Short Wave - Is ‘The Pitt’ accurate? Medical experts weigh in

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Medical drama The Pitt is winning Golden Globes… and health care workers’ hearts. Medical experts say the show, which chronicles a fictional Pittsburgh hospital emergency department, is perhaps the most medically accurate show that’s ever been created. But what about The Pitt makes it so accurate… and does the second season hold up as well as the first? Stanford Global Health Media Fellow (and fourth-year medical school student) Michal Ruprecht joins Short Wave to discuss.Have a question about YOUR favorite show and whether science supports it? Email us at [e-mail] to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Maggie Luthar.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Sherwaivers, Regina Barber here with Michael Ruprecht. He's the Stanford Global Health Media Fellow embedded with us here at NPR. Hey, Michael. Hey, Gina. Michael, welcome to the show. I hear you are bringing us a story about one of my favorite things, TV. Yeah, it's a medical drama.

Awesome. But can I admit something to you, Gina? Definitely. I'm not a huge fan of medical dramas because I'm a mental drama. because I'm a med student in real life. I'm studying to become a doctor, and I feel like most medical dramas like ER or house, they aren't super accurate.

House, really? Yeah. But last year, all of my medical school friends, literally all of them were talking about this one show, and they told me that this one was different. This one, like, I had to watch it. It's called The Pit. Yeah, I just started watching that one.

It's the one about a fictional emergency room, in a hospital in Pittsburgh, right? Yeah. Season 1 came out last year, and the show just won two Golden Globes, including the prize for Best TV Drama. Yeah, I thought it was a really cool concept that each episode is a single hour of a 15-hour shift. So it's like one season is one day.

Yeah, you know, it's pretty fast-paced, and that means there's no time for deeply romantic subplots or even the sometimes far-fetched storylines that usually dominate those other. medical dramas. The pit is by far the most medically accurate show that I think has ever been created. And I'm not the only one to show that opinion. I hear that a lot for my colleagues. That's Dr. Alok Patel. He's a pediatrician at Stanford Medicine Children's Health. And she's obviously a fan at the show. Yeah. I mean, I'm a fan too. I'm not in the medical field. I'm a different

kind of doctor. But I found it really resonated with me, like especially the way they portray political division and mistrust in science, which we've definitely talked about in shortwave. Yeah, totally. Not to mention even the corporatization of healthcare. On the whole, it's pretty realistic. Patients, they check in for registration here. A nurse eyeballs them, make sure they're not dying. If not, they're moved to one of two triage rooms for vitals and a quick chair exam, where you can do labs and your x-rays. And then they come back to waiting room until the bed opens up. Is it always this busy? Uh, no. It gets a lot busier.

And the new season, it just started. Michael, I heard you got to watch it early. Yeah, Gina, it was so cool. And the show's new season is streaming on HBO Max now. So we're here to discuss whether it really holds up to the last one. Today on the show, we dive head first into the pit, the medical drama that's breaking barriers on how hospitals are portrayed, and why healthcare workers are obsessed with it.

Plus, a sneak peek at what's, Season two has in store from AI to misinformation and the realities of health care insurance. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Okay, Michael, we're going to dive into season two of the pit, but before we do that, let's get a quick recap of season one. Totally. So the first season centers on the main character and veteran attending physician, Dr. Michael Robinovich, also known as Dr. Robinovich. He's played by Noah Wiley. Okay, I remember him from ER, but what's an attending physician? Yeah, that can get pretty confusing. So attendings are doctors who have finished years of training, and they manage the students, residents, and fellows on their teams.

They're basically the boss, just like Dr. Robbie is the boss in the pit. Plus his right-hand man, a woman. That's the charge nurse. This makes sense to me. You've got your attending, and the charge nurse, they go hand-in-hand. It's the blonde lady that I remember. But you had mentioned, you know, med students, fellows, residents. What do those terms all mean?

Like, who are these people? Yeah, totally, Gina. It's a lot to keep track of. So let's start with med students. That's me. I'm in my fourth year. And med students typically start working in the hospital in their third year of school. Their jobs to examine patients on their own and learn how to start diagnosing them.

Okay. Next up on the totem pole, we've got residents. They're doctors who've just finished med school. and they're training in some kind of specialty, and that training lasts for several years. And then we have fellows. Those are doctors who already finished residency training, and they want to specialize even further.

Finally, they're the nurses, the physician assistants, the social workers, and other people. They're just as vital to the ER and how it functions. Yeah, I'm still in season one right now, and I was very surprised, and I know I shouldn't be, but there's like a social worker that's there all the time. Yeah, and speaking, of season one, to finish the summary, Dr. Robbie's struggling to cope with some pretty traumatic

memories while also treating patients and managing all those members on his team who themselves are also going through some personal struggles. Yeah, it sounds like so much. Plus, he has to remember all the patients he's like working with all day. It was kind of boggling my mind. Yeah. And Dr. Patel told me that that's one of the most realistic parts of the show. The reality is, if you're working a busy shift and you have things happening in your personal life, the line between personal life and professionalize gets blurred and people have moments. And the pit highlights that. Episode 11 was the climax of season one. In the last few minutes of that episode, Dana, the charge nurse, played by Catherine Lanasa, talks with Dr. Robbie outside the ER. And she has this big bruise

around her eye. Oh my gosh, what happened? Like, I haven't gotten to that part yet, but it's okay. you can spoil it for me. I mean, basically, she got assaulted by a patient just two hours ago. Wow. And she tells Dr. Robbie that she feels like she's at a rock bottom. People are angry, a tempest is shorter, and we're still just trying to help. I don't know. I don't know.

Maybe what I want and what the patient's need isn't what's best for you anymore. Yeah. I just honestly don't know what I'm going to do without you. That's so heartbreaking. It is, Gina. And it's also the reality for a lot of people in the... medical field. Up to three quarters of healthcare workers have reported experiencing violence, whether that's verbal abuse or physical threats or even outright assault. It all takes a toll.

The new season in the pit still has some of that tension between patients and healthcare professional. And sometimes it's completely projected or misdirected. People are misunderstanding. They're frustrated. They get pissed off. They can't see a doctor in time in the ER and they may act out. that whole concept of having to suppress this aggression. And then the frustration that there's not enough protection for healthcare workers, that's a very real issue. Yeah, it's something I hadn't really thought of until I started watching this show. Michael, can I ask, what other aspects of the pit are similar to what health care workers have to deal with in real life?

Like, do they go into any new issues in season two? Yeah, Gina. You know, the second season gets into some new themes like insurance. AI, and it even gets into the weeds of charting. Okay, let's take a step back. Let's talk about the first episode of season two, which aired last Friday. Yeah, episode one opens with that same busy and crowded ER that we're all familiar with from season one. But this time around, it's July 4th, and we meet a new doctor in the first few minutes of the episode.

Wait, I haven't started it yet. Is Dr. Robbie gone? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He is still there. Don't worry. But there's another physician joining him. Her name is Dr. Al-Hashimi. She's played by Sepe de Moffi. She's some sort of clinical informatics expert.

When she started talking about AI, I started thinking about robots and kind of stopped listening. Clear. That sort of captures the headbutting between her and Dr. Robbie that kind of becomes evident as we progress through this first episode. Her take on using AI in the evening. are, she actually encourages the residents to use it to take notes. I just got a new family doctor and she used AI. She recorded our exam and she was like, there's going to be a transcript so I know what we talked about.

Yeah, totally. This is something that's on our radar and people are excited about it, but there are some real concerns like patient privacy and accuracy. And they talk about that in the show. Yeah. Another interesting aspect of this season is how it gets into disability and access. What do you mean? Well, there's this scene in the first episode where we see a patient sitting in the waiting

room. And this waiting room is super busy, but as the camera pans over to her, it all goes silent. And we quickly realized that this patient is deaf, which really impacts her experience in the hospital, how the doctors interact with her, the type of care that she gets. And that's unfortunately true. the real world as well. What do you mean the type of care she gets? Like, can you give me an example? Well, when a patient, like in this case, needs an interpreter who can sign ASL, the doctor-patient relationship can thin out. And later in the season, we see this patient's first interaction with the doctor.

Instead of making eye contact with the patient, the doctor faces the ASL interpreter during the interaction. And while it's subtle, you know, it can leave patients feeling pretty sidelined or even invisible. Yeah, that makes total sense. How else does disability make its way into this season? You know, later in the season, we also meet a doctor who uses a wheelchair to get around, which is just a reminder that medical experts are not a monolith, right? And there are both disabled and non-disabled people working in the ER. Yeah, that's a really powerful message. You'd mentioned earlier that insurance was a theme in season two as well, right?

Yeah, and we don't quite get into it in the first episode, but viewers will definitely notice in later episodes that insurance takes a big role. You know, it's almost like a character itself, which seems pretty apt for this moment, when many Americans are facing a really sharp rise in costs. And in real life, this unfortunately happens pretty regularly. While patients shouldn't have to worry about insurance, they do. Like, sometimes my patients only get what their insurance will reimburse. And, you know, that treatment they do get, it's not always the best or even the standard of care.

Yeah. And along these slightly depressing lines, there's growing misinformation that doctors are battling in the real world, right? Yeah, you'll find it in the pit too, unfortunately. And I don't want to spoil anything here, but it does involve someone getting their information from social media. My doctors have actually mentioned this. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty accurate representation of how misinformation can spread.

I still remember this moment from my pediatrics rotation when I was counseling a parent on immunizations. Okay. And I could tell the parent really, really loved their kiddo, but they ultimately declined to vaccinate their child because they were worried about a debunked myth. And while I think it's incredibly important, patients do their own research and are empowered in their care, the sources they turn to are equally as important. Yeah. Did Dr. Patel or other experts you talk to say what was less accurate to real life in this show? Like, was there anything this show goes? got wrong. Not everything is totally accurate. For instance, med students can't order meds. You need that MD after your name to do that. That makes sense. And another thing that is unlikely is for

one shift to have so many complex cases. These cases definitely happen, but usually not all in one day. And one common complaint among all medical dramas is how inaccurate CPR is. Really? How Also. Well, CPR is pretty violent, actually. Rip fractures occur in a majority of patients who undergo CPR and other trauma can happen too. Well, it is a show. They can't be too violent with their actors. Michael, thank you so much for talking to me about all this. I'm excited to watch the second season. Thanks so much for having me. This was such a blast. If you like this episode, follow us on the NPR app or whatever podcasting app you're listening from. Also, you might want to check out our episode on The History of Tuberculosis with John Green

or our episode on the closest thing we have to a cure for allergies. We'll link to them in our episode notes. This episode was produced by Hannity Chin. It was fact-checked by Tyler Jones, and it was edited by a showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. And Maggie Luthor was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our vice president of podcasting strategy, and I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.