Minnesota emergency room doctor served as medical consultant for 'The Pitt'
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The hit HBO medical drama “The Pitt” follows a fictional emergency room in Pittsburgh, Penn., for one day. Each episode is an hour of their shift. The show has been complimented for its accuracy in portraying a real emergency room. That’s thanks in part to a Minnesota doctor.
Dr. Jacob Lentz is an emergency room doctor at M Health Fairview Lakes Medical Center in Wyoming, Minn., and he served as a medical consultant for the show. Season two is airing now on HBO.
Dr. Lentz spoke to Minnesota Now host Nina Moini about his role on the show and how he helped contribute to its medical accuracy.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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How did you become a medical consultant on the show?
I was a television writer before I went to medical school. So I went to medical school in Los Angeles, and then I got a job working for Fairview as an ER doctor.
A friend of mine from residency texted me, and he said, “I saw this Facebook post and it said, ‘If you want to be a consultant on this new HBO show called ‘The Pitt…’”
They were looking for ER doctors who are in the Los Angeles area, who have experience in television. And he said, “This sounds like you.” And I said, “That does sound like me.”
What are you doing as a medical consultant? Are you on set?
Each episode is nine days of shooting. So you're on set the entire time. And you make sure everyone's saying things the right way and holding things the right way.
And then there's nine days of prep attached to the nine days of shooting. And during those nine days of prep, you go through each script for the episode you're responsible for. There's four of us — we rotate — and you go through a 70-page script. And you go through each scene, and for every single scene, you write down in a Word document: What is the makeup? What are the props? What are the costumes? What's the atmosphere like? What's on the monitors? What are the vital signs? What's on the computer? And then you usually end up with about 20 to 25 pages of notes, and you turn that in.
And then during that prep time, you meet with the makeup people, the props people and everyone and answer all their questions about your notes. And then you also work with the director for each episode, for every scene where there's anything medical happening.
The show has gotten a lot of praise for being medically accurate. How does that make you feel?
I'm really proud of it. I don't take too much credit for it. I got to tip my hat to Noah Wyle, and John Wells and Scott Gemmill, who created it. They were very open from the start that they wanted to do the most medically accurate show that had ever been on television, and they've really stuck with that. They're very committed to it.
And so if I say I think this needs to be done this way, or I wouldn't do it that way, they're very open to it. It's really been rewarding.
What does it mean to you on a professional level to showcase the work of an ER?
I am really proud to be part of it because there's something very special about emergency medicine. It's a very difficult job, and it's getting increasingly difficult because of all the issues that the show talks about: like boarding and the under-resourcing and people's lack of access to primary care.
Being able to highlight that and be part of getting to shine a little bit of a spotlight on the challenge of the job and what makes it really special has been really gratifying for me and, I think, for all the people who are attached to it.
