The Pitt made me confront some very serious feelings.

Like most people that work in healthcare I can’t stand 99% of medical shows. The last 7 years I can’t name a single one that’s been worth a shit. At least 30% of the reason I became a nurse is that I used to watch reruns of ER with my mom late at night when I was a kid. So when my mom told me about it, I figured I’d check it out. There will be spoilers.

Holy fuck man. I had heard good things but rarely have I ever had to pause a TV show to reflect on my own thoughts. Most of the situations portrayed are situations that I’ve been in or seen happen. Some were darkly funny like in the first episode where he talks the night shift doctor off the roof by saying that “jumping on my shift would just be rude” which is a line I’ve basically said to my coworkers. Or the scene where the student walks in on the patient trying to take a shit on the bedpan. Absolutely hilarious. Or the scene where they’re resuscitating the nursing home patient and the charge nurse comes in with a DNR and tells everyone to stop. Darkly funny because I’ve been in that exact situation before.

Some of the scenes though were not as fun for me to watch and required me to take a break. The scene that got me the most was the COVID flashback and then the scene with the parents of the brain dead fentanyl OD. I’ve been in rooms many times with loved ones sobbing and screaming that their loved ones are dead. I don’t remember many of them but I definitely remember my first one and this show reminded me of that. I got chills, a feeling of dread, and this was one of the points where I had to pause and reflect. These are situations I try not to reflect on too much because they suck ass to think about.

The other scene I had to pause was the frustrating children wanting to intubated their demented dad and overriding his DNR/DNI, a situation I found myself in the middle of not 3 days ago. I feel like the show did a really good job of conveying the effect that it has on all of us.

All in all, the show is great. It has the issue that many medical shows have which is a lack of nurses but the ones who are portrayed I feel are largely accurate. Obviously the things that happen in the span of two hours of this show are like months to years worth of situations that happen in our careers but I understand that nobody wants to watch a show where all we do is chart and call IT because we forgot our passwords.

I was not expecting it to make me feel this way. I was not expecting a tv show to give me legitimate flashbacks and handle the material in an honest and open way. I think it’s a great way to convey to the public what working in this field is actually like.

Anyway, rant over. It’s a great show. Watch it, or don’t, I can’t tell you what to do, it has to be your decision.