RIT class asks if ‘The Pitt’ is legit

Instead of buying a textbook this semester, students in a new Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) course subscribed to HBO Max.

Their assignment: watch The Pitt, the Emmy award-winning medical drama with a realistic portrayal of emergency medicine in a fictious Pittsburgh hospital that is helping future healthcare professionals explore the ethical, emotional, and practical challenges they may one day face themselves.

Dr. Daniel Taramasco, an internist at Rochester General Hospital and an RIT 2005 alumnus who earned a BS in biology, is teaching the class Is The Pitt Legit? about the series lauded for its gritty accuracy. Taramasco works closely with his colleagues in the ER.

“The class is discussing what we actually witnessed in The Pitt and the ethics, the legitimacy of the medicine that we’re seeing, the interactions, the emotional impacts, and the toll that these things take on healthcare workers.”

The idea for the course came from the  RIT Office of Pre-med/Pre-health Advising and the RIT Rochester Regional Health System Alliance. RIT’s pre-health advising program has helped hundreds of students get into medical school and graduate programs in the health professions.

Emma Morris, a fifth-year biomedical engineering BS/MS major who hopes to go to medical school after graduation, has rewatched the series several times.

“The Pitt is one of the reasons I am passionate about becoming an emergency medicine physician,” said Morris, a Fort Myers, Fla., resident.

She enrolled in the class to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing emergency physicians and how they respond to different scenarios portrayed in the program.

“I want to be able to break down the nuances of their decision making while also taking into account the impact that their work has on people’s everyday life,” Morris said.

While most of the students taking Taramasco’s class are interested in healthcare careers, other students signed up because they simply like the show or because the class sounded interesting.

"There are a variety of different perspectives and educational backgrounds represented in the class, so I think it will be interesting to see how that plays out during the semester,” Morris said. 

The series follows an ER team led by emergency physician (Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, played by Noah Wyle) during a 15-hour shift. Each hour is its own episode, and the season captures one workday in the ER. The class will watch the first two seasons of The Pitt. The third season will drop in January.

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The Pitt/Warner Bros. Discovery

The realistic medical drama The Pitt, starring Noah Wyle as the attending physician, gives RIT students a new way to discuss emergency medicine the class, “Is The Pitt Legit?”

The show delves into ethical issues related to doctor-patient relationships, patient autonomy, beneficence, and justice, Taramasco said. The show isn’t a documentary, but the topics covered, from fentanyl overdoses, staff shortages, sexual violence, underfunding, and the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers mirror society.

“The cases and the outcomes are very accurate. I thought they captured the life as well—what it means to be in that role,” Taramasco said. “My hope is that the students walk away from class with a new perspective on a lot of these important topics.”