. But in one episode she missed a diagnosis of a uterine infection, because she didn't think to do a pelvic exam on an overweight woman. The Pitt recognizes that, no matter how altruistic someone is, they still have flaws and blind spots.
Unrealistic?
I mean, season 1 really is the shift from hell. Does all that stuff come into an Emergency Department? Absolutely! But thankfully, it's not likely to all come in during a single shift. The Jack Abbott character is a bit of a cowboy, and the staff donating their own blood mid-shift are not something I've ever experienced, but I do know ER folks who would sign up to do all that, but, as I said, I've fortunately never cared for a mass shooting. I'd say that the biggest departure from reality was that at the end of that shift the people who had been working that long would be ready to GTFO. You would not have to tell ME to go home that many times.
Is there anything you'd like people to know about the state of Emergency Departments in America right now?
For the most part Emergency Departments are staffed by people who are working really hard to take care of you in a system that is working really hard to make it harder to care for you. When there are things that the ER can't do for you, or when you have to wait a long time, that's not because the people working there don't care. It's because our health care system is currently structured to maximize profit, not health. So please don't yell at your doctors and nurses. Yell at your policy makers. Or maybe speak persuasively to them? I don't know, I'm just a doctor.
Most importantly, what do you think of the Internet thirsting over Dr. Robby?
I think it's great! Definitely has me wondering if I should let my beard get a little longer. But if I did that then an N-95 mask would not work for me, and I'm still afraid of work cooties.
For a couple more takes on why The Pitt has been such a smash this year, I recommend “Why everyone is telling you to watch The Pitt” by
and “the form is the twist” by .