somewhere in my brain there are several paragraphs of meta about dennis whitaker's implicit biases and the culture of midwestern decency i.e. Midwest Nice but all I got for now is that he's intriguing to me as an example of a white midwesterner from a very sheltered and presumably conservative background (white american christian, rural farm family, religious education, from a town of 3,500 people, like pick a struggle my guy) who is shown onscreen both acting out and deconstructing the biases and prejudices he was raised with. I'm thinking specifically of the scene in season 1 with mr. krakozhia when whitaker enters the patient's room literally covered in PPE and slowly removes it piece by piece because he realizes that his fear of his patient is dehumanizing him, how he makes a cruel comment that assumes mr. krakozhia is in active addiction when he's not, how his distinction between "good" temporarily unhoused person (himself) and "bad" addict/mentally ill homeless person (krakozhia) is challenged during that scene
see also the scene in season 2 with amaya, the PCOS patient, where whitaker suggests an unhelpful and misogynistic/misogynoir-ist plan of care that he probably learned in med school and from dr. robby that prioritizes temporarily alleviating pain and freeing up a bed, debates with mckay over it, and eventually listens to the patient's self-advocacy only through the interlocutor of mckay (with mckay herself have been checked for bias in the past by collins!)
putting that alongside other examples of whitaker being a character who values decency towards other people (volunteering for the street team, teaching the med students about the moment of silence, honoring the work of nurses, helping amy on her farm) and you get an interesting picture of a person who has been raised to be Midwest Nice but after leaving his rural upbringing is forced to confront the fact that the culture of Midwest Nice fundamentally excludes large sections of the population who are more in need of decency and empathy than anyone whitaker grew up with in his 95.7% white hometown
ok maybe that is my several paragraphs of meta. this is all to say I find whitaker intriguing and am curious to see where his character evolves, especially and crucially if in future episodes he ends up being mentored by someone who isn't robby and is more active about encouraging him to confront his prejudices