‘Ortho Bro’ on ‘The Pitt’: ‘Most of Us Are Not Like This Guy’

Clinicians are buzzing about “The Pitt’s” recent portrayal of an orthopedic surgeon and how the specialty is perceived.

In season 2, episode 10, Dr. Brendon Park — referred to as “Park the Shark” by his ER colleagues — bursts into a trauma room, circling his prey with his curt, confident, and aggressive personality.

The tall and muscular Park — played by Lou Ferrigno Jr., whose father played “The Hulk” in the 1970s — examined an x-ray and announced his plans to reattach a patient’s severed limb while hushed colleagues looked on, seemingly stunned or intimidated by his demeanor.

He snapped at his colleagues that he wasn’t blind when they briefed him on the situation unfolding in the ER, and sarcastically called one of them “genius.”

“We’re not all like ‘the Shark,'” orthopedic surgeon Nick Pappas, MD, said in an Instagram post. He lamented that Park also avoided greetings and eye contact with his colleagues. This is “obviously not the way you want to talk to your colleagues in the ER, or any other colleague,” he said.

“I personally usually had a very good relationship with everybody in the ER, generally on a first-name basis, and even though there may be some outliers like the Shark, most of us are not like this guy,” Pappas said.

He added that the clip “should be used as an example by future ortho and other consultants about how not to behave in the ER.”

Orthopedic surgeons have long contended with the “ortho bro” image, particularly as the field continues to recruit fewer women than other specialties. Indeed, one commenter on a Reddit thread about the scene called Park the “stereotypical ortho bro.”

Indeed, many on the Reddit thread said the depiction was on point. “My husband is an ortho nurse and was cackling because of how accurate it was,” u/CapableFruitLoops noted. “I worked for 4 years in an orthopedic surgery department,” wrote u/auntie_meme1899. “The shark ratio was about 50/50. Very bro culture.”

“He was even slowly circling the whole room like a shark circling its prey,” u/mdp300 further noted of Park. “He was only on screen for like, one minute, but he was perfect.”

Some did say the portrayal wasn’t broadly applicable to orthopedic surgeons — even pointing the finger at other medical fields. “Am I the only one who works with nice orthos?” u/Away_Writer3273 wrote. “I felt like he had more vascular energy than ortho energy.”

Others noted that Park’s personality didn’t really matter if he delivered good medical care.

“I want to be like Park the Shark,” wrote u/CaptainTalon447. “Just someone who can be an a**hole but nobody will say anything cause he’s just that damn good at his job.” And u/sallyfieds noted, “My surgeon was so rude to me but did a great job with cutting me open (scar looks great) so whatever.”

Media contacts for “The Pitt” and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from MedPage Today.