Like numerous individuals in health care, I recently found myself captivated by The Pitt. If you’re currently viewing it—or plan to—consider this your spoiler alert. HBO’s latest medical drama plunges audiences into a taxing 14-hour shift in the ER of a trauma facility. I first tuned in for Noah Wyle, my teenage idol, but I remained for the emotional release. I’ve never connected on such a profound level to the depiction of health care professionals.

Through Dr. Robby, I recognized echoes of the emergency medicine doctors who mentored me, not only in his attire, hoodie included, but in how he challenged and motivated his residents to hasten their pace. I related to the charge nurse similarly to how I’ve related to and formed connections with every charge nurse alongside whom I’ve worked. Yet more than anything, I connected with the emotional burden the patients imposed on the doctors.

In one early episode, Dr. Robby steps out of a consultation area after informing a patient’s sister that her loved one has passed away. He hesitates momentarily in the corridor, taps his fist against a railing, bracing himself before approaching the next patient. I instantly texted a peer. I’ve done that, I wrote. I’ve taken that moment.

Later in the season, Dr. Robby experiences a severe panic attack after failing to save a young friend’s girlfriend. He emotionally recounts the list of patients who perished that day and how he will never forget them. As he crumples to the floor in tears, I felt unexpectedly validated. The crowd was witnessing a form of my grief, my burnout.

I’ve been a pediatric oncologist for more than a decade, and since I’ve decided to concentrate on neuro-oncology, loss is an ever-present specter. I too have recounted patients. I too have endured those heart-wrenching periods when I moved from one room to another, delivering shattering news, kissing the forehead of a cold child, listening to the agonized wails of parents. I’ve had days that brought me to my knees.

However, during my emotional release, I recognized how The Pitt felt worlds apart from the medical dramas I grew up watching—programs where the doctors were brilliant, brusque, and often emotionally unyielding. I recalled ER, to Drs. Benton and Ross—played by Eric La Salle and George Clooney—caught in ego-driven conflicts. They saved lives with skill and flair, rarely pausing long enough for emotion to catch up. Back then, I admired their competence, but as an aspiring doctor, I promised never to practice medicine with such arrogance.

Now, however, I find myself reevaluating—not because I desire the ego, but because I ponder whether it provided them, and their real-life equivalents, something I lack. Was that “god complex” a form of protection? Does such a complex—dismissed by many, myself included—offer a sort of insulation? Doctors who transitioned from loss to loss without visible fragility. Perhaps not out of heartlessness, but because they believed: If I can’t save them, who can? There’s something admirable in that certainty, in that ability to continue. Perhaps I was too hasty to judge.

In the concluding episode, Dr. Robby ascends to the hospital rooftop and finally releases his burdens. He confides in a colleague how much he’s carrying; how close he came to breaking. Instead of being told to toughen up or push through, he hears something straightforward and unwavering: “You rocked this shit today.” That moment struck a chord with me. I’ve also had people express that to me—in different words, on different occasions. Are those instances our new form of armor? Not the invulnerability I once believed I needed, the arrogance I previously shunned, but something better. Genuine validation. A kind of strength that doesn’t arise from pretending to be a deity, but from allowing oneself to be completely human, and still being told, you did enough. You can continue.

Lacking the armor of invincibility, we need the kind forged in community. In shared sorrow. In sincere discussions with colleagues who’ve also paused outside the room, who’ve also recounted patients. The kind of strength that doesn’t expect us to feign that we are untouched by this work but allows us to remain human in a field that frequently demands we become something more or less than that. Our survival relies not on ego, but on one another. In the texts following a patient loss. In the colleagues who notice when you’re unraveling. In the simple, unglamorous moments when someone tells you: You rocked this shit today.

Lauren Weintraub is a pediatric oncologist.