Noah Wyle, Fiona Dourif, Patrick Ball and other stars of HBO’s hit show “The Pitt” were gathered around a table, brows furrowed in concentration as they learned the art of medical stitches.
“It looked like it was a day camp with everyone making friendship bracelets,” says the show’s creator, R. Scott Gemmill, of the “boot camp” to prepare the actors for their roles as emergency-room physicians on the medical drama. “They were all so studious because they all take pride in their suturing.”
The actors’ instructors – who also showed them how to use a stethoscope, don sterile gloves and look smooth when applying hand sanitizer, among other skills – were real ER docs, including Jacob Lentz, MD, of UCLA Health.
Dr. Lentz has worked as a consultant on the show since its inception, creating detailed choreography for medical scenes and advising the makeup department on just how gory a degloved foot and other injuries should look.
Working on the show is a full-circle moment for the emergency physician, who originally came to Los Angeles to work as a TV writer.
“It’s funny, because sometimes I’d ask my manager, ‘Is there anything I can do with this thing where I’m a doctor, but I also understand television?’” Dr. Lentz says. “And he’d be like, ‘No. Those jobs don’t exist.’”
Comedy-writing roots
After graduating with a degree in economics and international relations, Dr. Lentz moved out west with TV on his mind.
“Everyone else was becoming a consultant or an investment banker,” he says. “And I was just like, ‘Yuck.’”
He ended up working on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” just as the show was launching, a job he kept for more than eight years. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be a TV writer forever, though. His brother-in-law was applying to medical school at the time, something Dr. Lentz had long considered.
“You should be a doctor, dude,” he remembers his brother-in-law saying.
Dr. Lentz enrolled in pre-med classes through UCLA Extension, took the Medical College Admission Test, and pursued his MD at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Some friends and colleagues were confounded by the move, he says: “Everybody was like, ‘Why would you quit a TV job to do that?’”
“For the chance to actually help people,” he’d quietly reply.
He completed his residency at UCLA Health and went on to work in its emergency department.
Blending worlds
Dr. Lentz finally found the kind of job he was told didn’t exist when a friend from residency alerted him to a post he’d seen on Facebook: A new HBO show was looking for ER doctors living in Los Angeles who had experience in television and film.
“That sounds like you,” his friend said.
“The Pitt” has been one of the most celebrated new shows since its January 2025 premiere, winning Emmy, Golden Globe, Writers Guild of America and Critics’ Choice Television awards for drama series, plus acting honors for its cast. Each episode covers one hour of a 15-hour shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. “ER” alum Noah Wyle plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, who leads the emergency department.
Dr. Lentz is one of four physician consultants on the show. Besides helping teach the actors basic medical skills during the pre-filming boot camp, he pores over several scripts each season to coordinate hospital-worthy accuracy during medical scenes.
He maps out where physicians and nurses should stand, what would be on the computer monitors during procedures and what medical equipment would be present or needed. He also consults with the makeup department on just what color the blood would be when spurting from a “pulsatile 4-centimeter wound” on the leg.
“There’s a lot of looking at things and saying: ‘That looks good. That’s not quite right. Maybe make it a little darker. Maybe make it a little bloodier,’” Dr. Lentz says.
Playing doctor on TV
Medical scenes are penned by the two doctors on “The Pitt” writing staff, including co-executive producer Joe Sachs, MD, who worked as an emergency physician before producing television shows.
The physician consultants take turns reviewing each script to create dozens of pages of notes outlining procedural choreography. Dr. Lentz recalls one episode during the first season that involved nine people and required 45 pages of notes.
The doctors’ contributions are “invaluable,” says Gemmil: “We couldn’t do the show properly without them.”
Physician consultants are on set during the nine days of preparation for each episode and nine days of shooting, serving as “the go-to answer machine” for medical questions, Dr. Lentz says.
The show’s realism and accuracy have made it a favorite among health care workers, who were its “first real fans,” Gemmill says: “If we can do good by them, then I think we’ve accomplished something.”
Honoring emergency medicine
For Dr. Lentz, who still works full time at UCLA Health, it’s been a thrill to return to the world of television, this time as a physician helping represent his medical specialty onscreen. It’s fun to be back on a TV set, he says, which has its own rhythm and energy. And he’s gotten a kick out of seeing the actors master — and sometimes struggle with — the kinds of everyday tasks of a doctor.
Take putting on sterile gloves, for example. They’ve asked Dr. Lentz to demonstrate again and again how he puts on surgical gloves: “I’m like: you take the glove and you put it on,” he says.
“Sterile gloves are the white whale for some of them,” he says. “They really obsess over getting the sterile gloves on correctly and fast.”
He’s also been charmed by the actors’ desire to hold an ultrasound probe properly, even though once it’s in their hand, its angle won’t show on camera.
“One thing that’s been very nice is how deeply interested all of them are in how emergency medicine works and how doctors think,” Dr. Lentz says. “They’re all genuinely interested and concerned.”
Working with the cast and crew and seeing the reception “The Pitt” has gotten has also spilled into Dr. Lentz’s work in the emergency department.
“It’s probably made me a little more conscientious about how I approach people, because Noah (Wyle) does such a good job playing this wise and very empathetic, kindly doctor that every physician strives to be,” he says. “And it’s reinforced my affection for this job. I think a lot of the success of the show is probably that people just like seeing people who are competent do nice things for other people and try to help them. It’s reinforced that I am super grateful to get to do this job. It’s such a privilege to get to be there for people when they’re having what might be one of the worst days of their lives.”
