Call for Abstracts

The Pitt and Philosophy

Edited by Jeffrey P. Bishop, Yolonda Y. Wilson, and Jason T. Eberl

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Please circulate and post widely. Apologies for cross-posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu

The Pitt is a highly popular and critically acclaimed medical drama that follows emergency medicine clinicians (physicians, nurses, social workers, administrators, emergency medical technicians, security personnel, and more) through a single 15-hour shift each season. This concept immerses the audience in the high-pressure emergency room environment and invites them into the characters’ mindsets as no previous medical drama has done before. Additionally, the show treats the ethics and dynamics of a hierarchical workplace culture, amplified by high-stakes tension alongside the personal struggles of each character whether they are a third-year medical student or a senior attending. Various patient scenarios shine a mirror onto real-life ethical issues in medicine: from end-of-life decision-making, to respectful care for patients experiencing homelessness or addiction, to sudden mental health crises, workplace violence, or contending with law enforcement.

We invite submissions focused on any of the show’s myriad philosophical themes. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium. Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Certainty and Playing the Odds: Evidence-Based Medicine in The Pitt
• Seeing is Believing: Medical Imaging and Knowing
• Playing the Odds: When Is Speculation Appropriate When Evidence Is Lacking?
• Physician Knows Best, Or Do They? Epistemic Injustice in the Clinic
• Doing One’s Own ‘Research’: Anti-Vaxxing and Wild Pregnancy
• A Good Death for Roxie and Joseph?
• Incarceration, Care, and Patient Privacy
• My Sister’s Keeper: Supported Decision-Making and Epistemic Justice
• “I’m the Attending!”: Social Hierarchies in Medicine and the Need for Trust
• “Who Can Tell Me…?”: Does Competition Cultivate Competence?
• Disability at Work: Masking, Accommodation, and Stigma
• Do We “Owe” Our Co-Workers Our Time? Clocking Out When the Shift is Done
• ICE in the Hospital: Cooperation with Law Enforcement?
• When the Hospital Goes Analog: Technology and De-skilling Practice         
• Self-Forgiveness and Openness to Grace
• Langdon vs. Rabinovitch: Forgiveness and Judgment
• Junkies: Adrenaline, Nicotine, and Otherwise
• Compartmentalizing at Work: Self-Knowledge and Self-Deception
• Breakdown and Healing in the Peds Room: Dr. Robby’s Journey
• Aristotle and the Unities: Drama in Real Time
• Life is an Emergency Room: Skill, Knowledge, and Improvisation
• Triage and Tragedy: How Do We Decide Who Gets Care First?
• The Body as Battlefield: Illness, Identity, and the Self
• “You Missed It”: Error, Guilt, and Moral Injury in the ER
• From Resident to Attending: Are Great Doctors Made or Born?
• Love in the Trauma Bay: Can Intimacy Survive Emergency Medicine?
• Becoming a Physician: Identity, Transformation, and Responsibility
• “Seconds Matter”: Time, Urgency, and Ethical Decision-Making
• In the Waiting Room: Inequality, Access, and Justice in Medicine
• Authority Under Pressure: Gender, Hierarchy, and Voice in the ER
• After the Code: Living with Death as a Daily Reality
• Colleagues or Family? The Meaning of Solidarity in Crisis Work
• “I Can’t Save Them All”: Limits, Acceptance, and Existential Medicine
• The Sound of the Monitor: Technology, Humanity, and Attention
• Hope and Honesty: Should Doctors Always Tell the Truth?
• The ER as Absurd Theater: Camus in the Trauma Room
• “Do Something!”: Action Bias and the Fear of Doing Nothing

Submission Guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (350-500 words) and CVs: September 15, 2026

2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: June 15, 2027 (following the release of Season 3 of The Pitt)

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to jason.eberl@slu.edu