From medical school to 'The Pitt'

A crowd of 165 students, faculty and staff filled Watanakunakorn Auditorium for the Sept. 3 VITALS program with Brent Rau, M.D., FACEP. Dr. Rau is vice chair for emergency medicine for Allegheny Health Network, Emergency Department medical director for Allegheny General Hospital, and the inspiration and consultant for the hit television show, The Pitt.

During his remarks, Dr. Rau shared his career journey from medical student to vice chair of emergency medicine for the Allegheny Health Network, including a trip to NEOMED in 2007 for an interview while he was selecting a medical school (“It was nothing like this. It was like a building or two,” he recalled.). Throughout his brief talk he shared a montage of photos showing the transitions in his life as a physician. Included among them were photos from the set of The Pitt with actor Noah Wyle, whose character “Dr. Robby” was inspired by Dr. Rau.

Changing dreams

Dr. Rau didn’t initially set out to be a physician.

“I truly thought that my calling was to teach a high school science class and coach football,” he shared in his talk. “That's what a lot of people from Bellbrook, Ohio did.”

He changed his mind in college, and after completing his undergraduate degree at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, he attended medical school at Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio. There he met his wife, Melissa. The couple both matched in Pittsburgh: he in emergency medicine at Allegheny General, she in family medicine at UPMC Pittsburgh.

He still held onto his dream of teaching and thought he would like to work with residents 10 or 15 years into his career.  “I went out in the community and practiced for six months, and then I got asked to come back to be faculty six months later. So that 15 years became six months in a hurry,” he said.

“My favorite thing I do on a daily basis is to work and teach residents, just like they do on The Pitt. Those interactions, those friendships that you make with them as they get more involved in their program, they last a lifetime,” Dr. Rau noted.

His success in the busy emergency department at Allegheny General attracted the attention of Wyle and producers of The Pitt as they were planning production. Dr. Rau and other healthcare consultants in Pittsburgh and Hollywood have helped the show stay true to life as it enters its third season.

Words of advice

Dr. Rau offered some nuggets of advice for the aspiring physicians in the room:

• “Find something you like as early as you can and just surround yourself with those people that have similar interests.…It really was my mentors and the people that I had in medical school that kind of led me to emergency medicine.”
• “One of the things you have to do as a leader is you have to recognize that you were put in a position to either enact change or be innovative, or do the things that were needed to be done to advance, in my case, our emergency department, emergency medicine and Allegheny Health Network.”
• “You're put in that position for a reason. One of the reasons you may be looked at for leadership is you recognize the expertise in others and to put the right people around you…. If you go into leadership thinking you know everything, you're going to be out of leadership in a hurry.”
• “Ask questions. Don't let that curiosity die just because you're around people that are intimidating. Be curious and ask the appropriate questions. And it can be an intimidating place in the emergency department. The OR is intimidating. The floors are intimidating. Internal medicine grand rounds are intimidating. They still intimidate me… just ask questions because that curiosity is what got us all in the medicine at some point. So just show that passion.”

VITALS is NEOMED's health leadership speaker series presented with University Hospitals.

Related

Did you miss VITALS with Brent Rau, M.D.? Watch it on our YouTube channel.

Gallery

Caption: VITALS speaker Brent Rau, M.D., with moderator Monica Robins, senior health correspondent for WKYC, and NEOMED President John Langell, M.D. 

Caption: Dr. Rau (at the head of the table) met with students from the Emergency Medicine Interest Group, Stop the Bleed and others during his visit to NEOMED.

Caption: Dr. Rau with NEOMED medical students

Caption: NEOMED alumnus Nikolas Sekoulopoulos, M.D. ('17), an emergency medicine physician with University Hospitals, with Dr. Rau.