Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The Pitt season 1.Of all the characters who had their first day at PTMC in characters of The Pitt were there for the first time. They were, after all, given a lot of leeway and trust to deal with the aftermath of the PittFest shooting. For example, Dr. Santos (Isa Briones) even performed a REBOA, while Dr. King (Taylor Dearden) performed a spinal tap.

The new doctors, interns, and students at PTMC also all had famously bad first days at the hospital. They had a mass casualty event that extended their shifts by several hours - Javadi (Shabana Azeez) was exhausted by the end of the day - and they all dealt with a lot of stress and pressure inherent to emergency medicine. Each newcomer also had their own problems to deal with, such as how Mel had to comfort a girl who lost her sister in one of The Pitt's most emotional scenes. The new addition to PTMC who had the worst time, however, was clearly Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell).

Whitaker Had The Worst First Day Of All The New Doctors In The Pitt Season 1

Whitaker Lost A Patient, Had Several Wardrobe Malfunctions, & Didn't Have A Home To Go Back To After His First Shift

Out of all four characters who had their first day at the hospital in The Pitt season 1, Whitaker's first day was the worst. Right off the bat, Whitaker lost one of his patients, Mr. Milton, just a few hours into his shift to a one-in-a-million medical condition he couldn't have prevented. Then, while dealing with the guilt of losing a patient, Whitaker had several wardrobe malfunctions that not only covered him in various fluids - like human urine - but also embarrassed him in front of the whole hospital. Even one of his more impressive feats, killing the rat, only earned him teasings from the rest of the staff.

Any one of those problems would have made his first day the worst, but Whitaker's houselessness twist at the end of The Pitt season 1 cemented it. After all that stress and humiliation, Whitaker didn't even have an apartment to go home to or food to eat: he had to make due with the hospital's abandoned wing and some stolen sandwiches. Javadi, Santos, and Mel all had their own issues to deal with, but Whitaker's trials were much tougher to deal with. Impressively, Whitaker didn't have a full breakdown even once, and he was even strong enough to comfort Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) at one point.

Whitaker's The Pitt Season 2 Return Should Be Much Less Brutal

Whitaker Will Be Getting Paid & Have More Experience In The Pitt Season 2

The only silver lining of Whitaker's terrible first day at the hospital is that there's no way his situation can get worse in characters confirmed to return in The Pitt season 2, and creator R. Scott Gemmill has mentioned that some of his circumstances will change in the 10-month time jump between seasons. In that time, Whitaker will become a paid intern of PTMC, meaning he likely won't have to live in Santos' spare room anymore. That means Whitaker at least will have his own place to go back to after his next shift.

Whitaker being a paid intern in The Pitt season 2 could have an even more profound effect on him, however. Since The Pitt season 2 takes place on the Fourth of July, Whitaker will have 10 months' worth of experience under his belt. He won't be the naive student doctor we knew, and he'll have a lot more experience both with losing patients and with keeping them alive. The stresses of emergency medicine likely also won't get to him as much as they did on his first day. Thankfully, Whitaker is primed to have a much better time in The Pitt season 2 than he did in season 1.