The Doctor

Rating:
Summary: A Great Movie!
Review: I just love this movie. I saw it when it first came out back in the early 90's and just recently saw it again. I cannot believe I went all this time without watching this beautiful movie! I just recently acquired a VHS copy and have now watched it twice in only the last few days. What I like about the movie, first of all, is the fact that what happened in the movie then--with arrogant doctors, paperwork shuffling, etc.-- still applies today. The plot has never grown old. But what I really appreciate about the movie is the variety of issues it includes. It is to my understanding that this movie is required by atleast some medical schools for their curriculum. I do know however, that there are some doctors who apparently have not seen this movie (I know by experience of course) and need a dose of it themselves.

Rating:
Summary: THE MOVIE THAT KILLED M.A.S.H.
Review: The Doctor was another of those excellent, well-made 1990-91 releases pre-empted by laser-guided bombs and missiles of the 1990 Gulf War and forced into the video occult. But that's not stopped it from a second chance via DVD where it may get well-deserved recognition and revenues for each actor and crew's excellent contributions.
The cast drove home messages that health care professionals need take a good look at "because one day you'll be sick to" ... So "physician, heal thyself" and thereby prepare to heal others all the way down to your bedside manners. The Word is eventually sent via Jack McKee and partner whose cavalier professionalism ("Get in, cut it out and couldn't care less!") is callously unsuited to genuine warmth patients need communicated to them. And then there's the insurance companies who, like them, run on "stats" and "the bottom line" to coldly determine who lives and dies on the medical production line.
You don't know what it's like until you hear those 3 words "You've got cancer"; they'll floor you -especially if you're a physician who knows the realities of catastrophic illness. So "a taste of my own medicine" (subtitle to book movie is based on) engages McKee when he's told that. I've walked hospital hallways like McKee on the way to radiation therapy and sat with the terminally ill, knowing I'd likely survive (Or would I?) and that others were terminal, and encountered my own death watch. The disingenuous reassurance McKee gave others is sheer hypocrisy and his facetious talk of golf antagonizes "the herd," whom he'd felt beneath his ivory tower profession and HIS herd of incompetents. But now, his relation with a dying patient, whom he actually befriends, turns him inward and he admits his and the profession's shortcomings - then he falls out of love with himself - all too late to save her but soon enough to save himself and his family from the same callousness engulfing all but a few.
It sends a strong message to those who profit from medicine at the deadliest expense to others whom it's supposed to save! My only complaint is that Amazon.com hasn't mailed me my DVD of it yet. How long will it take?

Rating:
Summary: Great Training Tool
Review: This is a fine video for teaching health professionals about compassion in dealing with patients and families. Numerous scenes of casual disrespect toward patients make a big impact on the students. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: To BAD this is a GREAT movie!
Review: This is an excelent film. I can't beleve a movie of this class is not avalable on DVD. What is wrong with the movie studio? For now I will pop my VHS in and enjoy one of the best movies of both the 80's and 90's.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites...
Review: This movie is loosely based on the book "Taste Of My Own Medicine: When the Doctor is the Patient" by Edward Rosenbaum, M.D. It is about a physician who although he has been providing health care for years, he knows little about the caring part. That is until he becomes the patient, a cancer patient. The story that follows is wonderfully acted by William Hurt, who is joined by an equally wonderful cast. If you have ever been the patient, or better yet, the provider, this movie is for you.

Rating:
Summary: A good film on the importance of being actual people
Review: This movie was made from a book by a doctor who told his own story about becoming ill and learning about the medical profession and its dehumanizing qualities by becoming a patient. It caused quite a stir at the time and this movie was quite popular when it came out. William Hurt plays the successful, brilliant, but cold heart surgeon, Dr. Jack MacKee. He and his beautiful wife, Anne (played so well by Christine Lahti), live a materially comfortable but emotionally detached existence with their son, Nicky.

Dr. Jack has been ignoring a raspy throat and cough until he coughs up blood. Soon, he is diagnosed with a tumor on one of his vocal cords. He becomes the patient of Dr. Leslie Abbott who is even colder than him, she is talented but sees only problems to fix, the person exists to her only as something to bring her the illness to cure. The doctors in this film are largely all of the same stripe. Problem solvers who avoid any involvement with the people they are treating. The one exception, and an object of ridicule of the other doctors is Dr. Eli Blumfield (portrayed very nicely by Adam Arkin).

As a patient the unhuman sterility of the hospital and its policies become clear to Dr. Jack as he is treated as a container for the problem the doctors are to fix. One of the things all patients do is wait, and then wait, and then wait some more. While he is thus engaged in waiting helplessly for treatment he meets another patient, June Ellis (heroically played by Elizabeth Perkins). She is dying of a grade IV glioblastoma (a type of brain tumor). One of her complaints is that they should have found her tumor sooner. At first, Dr. Jack does the "team" thing by refusing to admit that they should have and giving her false hope with a lie about a patient in a similar condition who is now a grandfather.

As an aside, one of my family members died of a grade IV glioblastoma. It doesn't matter when they diagnose the patient. The treatments they offer are all about stalling death, not preventing it. In nearly all cases, the patient will die within a year. June's lack of functional deficit and lack of a surgical scar on her scalp are all dramatic license to help keep June completely sympathetic (gruesome is not sympathetic). Her head is shaved, but radiation treatment does not leave the scalp with a neatly shaved look. The hair falls out unevenly, and the high does of radiation often leave the skin reddened and raw from being burned. There is no reason to hold back on the radiation dose, since it was all a Hail Mary kind of treatment. I hope the treatments have gotten better in the past five years and that someday real hope can be offered those afflicted with this miserable condition. The one great lesson life offers during this time is how little is needed to find life precious. We spend so much time putting conditions on our happiness that we cheat ourselves of so much. This kind of illness takes away the ability to even have good days and eventually even good hours. Good moments become wonderful and full of life. Something as simple as a chicken salad sandwich and lemon poppyseed cake with a can of Vernors can provide an exquisitely memorable moment. The movie captures this to a degree, but not as powerfully as it can happen in real life.

Anyway, June becomes the means to Dr. Jack finding his humanity and becoming a better person and doctor. It is nice that the screenplay has Dr. Jack finding his way in a very uneven and often frustrating way. The movie ends with a kind of dramatic gag that rewards the audience for following an often grim story all the way through.

Good movie, good notes for all people - including medical professionals - to take about the importance of treating those with whom we interact on a daily basis as real people rather than as an impersonal piece of business.

Rating:
Summary: Realistic account of the dehumanization of modern mediciene
Review: William Hurt is superb as a selfish doctor stricken with cancer. As he seeks a cure, he is subjected to the same uncaring, indifferent and humiliating treatment as other cancer patients. His experience brings about his redemption as a person and a doctor. The final scene on the roof of the hospital as he reads a letter from a fellow patient who has died is unforgetable.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful film
Review: William Hurt's performance as a cold and arrogant doctor who finds out he has cancer and gets a lesson of life is wonderful(no surprise) as well as the whole cast including Elizabeth Perkins,Christine Lahti,Mandy Patinkin,Adam Arkin(yes, the doctors of chicago hope).Then you think: "but it's a doctor film" but actually this film is for all audiences not only for doctors. The scene where he gets a letter from a patient(Elizabeth Perkins)and he reads it on the roof of the hospital with pigeons flying is so beautiful and I couldn't hold the tears from tumbling down.

Rating:
Summary: A Triumph!
Review: With sensitive performances by William Hurt, Elizabeth Perkins and Christine Lahti, The Doctor is a must see. Masterfully written, the story will touch anyone who has experienced the insensitivity of the medical profession and wished for a doctor who would empathize with the challenges and concerns of a personal health crisis. But there's more. The Doctor will be a film that you see and see again. The tremendous messages about important relationships, life and death will keep you coming back.