Exclusive | What ‘The Pitt’ gets right — and wrong — according to real-life medical professionals

“The Pitt” has won over everyone — including real-life medical professionals.

As the Emmy Award-winning series starring Noah Wyle returns for Season 2 on Jan. 8, doctors are weighing in on what “The Pitt” gets right and wrong — and how the show is impacting the healthcare system.

“They’ve really taken on the responsibility of sort of owning the reality of the medicine, and more importantly, of the moments,” Dr. Matthew Harris, who specializes in pediatric emergency medicine at Northwell Health in New York, told The Post. “Like the pause after someone dies. Those difficult conversations with the parents and the family members and the patients and your team members. That for me is the most realistic part of it.”

“We can talk about the medicine, which I think is also very good, but it’s really these interpersonal moments. Like the quiet after a child dies in [the] emergency room. They’ve really nailed that,” Dr. Harris added.

Dr. Rahul Sharma, emergency physician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, agreed that the HBO series correctly depicts how intense the ER can be.

“I started watching because so many people were talking about how accurately it portrays the pressures in emergency medicine, and I was curious to see it for myself,” he told The Post. “Since I began watching, I was struck by how well it highlights the very real stresses currently facing emergency departments across the country.”

Dr. Benjamin Abella, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine for Mount Sinai Health System, similarly told The Post that he tuned into “The Pitt” after hearing about the show’s medical accuracy — and didn’t hesitate to watch all 15 episodes.

But watching “The Pitt” isn’t always joyful for those same doctors.

“Sometimes, it’s actually too stressful to watch coming home from a difficult shift,” Dr. Harris admitted. “And I’m like, I can’t.”

Dr. Abella added, “I have a hard time watching the show, at times. It can feel all too real and remind me of the hard part of my days.”

The medical professionals also acknowledge that the show doesn’t get everything right.

Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center’s (UPMC) Children’s Hospital who also served as a medical consultant on “The Pitt” Season 1, took issue with one term that the series used.

“They said the word ‘sickler,’ which made me cringe. It’s a word that we don’t use,” she told The Post. “And I was almost like, ‘Oh my God, the sickle cell story is my story.’”

“The one thing we’re moving away from in medicine is labeling the patient as their disease,” Dr. Owusu-Ansah explained. “The asthmatics, the sicklers. This is a 12 year old patient with asthma — not an asthmatic. It made me cringe a little.”

Dr. Sharma had his own piece of criticism for the show.

“Every medical drama has to compress time, so things that take hours in real life unfold in minutes on screen. I understand that’s just part of the format,” he said, adding, “and the interpersonal conflict is perhaps exaggerated for dramatic effect.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Harris called out the constant overexplaining committed by the doctors working at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.

“In academic, hospital is a lot of open teaching, right? And we do that in front of patients. I think that goes a little too far here,” Dr. Harris said. “But I think they’re doing that for the benefit of the audience to be like, ‘Hey, let me take a really complex medical case and explain to a audience what sepsis is.’ So I think that’s probably the only place where they take a little more liberty to say, ‘I need to explain this in maybe some more academic detail than others shows do.’”

“But I’m willing to forgive it,” Dr. Harris added, “because I think we do have a lot of open academic discussions in the emergency department, but I think there is a lot of explaining for the audience, whereas I think there’s lot more that’s unsaid in real life. But again, it’s such a minor nuance, it just sometimes is a little annoying.”

Still, “The Pitt” has resonated with doctors by highlighting multiple health crises in its first season alone — such as Dr. Robby’s (Wyle) intense PTSD from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID isn’t a distant memory for a lot of us. And Robby’s story centers around losing a mentor,” Dr. Harris said. “We have have lots of conversations in my home — my wife is a surgeon as well — and amongst my circle of friends of like, we’re going to have to pay a therapist very well one day. I compartmentalize for a living. I declare a child dead and then I order food. It’s going to catch up. And I think that’s what’s interesting here to watch.”

Dr. Sharma also praised the show for tackling “tough topics,” including the storyline involving a mass shooting at the PittFest musical festival.

“These are not abstract concepts for us, and they have real impact on patients, families, and the healthcare teams caring for them,” he noted. “The show handled those topics with a level of seriousness and emotional weight that reflects the reality inside many ERs.”

Dr. Owusu-Ansa has her own special connection to “The Pitt,” having been asked to offer medical advice and knowledge for a show that nobody expected would become one of the most-talked about programs on television today.

In 2024, she sat down with the masterminds of “The Pitt,” including Wyle, creator R. Scott Gemmill and executive producer John Wells (who was the showrunner of “ER”) and spoke in length about her experience in the emergency room. The next year, she watched her own real-life stories play out on the show, captivating audiences week after week.

But as Dr. Owusu-Ansa noted, there were “hundreds and hundreds of other medical advisors” who worked on the show’s debut season.

“I mean they talked to infectious disease doctors who came up with the measles storyline. They met with people from the organ donation folks. Social workers. They consulted with many other EMS about the mass casualty incident episode, including the folks who had to deal with the Las Vegas shooting,” she told The Post. “So it’s not just me. Literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of medical advisors.”

“And not only that, they do a medical boot camp,” Dr. Owusu-Ansa continued. “So these actors and actresses actually learn how to do procedures as we know how to do it.They learn how to put in an IV the way a doctor would put in an IV. And there are four to five ER doctors on the set at anytime to be like, ‘Nope. You hold it this way. This is how you say it. You cut this way. You would tilt the head this way. You would put the monitors on this way.’ So they’ve gone above and beyond any other medical drama series to get this right.”

And being that she worked on the show, Dr. Owusu-Ansa knows firsthand that the cast and crew of “The Pitt” aren’t just there to snag a paycheck and win Emmys — they want to fix the “broken healthcare system.”

“That has been one of their biggest focuses. I know talking to Noah, he wants to change the way that healthcare is seen,” she shared.

“He wants this to be transformative into policy, into implementation, into outcome,” Dr. Owusu-Ansa added. “That’s what they’re looking for ‘The Pitt’ to be. Not just a show, but a transformative show that changes healthcare for the better.”

Each season of “The Pitt” takes place across a single 15-hour work shift. The show has been renewed for Season 3.

“The Pitt” Season 2 premieres tonight at 9 pm ET on HBO Max.