The Pitt: 1:00PM
February 14, 2025 9:02 AM - Season 1, Episode 7 - Subscribe
After checking an influencer with odd symptoms, Samira challenges Robby. Santos deals with a patient facing assault charges.
A bit of a mixed episode.
Boos-
Telegraphed miscarriage now happening
Dr. Santos jumping to conclusions about that father and once again taking things too far (though would like to hear more about how the wife figured out to use progesterone, and is this going to be a double twist? is he not evil?)
Yays-
Dr. Mohan not just punting the influencer to psych (does she ever have a bit about why she wants to do EM? She seems like she'd be more happy in ID)
Dr. Collins telling Dr. Robby to leave his baggage outside the door. I feel like you don't get enough men being told that on TV.
Hmms-
Uhh, does Big ECMO need a sales boost or something? I felt like I was being sold to, ask your doctor now if ECMO is right for you!
posted by lizjohn at 12:28 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
Boos-
Telegraphed miscarriage now happening
Dr. Santos jumping to conclusions about that father and once again taking things too far (though would like to hear more about how the wife figured out to use progesterone, and is this going to be a double twist? is he not evil?)
Yays-
Dr. Mohan not just punting the influencer to psych (does she ever have a bit about why she wants to do EM? She seems like she'd be more happy in ID)
Dr. Collins telling Dr. Robby to leave his baggage outside the door. I feel like you don't get enough men being told that on TV.
Hmms-
Uhh, does Big ECMO need a sales boost or something? I felt like I was being sold to, ask your doctor now if ECMO is right for you!
posted by lizjohn at 12:28 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
Dr Mel King is my favorite character, I'd love to have a doctor like her. Competent, kind, and charmingly awkward. Loved Dr Langdon telling her that he learned from her.
posted by emd3737 at 1:14 PM on February 14 [4 favorites]
posted by emd3737 at 1:14 PM on February 14 [4 favorites]
Dr Mel King is my favorite character, I'd love to have a doctor like her.
I want to be friends with her!
posted by ellieBOA at 1:38 PM on February 14 [4 favorites]
I want to be friends with her!
posted by ellieBOA at 1:38 PM on February 14 [4 favorites]
I agree about the miscarriage. It's put me right off because it's so bloody predictable. Chekov's miscarriage means that the angry racist in the waiting room is definitely going to pay off as a life lesson to the doctors about not ignoring someone just cause they're a jerk.
The ECMO in ED scene was weird. I'm sure it was done because it looks cool and it looks like they're going to make sure that this ED is going to see one of every single kind of presentation before their day is done, but it's something I've never seen done. The double shock was weird too: it was the perfect scenario to set up 3 stacked shocks, which is standard practice if someone goes into VF in front of you and also looks cool and works more often than not (it IS rare, but I've done it), but instead they decided to double shock? It must be something a show runner read about in a journal article or something because I've never heard of anything even close to that ever being done in real life.
The ongoing rage against hospital admin for refusing to admit patients to the wards to save money is pretty funny. I don't know how it's done in America but in Australia the hospital would be severely penalised for not getting patients out of ED ASAP if the government knew their were beds available.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 5:47 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]
The ECMO in ED scene was weird. I'm sure it was done because it looks cool and it looks like they're going to make sure that this ED is going to see one of every single kind of presentation before their day is done, but it's something I've never seen done. The double shock was weird too: it was the perfect scenario to set up 3 stacked shocks, which is standard practice if someone goes into VF in front of you and also looks cool and works more often than not (it IS rare, but I've done it), but instead they decided to double shock? It must be something a show runner read about in a journal article or something because I've never heard of anything even close to that ever being done in real life.
The ongoing rage against hospital admin for refusing to admit patients to the wards to save money is pretty funny. I don't know how it's done in America but in Australia the hospital would be severely penalised for not getting patients out of ED ASAP if the government knew their were beds available.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 5:47 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]
Dr. Santos jumping to conclusions about that father and once again taking things too far (though would like to hear more about how the wife figured out to use progesterone, and is this going to be a double twist? is he not evil?)
Yeah, I'm torn between wanting that to be actually what was happening and she was justified despite not being able to go through the proper channels and her jumping to conclusions and getting told off. Either would be satisfying, I guess?
And yeah, thirding the love for Dr. King.
posted by Kyol at 6:41 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I'm torn between wanting that to be actually what was happening and she was justified despite not being able to go through the proper channels and her jumping to conclusions and getting told off. Either would be satisfying, I guess?
And yeah, thirding the love for Dr. King.
posted by Kyol at 6:41 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]
The ECMO was a plot device to get us another flashback to Robby's mentor doctor dying from COVID. In the flashback the nurse (can't remember her name UGH) tells Robby that the Doc has been on ECMO for 17 (?) days and a 12-year-old needs it and it's time to let the Doc go.
posted by cooker girl at 8:33 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 8:33 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
Oh plus the guy having a heart attack and not dying on the table was an okay ending for the med student who lost a heart attack patient earlier.
posted by cooker girl at 8:34 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 8:34 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]
The ongoing rage against hospital admin for refusing to admit patients to the wards to save money is pretty funny. I don't know how it's done in America but in Australia the hospital would be severely penalised for not getting patients out of ED ASAP if the government knew there were beds available.
You had me going the first half until you said Australia :) Depending on where you are in the states the nursing ratios are already crazy unsafe. In nursing school I saw so many nurses delaying discharge because they didn’t have the time for an admission with how much of a time sink it is. If you’re in a patients room for 45 minutes, you’re neglecting your other 5 patients. One hospital I rotated through has a discharge lounge where patients could go to speed up the process but it was underutilized because of the aforementioned reasons. I happen to live in an area where ratio is bad partially due to a nursing shortage, but reducing floor staff is still seen as a prudent cost saving measure, especially with Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements shrinking and now looking at a huge funding cliff. To be safe you have to allow slack in the system, and no one wants to pay for slack. We have pts who never make it to the floor and are discharged from the ED after 3+ days.
I’m sorry to derail a convo about a TV show. The US healthcare system is on the verge of catastrophe.
Nth Dr King being great, I meant to add it to my yays
posted by lizjohn at 10:41 AM on February 15 [4 favorites]
You had me going the first half until you said Australia :) Depending on where you are in the states the nursing ratios are already crazy unsafe. In nursing school I saw so many nurses delaying discharge because they didn’t have the time for an admission with how much of a time sink it is. If you’re in a patients room for 45 minutes, you’re neglecting your other 5 patients. One hospital I rotated through has a discharge lounge where patients could go to speed up the process but it was underutilized because of the aforementioned reasons. I happen to live in an area where ratio is bad partially due to a nursing shortage, but reducing floor staff is still seen as a prudent cost saving measure, especially with Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements shrinking and now looking at a huge funding cliff. To be safe you have to allow slack in the system, and no one wants to pay for slack. We have pts who never make it to the floor and are discharged from the ED after 3+ days.
I’m sorry to derail a convo about a TV show. The US healthcare system is on the verge of catastrophe.
Nth Dr King being great, I meant to add it to my yays
posted by lizjohn at 10:41 AM on February 15 [4 favorites]
We have two hospitals in town with closed wings. I’m not sure how many beds total, I would guess around a hundred. Not due to unsafe old buildings, but staffing. Those two hospitals are PE funded. In our city of ~1 million there are 6 major healthcare companies running hospitals, clinics, etc.
posted by lizjohn at 10:45 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]
posted by lizjohn at 10:45 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]
Miscarriage is disappointing. gotta make one of the kinder, gentler people on the floor suffer, I guess.
posted by supermedusa at 10:48 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]
posted by supermedusa at 10:48 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]
You know, the more I hear about this US healthcare system the less I like it.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 3:23 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]
posted by Silentgoldfish at 3:23 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]
The more I live and work in this US healthcare system the less I like it.
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 10:16 PM on February 15 [10 favorites]
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 10:16 PM on February 15 [10 favorites]
And yeah, it's very unevenly distributed - my local ER is also the county medical center and one of the biggest teaching hospitals in the state, and while I know my spouse and I have bounced from the waiting room after waiting for a couple of hours because it was clear the problem we came in for wasn't likely to kill us immediately, when I look at the wait times right now - before noon on a Sunday, so, y'know, people choking on communion wafers & slips & falls - it's all under a half an hour. It was as much as 45 minutes late last night, and the isolated "countryside" ER wait was over 2 hours last night.
But it's winter and we just had snow, so aside from cardiac events things are relatively quiet compared to Angry Shooty Summer.
The urgent care tends to be a bit worse, but I think those are even more understaffed.
I mean, there's a whole sort of problem with patients not knowing whether their problem is an emergency or merely urgent, and our healthcare system doesn't really do much more than make emergency visits more expensive and some vague "emergencies are life altering or ending medical issues, if you don't think you're gonna die, maybe go to urgent care instead?" guidance. I suspect more people end up going off to the ER for stuff the urgent care could handle, but ... Like, we don't know? It's not the best.
posted by Kyol at 8:51 AM on February 16 [1 favorite]
But it's winter and we just had snow, so aside from cardiac events things are relatively quiet compared to Angry Shooty Summer.
The urgent care tends to be a bit worse, but I think those are even more understaffed.
I mean, there's a whole sort of problem with patients not knowing whether their problem is an emergency or merely urgent, and our healthcare system doesn't really do much more than make emergency visits more expensive and some vague "emergencies are life altering or ending medical issues, if you don't think you're gonna die, maybe go to urgent care instead?" guidance. I suspect more people end up going off to the ER for stuff the urgent care could handle, but ... Like, we don't know? It's not the best.
posted by Kyol at 8:51 AM on February 16 [1 favorite]
I thought the ECMO was interesting, I heard so much about it during Covid but didn't know that much about it. I had to read about it recently for work and learned some. And so to see it done this week was interesting to me. The question about, maybe these aren't the right words, but rationing care - the deceased doctor had been on it for 17 days and a 12 year old needed it. I'd be interested in an entire show about how doctors have to make those tough decisions. I'm interested in a show that asks us to feel empathy for doctors that have to make those decisions and for the loved ones of the people impacted by those decisions, so having one doctor that here is both is interesting to me.
As with others, I absolutely love Dr. Mel. I made a comment on another episode about feeling Dr. Langdon was very arrogant, but he sure proved me wrong in the way he was quick to admit he was struggling with that patient, quick to see Dr. Mel succeed and try to learn from what she was doing and quick to compliment and thank the her work - a junior, female doctor. I am happy to be wrong.
posted by fennario at 5:24 PM on February 16 [5 favorites]
As with others, I absolutely love Dr. Mel. I made a comment on another episode about feeling Dr. Langdon was very arrogant, but he sure proved me wrong in the way he was quick to admit he was struggling with that patient, quick to see Dr. Mel succeed and try to learn from what she was doing and quick to compliment and thank the her work - a junior, female doctor. I am happy to be wrong.
posted by fennario at 5:24 PM on February 16 [5 favorites]
Busy Doctors Can’t Get Enough of ‘The Pitt’ [NYT / Archive]
posted by ellieBOA at 2:00 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 2:00 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]
I very very much appreciated the camera showing us the blood/tissue in Collins’ underwear. Period blood, let alone a miscarried pregnancy, is usually just talked about or maybe shown staining the outside of a garment or someone’s hand or something. This was gnarly. Chunky and viscous. Correct.
posted by minervous at 6:45 PM on February 19 [3 favorites]
posted by minervous at 6:45 PM on February 19 [3 favorites]
Love how Mel is quietly so baffled by no one picking up on her neurodivergence.
posted by sibboleth at 8:44 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]
posted by sibboleth at 8:44 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]
Miscarriage is disappointing. gotta make one of the kinder, gentler people on the floor suffer, I guess.
But it had to be the doctor who just helped a teenager get an abortion...like its 2025 and still nobody can get an abortion on TV without somebody getting punished.
posted by mabelstreet at 7:39 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]
But it had to be the doctor who just helped a teenager get an abortion...like its 2025 and still nobody can get an abortion on TV without somebody getting punished.
posted by mabelstreet at 7:39 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]
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posted by ellieBOA at 9:02 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]