Chicago Med’s Topical Storylines Were Intended To Not Overwhelm Viewers – Looper

Portraying Dr. Natalie Manning on “Chicago Med” from its premiere episode up through Season 7, Torrey DeVitto stars as an Emergency Department attending physician specializing in pediatrics. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during Season 6 of the show, DeVitto spoke with Nerds of Color, who asked what it was like to play a fictional doctor in episodes about the viral outbreak even as the rest of the world was dealing with the pandemic as a very real, day-to-day threat.

“From the beginning of the show, it was just– not pressure in a negative way, but I did feel this enormous amount of pressure to do justice for this role,” DeVitto said, adding that she felt a great responsibility to reflect the heroic work of real-world doctors and nurses risking their lives to save patients during the outbreak. 

DeVitto then praised the show’s writers for their treatment of topical events on the series and commented specifically on their deft handling of COVID storylines, saying, “I think so many people are having a lot of pandemic fatigue. So you’re like, ‘Wait a second, I’m living this every day. I don’t want to be watching it.’ I feel like [the writers have] found this beautiful way of blending entertainment, drama, and what’s real all together.”