"The Pitt" has received high marks from health care workers, saying the show provides a realistic view of life in a hospital. 

The popular Pittsburgh-set medical drama starring Noah Wyle has earned critical acclaim from medical professionals. And that praise is not just for the accuracy in how the show handles complex medical language and procedures, but also for the topics it tackles. 

In the show, Wyle plays the compassionate and increasingly world-weary Dr. Robby, who contends with the daily onslaught of injury at a Pittsburgh trauma center based on the one at Allegheny General Hospital.

Dr. Robby's real-life counterpart is Dr. Brent Rau, the emergency medical director at AGH. He has high praise for the show, though a typical day at AGH is not quite as action-packed.

"I have seen all of those cases and most of those situations that they had in that first season, but not all in one shift, though — that's a bad shift," Rau said. 

Still, Rau not only gives the show high marks for medical accuracy in diagnosis and treatment, but it's focus on the emotional toll on the nurses and attendant physicians and how health care workers deal with all they see on a daily basis.

"Just being in this place day in and day out with this level of sick patients and the suffering that you see, it's very difficult not to internalize some of it," Rau said. "You need that decompression afterwards and need the ability to reach out to colleagues and other sources."

Contending with death, suffering and tragedy is still a work in progress for Rau after 15 years in emergency medicine. Like Dr. Robby, Rau has had to tell parents that their son or daughter has died, and oftentimes, he and his staff need to shut down emotionally to focus on their jobs. But as a husband and father of two, he can't quite process the pain of children in trauma.

"There is no hardening to that," Rau said. "There's no getting used to that. There's really no getting used to any of this, but there are some things that hit particularly hard. I think that myself and most of my staff would agree that kids are very difficult."

And as the leader at Allegheny General Hospital, he is not only in charge of his patients' care but also the well-being of his staff. Health care workers may dip into depression and substance abuse, and Rau seeks to counter that by debriefing his staff after tragedies and encouraging them to reach out to one another.

"We are professionals, but unfortunately, it does wear on people, and you need to have each other's backs," Rau said. "And we do a really good job here at Allegheny General of having each other's backs at this emergency department."

Art imitates life, and life imitates art. Rau and Wyle have become friends in their separate roles, and the staff have served as consultants to "The Pitt," helping the actors and producers understand what it's like to be on the frontlines of human suffering and the price they pay for that work.