Chicago Med vs. The Pitt: which ER drama do real doctors say gets medicine right?
Real emergency physicians have graded both TV hospitals, and even the winner got marked down for something viewers would never notice.
Chicago Med premiered on NBC on November 17, 2015, as part of Dick Wolf's Chicago franchise, and its 12th season started on October 7, 2026, at the fictional Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. The Pitt, created by R. Scott Gemmill, premiered on Max on January 9, 2025, with Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Each episode of The Pitt covers about one hour of a single shift. The show has won 11 Emmys, including two for Outstanding Drama Series, and season 3 is due in January 2027.
The Pitt: doctors keep using the word "accurate"
The most quoted verdict comes from Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Medicine Children's Health, in an interview with NPR.
"By far the most medically accurate show that I think has ever been created."
Patel also co-hosts the show's companion podcast, so he has a stake. But emergency physicians with no stake say similar things. Dr. Matthew Strehlow, a professor of emergency medicine at Stanford and education chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians, singled out the constant interruptions in an interview with Stanford News:
"One of the key things about emergency medicine is that you are constantly interrupted."
"And that is real. You see that on the show," he added.
The reason is staffing. Dr. Joe Sachs, an emergency physician, is a writer and executive producer on The Pitt, and seven board-certified physicians help create and review the scripts. The cast spent two weeks training with ER doctors before filming. Real ER nurses Tim Van Pelt and Ambar Martinez appear in the series, and Sachs recorded real nurses' conversations so extras would have authentic background chatter.
Where The Pitt still gets marked down
Strehlow's biggest complaint is one no viewer would make: the doctors on The Pitt barely touch a keyboard.
On the show, Strehlow said, doctors are at the computer "maybe 5% of the time."
"It's closer to 50% of our time."
He also said the show "still feels somewhat physician-driven," when emergency medicine is "fundamentally team-based."
The other note is pace. Dr. Brent Rau, who runs the emergency department at Allegheny General Hospital, the real hospital The Pitt's exterior is modeled on, told CBS Pittsburgh he has seen the cases from season 1, just "not all in one shift."
Chicago Med: 85% accurate, by its own count
The most cited number on Chicago Med's realism comes from inside the building. Dr. Andrew Dennis, a trauma and burn surgeon at Cook County Hospital, served as the show's medical advisor, reviewing scripts and choreographing surgeries on set about three days a week. In a 2016 interview with Science News Explores, he gave his own show a grade.
"85 percent accurate," Dennis said.
The missing 15% is easy to spot. On Chicago Med, surgical teams lose their masks and caps so viewers can see the actors' faces, drapes come down off patients' faces for the same reason, lab results arrive in minutes, and patients wake up fast.
Some storylines leave the 85% behind entirely. In season 2's "Graveyard Shift," the doctors perform heart surgery on a panda from the local zoo. Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, the family physician known on YouTube as Doctor Mike, reviewed the episode.
"A panda! They literally are just making [expletive] up as they go now," Varshavski said.
"Get a panda surgeon! Not even a vet," he added.
The verdict
Doctors say The Pitt gets medicine right, and the gap isn't close. Chicago Med isn't trying for the same thing: it's a Dick Wolf network drama built around cases and relationships. Its realism check was a medical advisor on set three days a week, while The Pitt's comes from a writers' room with an emergency physician in it and seven doctors checking the scripts.
Strehlow's main complaint about The Pitt is that it leaves out the hours real doctors spend at a computer, which is the one part of a shift nobody has ever asked to see on TV.
Previously we wrote: The Vampire Diaries vs The Originals: which to watch first, and the TVD seasons you can't skip before New Orleans