Trauma, Personality, and "The Pitt"

Trauma, Personality, and “The Pitt”

By John M Oldham MD

If you’re among the many who have experienced substantial trauma in life, does that dictate your future? It’ll probably color it, but it depends on many variables. You may be naturally resilient, with inborn strengths that help you cope and recover. If you’re temperamentally anxious and insecure, however, you need some good luck and sturdy support to re-gain and keep your balance. And trauma comes in many stripes, from a one-shot calamity such as a home blown away, to savage and relentless interpersonal abuse in a chaotic and dysfunctional family, or to the loss of all possessions in a war-torn part of the world. Whatever the nature of the trauma, it is well-known that it can have an impact on your physical and mental health. If, especially, substantial abuse or neglect happens early in life, it may derail a crucial developmental milestone—learning to trust others. Or at least learning how to figure out whom you can trust and whom you can’t.

Along with several other professionals, I was interviewed recently by a New York Times reporter, Christina Caron, for a piece she was writing about the popular HBO Max television series, The Pitt (“On ‘The Pitt,’ the Lingering Effects of Trauma Take the Spotlight” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/well/mind/the-pitt-trauma-ptsd.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleSharej). Her focus was mainly on the medical team working in the emergency room. “They are grappling with the aftereffects of moral injury, burnout and repeated exposure to death as well as the trauma that they’ve endured in their personal lives,” she says. That opinion contains an assumption—that many or most of the staff who choose to work in “the Pitt” have had their own real-life traumas. And if so, why are they surrounding themselves with non-stop medical crises, including injured victims of violence, psychological abuse, or neglect? There’s no single answer to this. Caron quotes me: “There’s an insecurity that’s sometimes lurking, that’s sort of being overcome every day when you succeed at the next crisis.” And that’s often the case—it’s a scary but familiar world, where maybe this time you can be the healer instead of the victim. Others may not have had real-life trauma, but they love the hubbub and the drama, never knowing whom the next ambulance will bring to the door. For those sensation-seeking types, it can be very gratifying work, but it also prevents you from ever being able to get to know your patients very well—or even your co-workers. That may feel ok for a while, since you’re not very good at relationships. Down the road, though, the dark and empty apartment where you live and where you go between shifts may get pretty lonely.