Noah Wyle is back in A&E with new drama The Pitt: 'I hope people watch with empathy'

A packed waiting room, doctors under pressure, mental health crises. It could be any day in a UK A&E department. But this is the USA. More specifically, it's smash-hit medical drama The Pitt, which is American slang for the emergency room (spelt "pit"). And it's just landed on our shores.

A gripping fast-paced drama full of tension, emotion, a bit of gore - and some much-needed dark humour - it's easy to see why the show has already won so many awards Stateside, including numerous Emmys and Golden Globes.

Many of the health and social issues The Pitt shines a light on will be familiar on both sides of the pond. But there is a fundamental difference - we have a publicly-funded universal healthcare system and the US doesn't. So how will the HBO Max show translate for UK audiences?

In one episode, construction worker Orlando Diaz (William Guirola) suffers serious diabetes complications after rationing his insulin due to the cost (he already has a $100,000 medical debt). Seeing the stark reality of Diaz's plight on screen is quite an eye-opener.

Noah Wyle plays Dr Robby, a traumatised, hard-nosed yet deeply empathetic lead physician in the A&E department of a Pittsburg hospital.

"I can imagine that it would be difficult to get your head around that [if you're from the UK]. But I don't think it's unrelatable in the sense that, in the winter, Europeans have to make very hard choices about their heating bill versus their food bill... you have to make these choices based on your limited resources and Americans are burdened with an additional item that is health insurance. That makes it very complicated."

Wyle, who is also an executive producer and writer on the show, adds that it's challenging for all involved.

"It's very frustrating for the physician who oftentimes is compromised in what they're able to do, and it's frustrating for the patients."

But he's also keen to point out that it's all relative.

"There are also healthcare systems around the world that Americans look at with pity."

The actor is, of course, best known for his leading role as Dr Carter in ER alongside the likes of George Clooney and Alex Kingston. Was there a risk in returning to such a familiar hunting ground?

"It's the first time since ER that I've felt the same sense of camaraderie and buy-in among the cast and crew. When I was on ER, I don't really think I appreciated how rare the air was that I was breathing," he says.

"And then I spent the next 15 years waiting for lightning to strike again. So, was I nervous? I think I was overly confident. And then I was disillusioned, and then I was depressed, and I was resigned. And then, I was profoundly surprised. And now, I'm eternally grateful."

The idea for the show was sparked by the global pandemic.

"It was during Covid, which was a tricky time for everybody, but first responders in particular were being hit extremely hard," Wyle explains.

"And I was getting a lot of mail from them, sort of chronicling what that experience was like. And I assumed they were reaching out to me because they felt that I had a relevance to their career, having been part of what motivated them to go into that line of work.

"It didn't sit well with me that I didn't have current relevance. I had nothing really to offer back except empathy."

So he got in touch with John Wells, who had been the showrunner on ER, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"He agreed immediately that everything was going to be different after Covid. So that became the focus, can we do a version, a very up-to-date look at the American healthcare system?"

Wyle muses on the profound effect the pandemic had on so many in different ways.

"You don't really forget about it, it lodges somewhere within you, unexamined, un-exhumed, it turns into something that becomes quite toxic.

"The Pitt is a sort of proverbial pit that we've all found ourselves in since Covid that we can't quite climb out of. And Robby is at the centre of this narrative. He's a guy who's on a mental health journey he doesn't know that he's on."

Dr Robby is, in fact, suffering with PTSD following on from his experiences working through the pandemic.

"We're using Robby as a bit of an avatar for everybody who doesn't quite recognise themselves or why they're behaving the way they are," Wyle explains.

The Pitt covers everything from a measles outbreak, a shooting at a festival, the opioid crisis, medical abortion, black maternal care, homelessness and more besides.

"Emergency rooms are the catch-all of all of society's bad choices, and who helps the helpers becomes a really interesting question when these people attend the worst day of your life four times an hour, 12 hours a day."

Wyle's own mother was a nurse.

"Her being a nurse was a point of pride for her and for us. I loved that my mother was a nurse, and she loved being a nurse. And it was really only through The Pitt that I've gotten a full understanding of really what that meant to her then and now.

"We had this wonderful experience happen where after she watched a certain episode of The Pitt in season one, she had what she considered to be a bit of a PTSD trigger herself. It was flooded with all these memories that she hadn't thought of and had never shared with me or anybody in the family before."

He says that others working in healthcare have also responded to the drama.

"They feel seen. Moreover, I think they feel that their families now have a frame of reference for what they do that gives more context than they could possibly articulate. And there's a lot of gratitude that's come from that."

"I hope you watch the show with a sense of empathy and then you can look at the holes in your own system with a little bit of a broader perspective. I was always surprised back in the old days that ER translated as well as it did around the world.

"But I think the themes are pretty ubiquitous, you know. Life, death, birth, illness, grief, heroism, fatigue, you know, pressure at work. All those things are relatable, even if the specifics are different."

All episodes of The Pitt season one are available to stream exclusively on HBO Max in the UK and Ireland, with episodes from season two airing on a weekly basis.