Supriya Ganesh, Patrick Ball, Shabana Azeez, Kristin Villanueva and Noah Wyle in episode 8 of The Pitt.Warrick Page/HBO / Crave
The first season of the medical drama The Pitt comes to a relatively quiet conclusion tonight, as senior resident chief attendant Michael “Robby” Rabinovitch finally reaches the end of a hellish 15-hour shift in the emergency department of the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital.
This long day’s journey into night has taken a toll on Dr. Robby, played with intelligence and kindness but never as a superhuman by ER veteran Noah Wyle.
The whirlwind of a narrative told over 15 real-time hour-long episodes that began with a doctor contemplating suicide concludes with the mental health of medical staff top of mind again.
Once a moment’s peace arrives, Dr. Robby and his team must grapple with the trauma of having responded to an American-style mass-casualty event that turned the hospital into a war zone for several episodes.
But The Pitt’s doctors and nurses have also endured the regular dispiriting parade of patients representing more common and preventable ailments of the post-COVID world in this Max show that has been airing in Canada on the USA Network and streaming on Crave.
The violent assault on a health care worker, rising anti-vaccination sentiment, the Sisyphean struggle of the drug toxicity crisis – these are problems health care professionals will recognize up here in Canada, too.
The Pitt has been praised widely as the most realistic depiction of American emergency room medicine ever – and that goes beyond the superficiality of its cable aesthetics that haven’t shied away from up-close surgical procedures or body parts usually kept tucked away on network TV hospital gurneys.
Generally unremarked upon, however, has been that this exceptional TV drama’s creator and showrunner, R. Scott Gemmill, is from Fort Erie, Ont., – and grew up in a different, public health care system than the mixed one he and his writers have depicted with such a sharp critical eye to the effects of profit motives and customer satisfaction surveys.
Gemmill’s nationality might just be a bit of trivia if weren’t for the fact that he’s one of several Canadians showrunning small-screen dramas about American medicine right now.
Pulse, Netflix’s first original medical show and currently one of the streamer’s most watched programs, was created by Vancouver’s Zoe Robyn; she also co-showruns this soapier, sexier take on the genre that dropped a full season of 10 episodes last week.
Then there’s the NBC procedural Brilliant Minds (on Citytv in Canada) – in which Zachary Quinto plays a neurologist named Dr. Wolf, inspired by late legendary physician Oliver Sacks. That show, which wrapped up its first season this winter, was created by Montreal’s Michael Grassi, who began his career on shows such as Schitt’s Creek and (no relation) Degrassi: The Next Generation.
The sage advice to “write what you know” has often been interpreted of late as only write what you know.
But these medical series are a reminder that sometimes what really helps an artist tackle a well-worn subject in a perceptive or original manner is the ability to stand a step apart from it. Perhaps Canadians, who draw too much of their identity from having a somewhat saner health care system than their neighbours, have exactly the right bedside manner for American doctor shows.
In both Brilliant Minds and Pulse, an outsider perspective embedded in the lead characters is what makes the shows compelling.
Dr. Wolf, like his real-world inspiration, has facial blindness and is gay – and these provide entry points for him to criticize inequities of the system in which he works.
Likewise, the patient care of Pulse’s lead Dr. Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) is influenced by coming from a low-income background, going to a less prestigious medical school – and having filed a sexual harassment complaint against the chief resident as the show begins.
Ultimately, The Pitt stands head and shoulders above them – and most dramas on TV at the moment – owing to its ability to immerse viewers in its setting with a literal sense of urgency, while somehow finding moments to regularly step back and look at the bigger picture surrounding this dysfunctional system that delivers miracles daily. From its brief lesson on the (Black) history of emergency medical service in the U.S. to plotlines that intersect with the carceral system, Pittsburgh Trauma has very much been a teaching hospital.
It’s, of course, a coincidence that all these Canadian-run American shows are aired or streaming at a time when Canadian media is full of stories about medical professionals working in the United States who want to either return to Canada, or move here.
At the same time, I just received this week yet another email from a Canadian writer who was hoping to get a clipping so she could boost an O1 visa application and work in the United States. That certainly made me step back from any patriotic complacency for a moment to recall that brilliant minds are still flowing across the border both ways.