90.5 WESA: For two Pittsburgh-based health professionals, when "The Pitt" took home five Emmys this year, the moment wasn’t just a win for television — it was a triumph for accuracy in storytelling, thanks in part to their real-world experiences "The Pitt" brought to the screen.
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Now that the media that people are consuming the most of is TV, it is incredibly important that there is representation and shows that reflect real life. A lot of people nowadays “learn” from TV and Dr. Owusa-Ansah understands this and makes a great point to talk about how when a show uses real-life experts of whatever the show is about, it can be more “educational”. The history of the medical industry has not been kind to many people, especially Black people for example Henrietta Lacks. The more and more you learn about the untalked about history of medicine, the more and more you realize how the whole system has failed for so many people. Making certain things more “mainstream” will honestly save many lives. Sometimes people learn more when they do not even realize that they’re being taught and are entertained by what they are watching. Unfortunately a lot of people will take what is being told to them in TV shows/other media as a fact without double checking so if a TV show has the correct facts and things that people should be learning about, then that can be very helpful.
The Pitt is genuinely such a fantastic show that I absolutely adore. On a surface level, the combination of emergency medicine, existing in Pittsburgh, and talking about the Freedom House ambulance service (one of my favorite pieces of history to talk about!) results in a show that I am the target audience for. Going deeper than that, as a television show, it has fantastic writing, acting, and production, and on a more philosophical level, it is truly so impressive that this show has created a season of television that really eloquently discusses many of the challenges within the healthcare industry, while fitting all of these conversations in a twelve-hour shift. Last year, the production designer of the show did a talk here at CMU, and the level of research her team did to create a literal emergency department and get every background detail right was super impressive. Every review I have read comments on how impressive the research and accuracy are, and I am very excited for the next season of this show.
Wow, this was such an incredible article about the intersection of different professions fields and how we as artist and entertainers can work with experts to both enhance our work as well as help other people’s stories be seen and heard. Before this article I had never heard about USC’s Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) program. I think that that is a super cool thing to have especially with how inaccurate medical dramas can be (*cough cough* House MD even though I will always love you). I think that these inaccuracies often can scare people away from getting the care they need and it is so great to see these stories being reprinted in a more accurate light. The other thing that stood out to me was when the “17-year-old patient with sickle cell pain who was unfairly restrained” because racism in the medical field is something that is still so present and needs to be spoken about more. Medical professionals often write off the pain of Black patience as drug seeking behavior even when they face some of the most medically painful conditions out there and seeing that on screen is a step in the right direction towards becoming more aware of the injustices in our medical systems.
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