Emmy Nominations for “The Pitt” Highlight the Legacy (And Growth) of Freedom House
With 13 Emmy Nominations, “The Pitt” is once again in the news. Here’s how it elevates the legacy of the historic Freedom House.
Pittsburgh Futures Collaborative partners with leaders across diverse organizations to build leadership grounded in systems thinking and a culture of habitual excellence. Our mission is to help leaders solve complex challenges and make Pittsburgh a region where everyone can thrive.
Tuesday morning brought great news for the Pittsburgh-set medical show “The Pitt.” In case you haven’t heard, the HBO show centers around a single shift of Emergency Room doctors in Pittsburgh. Filmed in real time, the show has been praised for its realistic depiction of the healthcare system and the experience of healthcare workers nationwide.
“The Pitt” received 13 Emmy nominations this week, including outstanding drama series, lead actor, supporting actress, writing, and directing for its first season.
Minor Spoilers for “The Pitt” follow.
In the episode “2 PM” the team at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital treats a memory-impaired patient, Willie. While Willie can’t answer some of the simple questions the ER team asks him, several interactions suggest he has a background in medicine.
When his son arrives at the emergency room, it’s revealed Willie was once a medic for the Freedom House Ambulance Service, to which Dr. Robby responds, “That guy’s a legend.”
A (brief) history of Freedom House
Freedom House Ambulance Service began operating in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 70s, making it the country’s first EMS organization. Black men and women primarily led the ambulance service in Pittsburgh’s underserved neighborhoods, where access to prompt medical care was a challenge.
While we take prompt medical care for granted nowadays, less than 70 years ago, there was no system in place for providing emergency services at the scene of an incident. Instead, the focus was on getting the wounded to the hospital as quickly as possible. That meant delaying time-sensitive care until a patient reached the hospital (which often weren’t even open 24 hours a day). If you needed to get to the hospital fast, a firefighter, policeman, or local funeral home might be responsible for transporting you, depending on where you lived.
Finding transportation to the hospital in the event of a medical emergency was even more challenging for Black residents in Pittsburgh, where the police force was slow to respond to calls in non-white neighborhoods, like the historic Hill District.
The Freedom House Ambulance Service prioritized hiring and training emergency medical technicians (EMTs) from the most underserved neighborhoods to serve those in chronically underserved areas. In an intense 300-hour training course, Freedom House technicians became experts in providing emergency medical care in the field, and en route to the hospital, using previously wasted time to provide life-saving care.
It is no exaggeration to say Freedom House’s model spurred the growth of emergency medical services nationwide.
The resuscitation of Freedom House
Amid nationwide shortages in EMS staff, the City of Pittsburgh found itself dealing with overworked, exhausted, and burned-out EMTs and paramedics. Often forced to work overtime due to staffing shortages, the City of Pittsburgh and its Chief of Emergency Medical Services, Amera Gilchrist, sought a solution that not only alleviated the burden on EMS staff but also addressed the overall shortage.
It wasn’t a question of recruitment, but rather one of training support and upskilling Pittsburghers to serve the communities in which they lived.
Through training with the Pittsburgh Futures Collaborative, Gilchrist became familiar with the concepts of root cause analysis and systems thinking. Searching for the root cause of the staffing shortage, she wondered what if the problem wasn’t hiring, but rather training?
“Initially, when I became the chief, I wanted to do this as an apprenticeship program,” Chief Gilchrist explained in a story for Pittsburgh Union Progress. “That would be something you have to do for a year. It doesn’t take a year to be an EMT. We came up with the idea [and] how we could support it ourselves.”
The City of Pittsburgh has created a program to recruit Pittsburghers into a paid training program to become EMTs, offering support from experienced city EMTs. The program’s name?
Freedom House.
Through Freedom House, the City can help support early-stage EMTs by providing paid training and mentorship from experienced city EMTs.
In 2025, Freedom House lives on, providing Pittsburghers the opportunity to serve their community through paid training, support, and employment. So far, the program boasts a 100% graduation rate, with plans to offer upskilling for city-employed EMTs.
Dive deeper into Freedom House
“The Pitt” isn’t the first time Freedom House has received press recently. Visit these additional resources:
Podcast: 99% Invisible’s Episode 405 “Freedom House Ambulance Service”
Documentary: WQED’s “Freedom House Ambulance: The FIRST Responders”
Book: Kevin Hazzard’s American Sirens: The Incredible History of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics
Case Study: Reframing a Challenge to Meet Emergency Care Needs of Pittsburgh Residents
One of the goals for this newsletter is to share stories of our work with local leaders. This case study highlights how we helped the City of Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medical Services rethink how to address overtime, burnout, and the national shortage of healthcare workers.
Let's Work Together: An Introduction To Our Guided Habitual Excellence Assessment
Pittsburgh Futures Collaborative partners with leaders across diverse organizations to build leadership grounded in systems thinking and a culture of habitual excellence. Our mission is to help leaders solve complex challenges and make Pittsburgh a region where everyone can thrive.