5 Characters On The Pitt Who Deserve More Screen Time

This article contains a discussion of mental health.

“The Pitt,” the award-winning and universally acclaimed medical drama that’s become one of the biggest success stories for HBO Max, is just a really great show … and that’s due in no small part to its genuinely outstanding ensemble cast. Created by R. Scott Gemmill alongside his former “ER” cohorts John Wells and Noah Wyle, “The Pitt” uses a “real-time” conceit — like “24” did years beforehand — to show just how tough it can be to survive a 15-hour shift in a chaotic and busy emergency department.

Wyle, who won his first-ever Emmy for playing protagonist Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, is in great company. Katherine LaNasa, who also took home her first Emmy for “The Pitt,” is spectacular as Robby’s right-hand woman and charge nurse Dana Evans. Shawn Hatosy, the third and final person to win his first Emmy for the first season of “The Pitt,” only shows up in a guest role as Robby’s evening counterpart Dr. Jack Abbot, but he’s always a welcome presence on screen. Then there’s the residents, interns, and medical students. Fiona Dourif, Patrick Ball, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, and Sepideh Moafi, just to name a few, really shine; Supriya Ganesh’s Dr. Samira Mohan, sadly, checked out at the end of Season 2.

So what about people who only show up every now and then? “The Pitt” has no shortage of exceptional actors on board, and there are five who should definitely get more screentime. (A housekeeping note: because Ayesha Harris’ Dr. Parker Ellis earned a promotion to series regular between Seasons 2 and 3, she is not on this list.) Here are five great characters on “The Pitt” who need more screen time.

America allegedly runs on Dunkin’ (Donuts, that is), but whether or not that’s true, we know that Ken Kirby’s night-shift physician Dr. John Shen sure depends on the stuff. Another attending doctor who works the night shift, which means that we only see him from time to time during the daytime shifts depicted on “The Pitt,” Dr. Shen is the very definition of “unbothered,” even as carnage fills the emergency department. Honestly, part of the reason that Dr. Shen is so fun to watch on-screen is that he takes everything, seemingly, in stride, marking a sharp contrast to Dr. Robby (especially in Season 2, as our protagonist’s mental health steadily crumbles throughout his shift).

Shen has become a fan favorite thanks to his signature iced coffees — when Dunkin’ Donuts introduced a bucket of iced coffee in 2026, fans started joking on social media that Dr. Shen will show up holding one in a future season — and his “devil may care” attitude, though you shouldn’t be fooled by his seemingly casual demeanor. Just like his colleagues on “The Pitt,” Dr. Shen is an excellent physician who actually seems to thrive under intense pressure. Get this man on a daytime shift … and get him a huge iced coffee, stat!

Something that’s really great about “The Pitt” is that it gives plenty of time to the fictional Pittsburgh hospital’s nursing staff, led by the aforementioned Dana Evans … and that includes a nurse named Jesse van Horn, played by Ned Brower. (Eagle-eyed millennials who loved indie rock and shows like “The O.C.” might recognize Brower as the former drummer from the band Rooney.) After Rooney split up in 2012, Brower got certified as an emergency medical technician and thenincredibly, became a real-life nurse.

That alone makes Brower the perfect choice to play Nurse Jesse, a capable and charming man who makes sure his patients get the best possible care. Unfortunately, in Season 2, Jesse’s attention to his patients gets him in trouble. After a woman is brought in by ICE (or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) with a dislocated shoulder, Jesse tries to defend her while the agents drag her by her injured arm. For his trouble, Jesse is thrown to the ground, detained, and removed from his workplace. We don’t see Jesse after this in Season 2 and learn that his colleagues are desperately searching for him in Pittsburgh-area detention centers, but we’re certainly hopeful that, in future seasons, we’ll see a lot more of Jesse, learn what happened to him during his detainment, and get to watch Brower put his real-life skills to use in a fictional environment.

We don’t see a ton of surgeons on “The Pitt” — again, the pivotal part of the show is that it takes place almost exclusively in the emergency department — but because surgeons do pop down to the ER from time to time to help with patients and procedures, we got to meet Mary McCormack’s Dr. Linda Conley in Season 2. Television veteran McCormack, known for projects like “The West Wing and “In Plain Sight,” shows up partway through the sophomore season as Dr. Conley, the neurosurgery chief at the fictional Pittsburgh hospital. McCormack is great in her limited screentime, but the main reason we hope to see more of Dr. Conley going forward is her fascinating dynamic with Shabana Azeez’s medical student Victoria Javadi and Javadi’s domineering mother, high-ranking surgeon Dr. Eileen Shamsi (Deepti Gupta).

Throughout “The Pitt,” Dr. Shamsi frequently shows up to cast asperions on her daughter’s skills as an emergency medicine physician, something that understandably makes Javadi nervous in the moment. That’s why Javadi and Dr. Conley’s moment feels so impactful in the show’s second season. After a patient experiences a skull fracture and possible brain damage after a frightening fall, Dr. Conley helps Javadi place an EVD, or external ventricular drain, to help him recover … and we learn, thanks to this interaction, that Dr. Conley once mentored Dr. Shamsi. Hopefully, we’ll see way more of this dynamic going forward.

There are a lot of residents floating around on “The Pitt,” and when it comes to Luke Tennie’s Dr. Crus Henderson, we definitely want to see more of this apparently quite talented fourth-year resident. Introduced in Season 2 of “The Pitt,” Dr. Henderson shows up for the night shift and shows off his versatility in the emergency department, assisting on a number of cases that culminate in some stunning move from his fellow resident Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball). When Dr. Langdon almost intubates a young boy suffering from asthma — which could have resulted in the young boy’s death — Dr. Henderson manages to stop him, and he’s also on hand when Langdon performs a successful and extremely risky procedure on a patient to keep said patient’s airway open. (He later tells Dr. Robby that what Dr. Langdon did was “cowboy sh**.”)

If Tennie looks familiar, by the by, it’s probably because you’ve also seen him on “Shrinking,” the Apple TV comedy led by co-creator Jason Segel and helmed by showrunner Bill Lawrence. Still, we definitely hope we get to see more of this funny, smart resident in ongoing seasons of “The Pitt” — because he’s just a delight.

Tedra Collins’ surgeon Dr. Emery Walsh didn’t appear in Season 2 of “The Pitt,” which means it’s even more imperative that she return for future seasons. This does not, honestly, seem out of the question. When the second season of “The Pitt” premiered in January 2026, Collins posted an Instagram story (it’s no longer available but was chronicled by Decider) and noted that Dr. Walsh is simply not working the July 4 shift.

This is a very nifty way to explain why certain players don’t show up across various seasons of “The Pitt,” and since Collins seemed pretty jovial about the whole thing, that hopefully means that we’ll see Dr. Walsh back at work in the future. In Season 1 of “The Pitt,” Dr. Walsh is shown to have a decently blunt and abrasive manner with her fellow doctors — not unlike her day shift counterpart Dr. Yolanda Garcia, played by Alexandra Metz — but she works steadily during the mass casualty event that takes up most of the back half of that season. Again, we can only hope that we’ll get to see Dr. Walsh back in action before long.

“The Pitt” is streaming on HBO Max now.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.