Popular Culture & Medicine: Where's Hollywood When You Really Need It?

I was holding this post "in reserve" for later this week, but since Betsy's broken the ice, here's my take on the "doctors in the movies" article:

In the January 24 American Medical News, there's an interesting article on the way Hollywood currently portrays physicians and the health care system in general: "Hollywood just doesn't make movie doctors like they used to":

Wisconsin pediatrician Glenn Flores, MD. Dr. Flores has rented and watched about 150 films spanning 80 years to gauge how physicians are depicted in films. In an article in the December 2004 Archives of Disease in Childhood, Dr. Flores says money and materialism are common themes in movies about doctors. Movie physicians base treatment decisions on a patient's ability to pay, and they are hampered by inefficient bureaucracies and health care systems.

An abstract of Dr. Flores' article is here.   And, as for his 'Top 10":

• "Red Beard" (1965)
• "The Hospital" (1971)
• "Article 99" (1991)
• "State of Emergency" (1993)
• "Miss Evers' Boys" (1997)
• "The Elephant Man" (1980)
• "Panic in the Streets" (1950)
• "Spellbound" (1945)
• "Death and the Maiden" (1994)
• "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)

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