This Is Where I Put My Pitt

A couple of observations? Please.

ALERT! there's a teddy bear loose with a big flower!

One of the main things a resident is expected to do is teach interns and students. And Mohan is interestingly pretty bad at this. I just watched the episode where Santos says one awkward thing to a patient. She’s a new intern and she didn’t handle a patient’s overwhelming emotions perfectly. She wasn’t particularly bad, just not ideal. This isn’t surprising. This is a learned skill for many people.

Mohan takes Santos out of the room and dresses her down her in the middle of the hall. She doesn’t invite a conversation where Santos can reflect and learn. Samira speaks over Santos, shames her, and lectures her. She does the same with Whitaker and the sickle cell patient when she shames him in the middle of the hall rather than encourage him to learn from a common mistake. Both times she’s right in pointing out what her trainee did wrong, but she’s so aggressive and condescending that she’s going to alienate her trainees rather than let them reflect and grow from her feedback. Then she lets Santos take the fall for her mistake with the hyponatremia patient, which is quite a choice for a resident to make.

Langdon wants to keep giving benzos we assume because he knows that what the patient got was actually saline. Putting that horror aside for one second, his suggestion that they repeatedly give benzos and even intubate a patient in status prior to giving an anti-seizure medication is just wildly incorrect management.

Robby lets Langdon get away with continuing this incorrect management but another attending might not have and then the patient what, would never have gotten benzos at all? That’s insane to think about.

Which brings me to how shocking this is on a rewatch. Langdon is taking an action that could have killed or caused serious permanent cognitive impairment to this patient. Who knows how many patients have been harmed. The ED treats a whole lot of alcohol withdrawal which is treated with benzos and is potentially lethal if not treated correctly.

It’s completely understandable that Santos feels like she’s being gaslit when he’s welcomed back warmly. The problem isn’t the substance use disorder. The problem is his utter disregard for taking an action that might have killed patients. Robby too gets a lot of pushback for not welcoming Langdon warmly, but again he knows that Langdon stole drugs and could have harmed patients. And Langdon’s many apologies seem never to wrestle with the real moral failing of his, forever hiding behind addiction to not take responsibility for having possibly done real harm to numerous patients.

I think what's beautiful about trinity santos + kids in s2 is that she is so kind and good to them despite not having a particular enjoyment of them. softening herself when she talks to Kylie, going the distance to make sure she's safe. singing a lullaby to BJD. comforting the boy who got his fingers blown off, gentle, soothing. trying to fight against an impossibly broken system to find some other way for the boy to have both his parents and his sister at the same time, to have a chance at a better life despite the hopelessness of it.

trinity santos is kind to children and that does not make her a mother. that does not make her a peds doctor. it doesn't make her find some particular love for them. and I fucking love that interpretation way more, because so many times, media will center women around children as if it's their "calling". they motherify so many female characters. they didn't twist trinity into a motherly character she doesn't embody.

the fact that she's good to children is because she's just a good fucking person. and because inside her is a child who was taken advantage of and hurt very badly, so children are probably easier to empathize with. she relates specifically to feeling so much pain whilst being young and scared and confused. and most children have an innocence that does break down barriers and shells. trinity adapts to that communication style. you have to match a child's innocence.

creating and feeding rumors about cast members with zero evidence is never harmless. if anything, it damages the environment they work in and the relationships between them. these people spend 8–9 months a year working together. you do not know them personally and constantly projecting narratives onto them can create tension that may have never existed in the first place.

no actor should have to publicly clear up rumors about alleged “beef” with a coworker because people online decided to run with assumptions.

it’s embarrassing, harmful, and it completely takes the focus away from what actually matters: their work and their craft.

The Pitt + Text Posts (7/?)

+ bonus:

dr robby is treated like the devil incarnate because, in the middle of a very distressing mental health crisis wherein he's actively suicidal due to ptsd and empathetic burnout, he yelled at someone (realistic portrayal of mental crisis btw), triggering people to actively *hope* he died, despite the fact hes shown over and over again to be caring and good, and has simply reached the end of his teather...

and simultaneously dr abbot who is undeniably complicit in the murder of middle eastern civilians (no matter how "uber-woke" you want to say he is, it's still true, he *is* complicit) and is still part of the military (and not overtly critical of them, his first response to jesse being "what did he do?") recieves almost zero critique or nuanced thought pieces at all, and is treated like a saint and a saviour....

like what are we doing here? can you imagine if it was *robby* who was complicit in civilian murder? people would be setting things on fire..

Langdon gets a similar pass that Abbot gets (the attractive white man pass) despite the fact he tried getting Santos fired on her first day because she was catching onto his addiction and stealing and he knew it. He claims he didn't harm patients-but we have evidence to the contrary, which is the fact a man kept seizing because Langdon diluted a vial and put it back-and refuses to take full responsibility. He still blames Santos for "almost" ruining his life.

Yes yes yes addiction-he deserves sympathy for that and addiction is a disease, but addiction is not without it's consequences nor its effect on others. I love Langdon's journey, I don't love the way some people hide behind "but he's an addict, it's not his fault" in order to excuse his inexcusable behavior against the patients he harmed and Trinity.

Abbot joined Swat for no reason other than a form of therapy. It doesn't matter he's not the one with gun, he's on the side of the people with the guns. Swat is routinely called on people for minor crimes and as a form of deadly control. He doesn't get to pick and choose which ones he goes on: he goes where called, and that could easily be a situation where Swat was called on a scenario that could have been solved by a mediator, or hell, one where Swat wasn't needed at all.

Also-He can be completely sympathetic to Jesse and on his side, while also potentially taking a stance of "well, he shouldn't have stepped in/just let it happen". It's a very common stance for men of his age AND vets. Especially ones who actively work with police forces.

But (sorry to rant on your post lmao) this is what makes them interesting characters! Abbot is someone who is a clear leader and ready to step in to make the hard decisions. He's a good teacher for crisis and not going to hold back his students from helping in ways that would usually be frowned upon. Samira is so kind and open to the ones who fall through the cracks and is willing to break apart the mystery to figure out how to help them at any cost, one she's willing to pay for. Langdon is someone who is clearly good at learning ways to interact with neurodivergent patients and get them treatment without belittling them or letting them be forgotten, or mistreated by the system. He learned from his first time and never forgot.