Transplantation

For many of us the heart is still symbolic of the soul. Therefore, the advent of heart transplantation opened up new avenues for movie plots. The experience of the transplant recipient has captured screenwriters’ attention. Screenwriters are intrigued by the complexity of heart transplantation and, with it, themes based on the centrality of the heart in emotions, the possibility of a donor’s personality traits being transmitted to the recipient, quests to find the donor’s family and cloning organ donors to treat complex disease. Transplant tourism and trafficking are other commonly covered topics. This chapter reviews the history of transplantation and connects it with its cinematic representations– from horrific to compassionate.

Hospital and Asylum

The history of medicine can never be understood without its buildings and its interior. A physical venue is needed to create a healing place for the injured and sick and for medicine to advance. In cinema, hospitals resemble block-like structures loaded with technology. To obtain a better perspective of how hospitals are portrayed in film, this chapter reviews the historical development of the hospital and the history of asylums as places of confinement for patients with mental illness. More than a few films paint hospitals and psychiatric institutions as understaffed with disrespect from top to bottom in the professional hierarchy. This chapter reviews the depiction of hospital wards and psychiatry wards in fictional and documentary film.

Medical Violations

Medical research often involves experiments, and these may include psychological experiments into human behavior, which have attracted filmmakers. A number of atrocities have been depicted in films, and they importantly record horrific episodes in the history of medicine. Filmmakers have been drawn toward medicine’s failures and foibles including chilling “extreme measures” in the medical tradition and even modern medicine. The medical discoveries and stories of overcoming disease seem to be less interesting to filmmakers; narratives of sham “treatment,” professional abuse of power, and wickedness work better.

Death and Dying

There have been major advances in care of dying patients, and screenwriters, like physicians, have grappled with quality-of-life concerns, artificial prolongation of life, and active assistance in death. Palliation and active euthanasia have been constant, side-by-side considerations in the history of medicine. Assisted death, euthanasia, and self-determination in how to end life have been interests for film directors, and this chapter places these films in context. In real life death is dignified and peaceful, whereas in the movies death from disease is often agonizing and not easily over. In the movies, the sick seldom leave earthly existence in a convincing way.

Epilogue

This epilogue summarizes how medicine has been depicted in cinema through the ages, providing another way to look at the many different histories of medicine. Cinema has used fictional and factual situations, and sometimes just single moments, to show the unpredictability of illness—all is well but then it is not—causing story twists and consternation. Filmmakers may glamorize, exaggerate, misrepresent, or even falsify the practice of medicine, distorting its complexity. Cinema of medicine does not approximate the practice of medicine, nor do practitioners live similarly to their celluloid counterparts. However, medicine as practiced onscreen is plausible with all its cinematic flourishes, and, on balance, salutary. We can learn from it and teach others.

Epidemics

Medicine has been powerless against the disaster of a major epidemic disease. There is also a perception that officials and our governments are unable to cope with an epidemic and that a disease cannot only stop civilization in its track but also can destroy it rapidly. Historically speaking, a number of important films have addressed epidemics over time. Many have interpreted these epic films as affirmations of the basic values that keep humankind afloat even in the worst of circumstances and to imagine the future—even if you think there won’t be one. Medical epidemics in film, in particular the longstanding AIDS epidemic, also allow a political (and bioethical) interpretation, show preconceptions and stigmatization when treatments are concerned, and have criticized the belittling response to a threat. Films on poliomyelitis often show the emotional and physical hardships faced by patients and families.

The Nursing Profession

This chapter explores the different roles of nurses in the history of cinema- from the kind Florence Nightingale to the wicked Nurse Ratched. It is appropriate to ask whether a portrayal is inspiring or off-putting or merely cheap amusement. Nurses in cinema were sweetened and idealized in the late 1930s and 1940s. Films about nurses focused on romantic flings with doctors. Other depictions were misogynistic caricatures and shallow fantasies. Filmmakers seldom portrayed the nursing profession as disciplined and committed because this is not cinematic. It was more interesting to have the nurse look attractive and be courted. However, there are notable exceptions. This chapter recognizes the major role of nursing in the history of medicine and provides context to well-known feature films.

The Physician in Practice

Celluloid physicians emerged early in cinema. When medicine changed and became more sophisticated, cinema took notice and changed in parallel. The family physician became a hospital specialist, primarily saving lives, but then physicians’ vulnerability (and misjudgments) entered screenplays. The cinematic history of general practitioners shows film doctors doing very little actual doctoring. Many specialties are absent in film because they are less understood or provide no inspiration for a plot line. The psychiatrist, gynecologist, and surgeon have common appearances due to the preferred topic matter. This chapter discusses the portrayal of physicians by actors and how this could affect the audience’s perception of the profession. This chapter reviews the authenticity of the doctor. What does cinema think we are?

Grotesques

The portrayal of dysmorphologies, monsters, and other grotesques entered the horror category early, and the films were filled with exploitation, gruesomeness, and degeneracy. Physicians must be intrigued by the underlying nature of the major anomalies depicted on the screen. This chapter examines several extraordinary works that explore the disabled protagonist’s isolation and mistreatment. Many films in the horror genre have sparked important discussions of bioethics. Films about those who look different or are disabled due to congenital defects or disease have proliferated. Filmmakers used disability to evoke the audience’s pity in the early years, but this later changed to themes of acceptance and compassion. Cinema can play a critical role in highlighting abuse, isolation, and tribulations among persons with disabilities and in encouraging acceptance.

Addicted

Cinema has a terrible reputation in its portrayal of drug use, alcohol consumption, and smoking. Early to mid-20th-century films frequently glamorized smoking and drinking. Drunkenness could also be milked for humor. Organizations that provide ratings for films have been continuously challenged by advocates of moderation. For responsible screenwriters, portraying the abuse of these substances creates great “morality plays.” They can show the downward trajectory and consequently poor quality of life of people with addictions. This chapter discusses how cinema has depicted drug use and smoking but also places it into the history of addiction throughout the decades of the 20th century. Filmmakers have used addiction to great effect. In the dreamed-up world of medicine in cinema, the physician is often blamed for prescribing therapeutic drugs that the patient goes on to abuse.