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    ‘The Pitt’ Has Impressed Real Doctors With Its Accuracy

    Max’s unusually accurate medical drama, starring Noah Wyle as a beleaguered E.R. physician, has become the talk of real-life hospital breakrooms.Doctors and nurses who love Max’s “The Pitt” remember the moment they realized it wasn’t like other medical shows.Caitlin Dwyer, a charge nurse in Milwaukee, took note of a character’s decision — counterintuitive but medically correct — not to defibrillate a patient with a particular type of heart failure.Dr. Elizabeth Rempfer, an attending physician in Maryland, felt a pang of recognition at the depiction of a chaotic and desperate waiting room.For Dr. Tricia Pendergrast, a resident physician in Ann Arbor, Mich., it was a character who faced such an unrelenting caseload that even a trip to the bathroom was cut short.“It’s the first time that I’ve watched doctors on television that I felt like I could see myself in them,” she said.Most medical professionals learned long ago not to expect reality in dramatizations of their work. From the early days of “General Hospital,” to “Grey’s Anatomy” and its various spinoffs, to more recent hits like “The Good Doctor” and “Brilliant Minds,” TV medical dramas have tended to go heavy on the drama, light on the medicine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Michael Crichton’s Estate Calls New Show an Unauthorized ‘ER’ Remake in Lawsuit

    The best-selling author’s estate has filed suit over “The Pitt,” an upcoming series, claiming that it is an unauthorized reboot of the hit hospital drama.The estate of Michael Crichton filed suit against Warner Bros. Television on Tuesday, claiming that its upcoming Max series, “The Pitt,” is an unauthorized “ER” reboot that fails to credit him and compensate his heirs.The suit accused Warner Bros. and R. Scott Gemmill, the showrunner of “The Pitt,” of breaching a contract that requires Crichton’s consent for any remakes of the hit hospital drama. The estate also sued John Wells, an executive producer, and Noah Wyle, set to star and serve as an executive producer.“The lawsuit filed by the Crichton Estate is baseless,” Warner Bros. Television said in an emailed statement, calling “The Pitt” a “new and original show.” The company said it would “vigorously defend against these meritless claims.”The complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claims that in 2020, Warner Bros., Gemmill, Wells and Wyle began developing a reboot of the show without informing Sherri Crichton, the author’s widow and the guardian of his estate. Gemmill and Wells were executive producers on “ER,” and Wyle was a star of that show.When they told her about the project, nearly two years into development, Crichton’s estate was prepared to approve a reboot based on the condition that he would be credited as a creator, in addition to a set of financial terms. But Warner Bros. later walked back on many of its promises, the lawsuit said.After negotiating for nearly a year, the parties did not reach an agreement, according to the suit. But Warner Bros. “simply moved the show from Chicago to Pittsburgh, rebranded it ‘The Pitt’ and has plowed ahead without any attribution or compensation for Crichton and his heirs,” the complaint said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More