Behind the curtain: What drives the drama of medical TV shows

By Michele Meyer, Texas Health Journalism Fellow

If you ever wonder how "The Pitt" and other TV shows set in hospitals look and feel so realistic, it's because Hollywood, for all its fantasies, often makes that a priority.

A panel at AHCJ's 2025 conference peeled back the curtain for health journalists and professionals on one such production: HBO Max medical drama "The Pitt." It's been acclaimed by critics and medical professionals since it premiered in January and already has been renewed for a second season.

Set in a Pittsburgh emergency room, the Warner Bros. TV show stars familiar face Noah Wyle from ER as Dr. Robby Robinavitch. But top billing really belongs to seven board-certified doctors who help craft and critique the scripts behind the scenes, said Joe Sachs,M.D., executive producer of "The Pitt."

As on-set advisors, they and the real-life nurses and physician assistants who play extras instantly diagnose medical inaccuracies, he said.

But much of the realism in "The Pitt" is built in from the start. For instance, any bleeding on the show is measured to be appropriate to the real-life injury or surgery causing it.

As for cases, they may be huge or minor - similar to cases handled by emergency rooms across the country. Similarly, the show doesn't offer false hopes, said Sachs, who's an emergency room physician.

Through such realism, he and others believe hospital-set productions can save lives.

"Hollywood can inform people about health when done accurately," said Kate Folb, M.Ed., program director at Hollywood, Health & Society, an initiative of the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center to link screenwriters with experts and patients in areas they're writing about. "These shows change our attitudes, behavior and awareness based on what we see."

Sachs still feels the show's drama and characters come first.

"That's what draws us in and holds our attention," he said. "But the experts do allow us to dive deeper, and when you dive deeper, that's when you get the gold."

Dealing with heavy issues has enabled the show to educate viewers about such things as the physical agony of sickle cell anemia, which disproportionately affects Black Americans, and is often undertreated by those unaware of the drug doses needed for its extreme pain.

After another episode aired on do-not-resuscitate decisions, Sachs received a note from a family who'd told their 93-year-old mother's doctor, "We watched "The Pitt" and we know we want comfort care for our mother - that's it."

If anything, "The Pitt" also has made patients more - well, patient, said Sachs, who follows its social media avidly.

"One doctor posted that a patient hugged him after an eight-hour ER wait and said, 'I watch "The Pitt" so I know what you're dealing with.'"

The honesty and reality of such shows provides "a real payoff to the health profession," said Erica Rosenthal, Ph.D, research director of the Lear Center. "More understanding translates to more medical visits, more realistic expectations and more compassion on both sides of the bed."

Michele Meyer is a freelance health writer and the med tech columnist at PracticeLink Magazine, a B2B magazine for physicians, medical residents and fellows.