Is this season of 'The Pitt' foreshadowing the continued breakdown of medicine in the US?
Industry Buzz
There remains a fundamental mismatch between the demand for care and the capacity of the healthcare system around it.
—Rana Kabeer, MD
We are still recovering, still struggling, still suffering—and not just because of the pandemic, but for a variety of reasons. The emergency department has really become the backstop of the failing aspects of our medical system.
—Christopher Colwell, MD
Drama series The Pitt is being praised for accurately portraying life in the emergency department (ED).
But experts say the show is raising alarms about the problems physicians and healthcare providers have been facing for far too long.
“What is being expressed in The Pitt is, to a great extent, the reality that we face in the emergency department every day, and have [faced] for years now, and so it is something that we should be very concerned about,” Christopher Colwell, MD, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, tells MDLinx.
“Our jobs are a lot harder than they were before COVID. I've been doing this now for 30 years, most of it in level-one safety net trauma centers … like the facility [in] The Pitt. I would say the job is harder, and the pandemic certainly did not help. We lost some very good people for a variety of reasons [during] the pandemic. So we're still very much recovering from that,” Dr. Colwell adds.
The challenge facing EDs
In the United States, there are 155.4 million ED visits every year.[]
EDs are facing longer wait times, limited beds, and a growing number of patients leaving the ED without being seen.[]
In The Pitt, a chaotic waiting room depicts patients waiting for hours.
The experts who spoke with MDLinx say this is an accurate portrayal of what they see every day.
Related: 'The Pitt' spotlights the difficulties AI is introducing to clinical practice“There remains a fundamental mismatch between the demand for care and the capacity of the healthcare system around it. When inpatient beds are unavailable, behavioral health services are scarce, or outpatient follow-up is delayed, that pressure concentrates at the bedside. Clinicians feel it in real time,” Rana Kabeer, a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University, tells MDLinx.
The Pitt features characters still reeling from their experiences during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Colwell argues that the ED has been hit with the consequences of a failing health system since the pandemic.
“We are still recovering, still struggling, still suffering—and not just because of the pandemic, but for a variety of reasons. The emergency department has really become the backstop of the failing aspects of our medical system. I would say [that] in the United States, we have some wonderful aspects of our medical system, but we have some parts that are failing, not the least of which is primary care,” he says.
“I don't go a shift without at least some of my patients saying, ‘Well, I would have gone to my doctor,’ or, ‘I would have addressed before, but I [couldn’t] get in,’” Dr. Colwell adds.
Related: Is 2026 the year of doing less? Here's how healthcare providers are focusing on self-care over burnout“The US healthcare system really has depended even more so on emergency departments to essentially cover for all the aspects that are failing [in] our healthcare system—and that's really putting enormous pressure.” —Christopher Colwell, MD
The experts note that there is no quick solution to the immense challenges facing emergency workers every day.
But they are hopeful that increased awareness of the realities of life in the ED may help bring about change.
“We are living in a moment where this show is striking a nerve, not only because of the drama and adrenaline emergency medicine storylines can provide but also because it reflects a reality many people have experienced within the boiling pot of the US healthcare system,” Dr. Kabeer says.