From the silence surrounding cancer, to the 'quiet revolution' in healthcare practices across America, to the cacophony of the vaccine debate, we've picked a handful of documentaries, films and talks that provide fodder to spark discussions — at any volume — about some of the most salient issues in healthcare.
Here are five healthcare films and videos we're talking about in our office.
1. Rx: The Quiet Revolution (April 2)
Filmmaker David Grubin, son of a general practitioner, hits the road with a camera in hand to find the people behind America's diverse healthcare delivery system. Mr. Grubin follows the stories of the people at a rural clinic in the Mississippi delta, an alternative nursing home facility in San Francisco, a family practice in Maine and a health system owned and operated by Native Alaskans. The PBS documentary shows how these diverse healthcare providers are all focusing to lower costs and improve care in their unique markets.
2. Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies (March 30 – April 1)
This PBS documentary is a roadmap of where we are and where we have been with cancer, not only in healthcare, but also in society as a whole. It is based off the Pulitzer-prize winning book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. Though we may never be able to eradicate cancer entirely, the book and documentary aim to provide a report card on cancer and illustrate what we know about cancer today and how we know it.
3. The Vaccine War (March 24, available online)
In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak and updated from a 2010 PBS Frontline report, "The Vaccine War" dives into the science and politics fueling the vaccine debate. The documentary examines the confusion about vaccines and though it has been criticized for being rather one-sided, it carefully addresses the scientific evidence behind vaccines and adds to the dialogue surrounding this issue today.
4. Being Mortal (February 10, available online)
Based on the similarly titled book by Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, "Being Mortal" is a PBS Frontline documentary by Dr. Gawande and Thomas Jennings that looks at what it means to be mortal. "The two big unfixables are aging and dying," Dr. Gawande says in the film. "What I could see over and over again was we weren't particularly good at handling people going through the last phase of their life." Informed by patient end-of-life care stories and the story of his own father, Dr. Gawande takes a deep dive into patient-physician conversations about dying.
5. TED Talk: What vets know that physicians don't (September 2014, available online)
In this 15-minute talk given at the annual healthcare conference TEDMED, Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, MD, explains the benefits of a species-spanning approach to medicine. Dr. Horowitz, a professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at UCLA medical school, talks about what it's like to examine a chimpanzee for stroke and operate on a lion's heart. She talks about the benefits of closing the gap between physicians and veterinarians and what it could mean for the health of all species. "What do you call a veterinarian that can only take care of one species?" she asks. "A physician."