‘The Pitt’ Already Tackles Real-World Issues Well, but This Topic Might Be Its Most Important
Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Pitt Episode 14.The attending and student doctors in The Pitt can’t catch their breath on a 15-hour shift where there is no calm, and jumping into the storm with them is a team of nurses. Both types of healthcare professionals are needed to save lives, represented by how the show doesn’t just keep the nurses as background characters. They bring crucial support when there are missed diagnoses, irate people waiting in the ER, and rats on the loose in the halls. At the helm of this ship, which often gets close to hitting the rocks, is charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa), and it’s a shocking blow to the staff’s morale when she is attacked.
The last thing the doctors and nurses of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital need to worry about is their safety, not when they need their full attention on the life-or-death decisions to save the patients they have. The hospital in The Pitt might be fictional, but there are real topics, like sex trafficking, anti-maskers, and anti-vaxxers, that get brought up, and yet, there wouldn’t be a show in the first place without a staff. A crisis that is talked about time and again in the busy Emergency Department is the shortage of nurses. The Pitt makes this an underlying plot point, with Dana’s attack, and detailing how overburdened everyone is, but it’s not something created to keep stress levels high in the narrative. It’s a real-world issue affecting the healthcare system in the United States.
‘The Pitt’ Highlights the Importance of Nurses in the ER
The first episode of The Pitt introduces the characters while also introducing a key problem for the hospital. Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) is hounded by chief medical officer Gloria Underwood (Michael Hyatt) about what she believes is detrimental to the success of the Emergency Department, as well as the hospital overall. The low patient satisfaction scores need to be improved. “Well, if you want people to be happier, don’t make them wait for twelve hours,” Robby is quick to reply. Gloria claims the nursing shortage that is happening everywhere is to blame for the long hours, plus there are not enough beds upstairs to accommodate the influx of patients. “That’s bullshit. The beds are up there,” Robby says, “You just don’t want to hire the staff you need to care for them.” In the first hour of the shift and the season, the nursing shortage will play into the high-stress escalation that Robby and his staff endure.
With Dana in charge, Mateo (Jalen Thomas Brooks), Perlah (Amielynn Abellera), and Princess (Kristin Villanueva) are some of the recurring nurse characters who support the doctors. When Dana is attacked by Doug Driscoll (Andrew Powell), frustrated at his wait time, the fellow nurses are worried about her but not surprised about the act of violence. Each one has experienced a similar incident for an unsettling revelation. “The Pitt” gets its name from the city it’s in and the grueling nature of what goes on inside; take student doctor Whitaker (Gerran Howell), who gets bodily fluids splashed onto him, more than once. So the choice to have Dana be the one who is attacked not only makes sense in the storytelling, it continues to place importance on the nurses in the cast since that exchange between Robby and Gloria.
Noah Wyle Needed Dana’s Attack To Have an Impact on ‘The Pitt’
At the end of Episode 9, series lead Noah Wyle wrote this ninth hour when Dana is attacked, and he explained in an interview with TV Line that “She gives her life to the work, and she’s an innocent victim. It underscores the importance of recognizing the strain that these people work under every day — and sometimes the threat.” Described as “the ringleader of our circus” by Robby, having Dana become a temporary patient increases the strain on the staff. “If nurses don’t feel safe, they’re not gonna come to work,” Robby tells Gloria when she reappears in Episode 10. Violence against healthcare workers is one problem among many others that has contributed to a nursing shortage off-screen.
The Nursing Shortage Affecting Hospitals Goes Beyond ‘The Pitt’
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing put the decrease in Registered Nurses (RNs) at “100,000 from 2020 to 2021,” and described it as the largest drop that has been observed in the past four decades. According to Nurse.org, there is a nationwide nursing shortage that has gotten worse since the Covid-19 pandemic, “as front-line nurses feel the strain of increased workloads and decreased staffing levels.” Also mentioned on Nurse.org are several top reasons for the shortage that were taken from the 2023 State of Nursing survey: Nurses have felt burnt out, they were in poor working conditions, and there was a lack of appreciation for their work.
The declining safety of hospital workers is making everything harder too. An AP News article on the 2025 shooting that killed one and injured five at the intensive care unit of a Pennsylvania hospital had an interview with hospital security consultant Dick Sem, who shared, “I interview thousands of nurses and hear all the time about how they’re being abused every day.” It echoes what Robby tells Gloria. Living in a post-Covid world may not be a major storyline for the nurses in The Pitt, but it’s severely affecting Robby to the point where it almost overwhelms him.
Along with the interrupted moments for the staff grieving a lost patient when someone else needs help, or Perlah having to take over for Dana, the show wants you to recognize the chaos these fictional healthcare workers step into every day. Worrying about their safety is the last thing nurses should be concerned about as they support doctors. It’s this relevant issue, along with others in The Pitt, that makes it go a step further than the campy fun of Doctor Odyssey, another new medical show, by wanting you to understand the current reality faced by healthcare workers.
The Pitt‘s Season 1 finale streams this Thursday on Max in the U.S.
- Release Date
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January 9, 2025
- Network
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Max
- Showrunner
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R. Scott Gemmill
- Directors
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Amanda Marsalis
- Writers
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Joe Sachs, Cynthia Adarkwa
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Noah Wyle
Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch
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Tracy Ifeachor
Uncredited
