'The Pitt' Episode 3 Recap: How Did Robby Reveal The Truth To Mr. Bradley?

In the previous episodes of The Pitt, we saw how Dr. Robby and his entire team attended to the patients, how they dealt with the critical cases, and how they didn’t get time to breathe, yet somehow they managed to keep themselves sane. It was not easy to work at The Pitt. People’s life depended upon the doctors, and at times, the entire ordeal could get extremely draining for them. So, let’s find out what happened in the third episode and what kind of challenges Robby, and his team had to deal with.

Spoiler Alert

How did Whitaker cope with his patient’s death? 

In the previous episode of The Pitt, we saw that Dennis Whitaker, the intern, had a brief chat with a patient. Dennis then got busy with other patients, but all of a sudden, the man lost consciousness. He was immediately taken to the ICU, where he eventually passed away. Dennis gave him CPR for a long time without stopping. The other doctor came and told him to rest and let them take his position, but Dennis didn’t agree. Dennis was in a state of shock. He felt responsible for the man’s demise. He felt that it was his fault that he suffered from some complications and then eventually succumbed to his illness. Dennis presumed that had he not left that patient unattended, he wouldn’t have died. Robby saw the kid, and he knew that he wasn’t taking it well. Robby had his own way of dealing with such situations. He never went to the person and told him directly to go and meet the counselor. He made sure that he didn’t hurt the ego of the young boy because, generally, a person never accepts that they’re having difficulty coping and that they need help. Robby told Dennis that Kiara, the social worker, was always there if he wanted to talk to someone. Robby made sure that the boy knew that it was not his fault that the man had passed away. He told Dennis that such things happened in the life of a medical professional, especially in the emergency department, and he needed to find a way to get over it and not take it to heart. That said, Robby was an experienced professional, and he knew that the kid would take some time to get used to experiencing such complex emotions. Apart from Whitaker, the other interns were also having a hard time. Melissa had her own unique response to witnessing a patient dying in front of her eyes. There were times when she wasn’t able to deal with her anxiety, and she just froze in place as if she were having a seizure. Trinity Santos, on the other hand, tried to shield her vulnerabilities by being sarcastic and using humor as her defense. The interns had a long way to go, but they probably made the right call when they decided to get hands-on experience at The Pitt.

How did Robby reveal the truth to Mr. Bradley?

Robby had been a doctor for years, yet there were situations in his life that he found extremely difficult to deal with. We saw in the first two episodes that a young boy had been admitted to the hospital, and after a couple of tests, it came to be known that he had overdosed on fentanyl. Robby, at the beginning itself, had come to realize that the boy had no chance of survival. He got to know at the end of episode 2 that he was brain dead, but he didn’t have the courage to go and talk to the parents and tell them about it. The patient was quite young, and he had his entire life ahead of him. The wife wanted the doctors to try their best to save her boy, but the father, deep down, knew that his child had no chance of survival. The father, Mr. Bradley, saw Robby speaking; he saw how he was dodging questions and not giving them straightforward answers. Mr. Bradley went to the reception, and he asked if his son had passed away. Dana very respectfully told him that she was not the correct person to answer that question. That was the calm before the storm as Mr. Bradley was just on the verge of losing his cool. Just at that moment, another patient came in, and she, too, had overdosed on some prohibited substance. Mr. Bradley figured out that the patient and the young boys and girls who were with her were his son’s friends as well. He went and chewed out that patient, blaming her for the death of his son. The patient also didn’t keep quiet, and she told Mr. Bradley that it was because of his son that she’d taken the drugs. Robby told the parents that he knew how hard it was for them to deal with the loss and that he regretted that he couldn’t do anything more to save their son’s life. The parents finally accepted that they had lost their son, and Mr. Bradley apologized for creating a scene in the hospital. Dr. Robby came out of that room feeling extremely drained emotionally. He had been dealing with such situations for years, but still, it hadn’t become easier for him to cope with it. 

What conflicts did Robby have to face? 

It was one thing to read and study about the cessation of all bodily functions in a human being, but it was a totally different experience to see a man dying in front of your eyes. The doctors dealt with death on an everyday basis. Most of the time, they were able to stay strong and not let everyday events in the hospital affect them. But then there came cases where even an experienced doctor like Robby wasn’t able to control his emotions. I think that people working in a place like “The Pitt” have a very different perspective about their life. I think that either they become too self-critical of themselves, as Dr. Jack Abbott did, or they start feeling how we waste our time over things that do not matter. I mean, a person who is seeing people dying, who knows how unpredictable life is, will never be materialistic from within. I think that for people like Robby, money ceased to be a priority, and they sought something very different in life. At the end of episode 3, we saw Robby reading a letter that Dr. Abbott had written for the family of the patient that he was treating. In the previous episode, we saw that after Abbott’s patient passed away, he felt extremely depressed. Robby had to convince him not to do anything stupid and to go back to work. Such incidents happened often with the doctors. 

David, the son of the woman who had faked her illness just to bring her son to the hospital, was still on the run. Nobody knew where he was, and Robby was scared that he might end up hurting innocent people. In the previous episodes, we had seen that Robby had put one of his patients on life support after the patient’s children asked him to do so. Robby told them that they probably shouldn’t do so, as they would be unnecessarily making their father go through a lot of physical pain, and all without increasing his chances of survival. The son of that patient was still ready to listen to Robby, but his daughter just wasn’t ready to accept the reality. At the end of the 3rd episode, they decided to remove their father from life support, after they realized that they were doing him a favor by letting him pass away with less pain. It would be interesting to see what conflicts Dr. Robby and his team face in the subsequent episodes and if they are able to keep their sanity while making sure that they provide the best care for their patients.

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