While watching episodes of “The Pitt,” the medical drama whose season two finale airs Thursday, I noticed a shift in how I related to my own medical trauma — particularly when it comes to conscious and unconscious biases of medical practitioners.
I remembered how in 2023, while traveling back from a vacation in Greece with my mother, my retina detached. I didn’t know what was happening at the time, except that part of my vision went black and the blackness was spreading by the hour. We had a layover in Switzerland, and I rushed to a doctor, who informed me of what was happening and booked me into the hospital the following morning — but not before she incredulously asked, “This is really your mother? But you’re so …,” and then she pointed at her skin. (I am biracial, and my mother is white.)
Over the past year, I’ve found solace in an unexpected source in watching “The Pitt.”
The next morning, the doctors at the hospital refused to perform surgery on me. They said they didn’t want to risk dealing with a patient who didn’t have Swiss medical insurance. Left untreated, I was at risk of losing my eyesight, and we begged the doctors to perform the surgery, offering to use money from our savings to pay up-front.
They told us no one in Switzerland would want to perform the surgery given the insurance issue, insisting our only option was to leave the country and get treatment elsewhere. Their refusal to treat me made no sense, especially after our offering to pay. Contradicting the first doctor’s instructions to keep my head back, they told me there was no need to be so vigilant and that I could move my head around and travel. We flew to England, where we have family.
When I finally saw a doctor in London, he was aghast that they had refused to perform the surgery, told me I could move my head around (which had caused significantly more damage) and sent me away. By that point, the macula had detached, and I was at an even higher risk for blindness or severe vision loss. I had lost valuable time, too — the longer one waits, the higher the risk of blindness, the doctor explained. He acted with urgency and ultimately saved my vision.
Later, the doctor told me he called a doctor friend of his in Switzerland to ask how this was possible and if it really was a matter of insurance. Something was not adding up.
“He said it seemed highly unlikely that an insurance issue would be legitimate grounds to deny emergency care,” my doctor said of the conversation with his friend. “He thinks it was most likely racism.”
All the doctors who treated me in Switzerland were white. The doctor in London was not.
Throughout much of my life, my experience with medical trauma, as a result of both chronic illness and acute medical emergencies, has been compounded by health care systems that severely disadvantage women and minorities. And I say this as someone with an extraordinary amount of privilege.
Over the past year, I’ve found solace in an unexpected source in watching “The Pitt,” a runaway hit series that has captured the attention of viewers for two seasons now. It has been a reparative experience, for one because most of the doctors and medical professionals in the show don’t carry the biases that have harmed so many of us in real life. And, maybe even more significantly, when they do exhibit bias, they are promptly held accountable by their colleagues.
All the doctors who treated me in Switzerland were white. The doctor in London was not.
In “The Pitt,” patient care is course corrected in a way I have never personally experienced. There is a sort of bias-based justice in the world of the show that does not exist in the real world, by most accounts.
This has been a throughline in both seasons. Take, for example, the storyline in the first season of patient Joyce St. Claire (Ashley Romans), a Black woman who is brought into the ER screaming and writhing in pain. The paramedics immediately dismiss her as they hand her off to Dr. Sapira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh): “Drug-seeking woman kicked off the city bus for disrupting and disturbing passengers,” one of them says (even though she was the one who called 911). The paramedics, both of whom are white, attempt to restrain St. Claire as one of them yells, “Stop fighting! Calm the f— down or I’ll call the cops.”
Dr. Mohan attempts to intervene, before screaming, “Stop!” at the paramedics. After taking time to listen to the patient, she quickly ascertains St. Claire is suffering from acute pain as a result of her sickle cell disease and administers morphine and Dilaudid.

“I’m so sorry this happened; you’re going to be okay now,” Dr. Mohan reassures the patient. “You’re safe here, I promise.” Ultimately, the words anyone in medical distress yearns to hear in an ER setting.
When resident doctor Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) later tells St. Claire “don’t go crazy” with the button that administers her pain medication, Dr. Mohan immediately pulls him aside and chastises him for dismissing her pain. And rather than becoming defensive, he is contrite.









