Another patient has hit the emergency room, this one with a malfunctioning pacemaker. As doctors begin the complex process of inserting a wire into his chest, a question-and-answer session begins. "Why do we inflate the balloon now?" one asks. A student doctor answers, "So it'll float into the right ventricle." The operation is a success, but the doctors are pulled away immediately-first to a patient who needs to be told about her high mercury level, then to a person who just nearly drowned. We're midway into the first season of HBO's medical drama " The Pitt," and though we may not learn how to perform a heart procedure, we do get another lesson.
