How accurate are hospital TV shows like "The Pitt"?
Across several networks and streaming channels, you'll often find a dramatic depiction of life in a hospital.
Usually, they take place in the emergency department, where stress and chaos can boil over. We wanted to know: How accurate are hospital TV shows? What elements do they get right? Good Question. Jeff Wagner talked with the professionals whose daily grind can make for good television.
The waiting area beyond the entrance doors and a quiet room after that are what most patients see on an emergency department visit. But what grabs attention on TV are the intense, and at times incomprehensible, moments that make for an entertaining story. The script includes paramedics bursting through a door with a patient on a gurney fighting for their life, waiting rooms overflowing with people and love triangles between staff for a romance element.
"I mean, I watched 'Grey's Anatomy' and now I know that's incredibly not realistic," joked Dr. Erin Karl. She's a staff physician in Hennepin Healthcare's emergency department.
"There are a few (shows) that the medicine kind of aligns with things that we do in real life," said Christian Erickson, a registered nurse who works in the same department.
What elements do these hospital TV shows often portray accurately? Karl said it's the teamwork and camaraderie all the staff share, especially in stressful moments.
"Working very closely with everyone from not just the physicians and the nurses but the pharmacists to even like the environment service personnel who like clean our rooms every single day," she said.
The medical jargon that doctors shout when a patient needs a lifesaving treatment is accurate, said Karl, even if it sounds like another language to those not in the medical field.
Is the emergency department as chaotic as the shows often portray? Yes, said Karl.
We interviewed her in the stabilization room. That's where the most critically injured and sick patients are taken, often after an ambulance ride. It was empty during the interview, but at times there could be up to four patients in there getting treatment.
"Most of the time you have a critical case and then you're going to help a patient with abdominal pain that's fairly stable, and you're going to meet a patient with wrist pain and then they're fairly stable, and then you run a cardiac arrest," she said. "Versus in the shows when it's like critical, critical, critical."
Erickson experiences the busy days as well, highlighting how dozens of their beds will be taken up with people they refer to as "boarders," meaning patients who would have been admitted to the hospital if there was a bed available but instead must stay in the ED.
"And we're kind of adding those people on top of the patients that are presenting to the ER," he said.
Karl added that there are situations where patients are tended to in hallways if space is limited.
"We're caring for everybody the best that we can in this American health care system that's been set up kind of for us to fail," she said.
As for what the shows often get wrong, both mentioned medical staff doing jobs or tasks that are usually meant for someone else.
"A lot of older shows will show like doctors doing their patient's imaging scans, like their CTs and MRIs, which we have people who that's what they do for a living," said Erickson.
If there's one show that best portrays the challenges of working in an emergency department, both quickly said it's "The Pitt" on the streaming platform Max. The show highlights a single, pressure-packed day in an ED, along with flashbacks to the immediate days of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020.
Several staff at Hennepin Healthcare said that the show is so realistic that some health care workers are too traumatized to even watch it. They'd rather detach from the hectic environment and emotions that come with it than relive it on TV.
"But ('The Pitt') also captured a lot of other themes in health care that I think are really important right now for the public," said Erickson.
"The Pitt" highlights the hospital's lack of beds, overcrowding and low staffing to manage it. Those problems are happening in real life nationwide. Giving viewers an inside perspective on the dilemma can be eye-opening, said Karl.
"If you're emotional watching the show for one hour at a time, imagine how tiring and emotional it can be working in emergency medicine in America right now and that's our life every single day," she said, adding that she hopes viewers will give health care workers some grace.
"We're people, too, and we're doing our best to take care of patients," said Erickson.
Other hospital shows praised for their accuracy include "Scrubs" and "Chicago Med." Meanwhile, "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" fall on the other side of the accuracy spectrum.
