Doctors in the Movies: Boil the Water and Just Say Aah

Myth, like denial, is central to human existence and no one has made myths better than Hollywood, shaping how we think about ourselves and those around us by reinforcing stereotypes or creating new ones. This book is about how Hollywood has portrayed medicine over the last sixty years, as seen through the eyes of a board-certified internist on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The author blends a brief historical context with an in-depth discussion of more than seventy films from Arrowsmith, Internes Can't Take Money, Society Doctor, and The Girl in White, through No Way Out and The Last Angry Man, to Hospital, Coma, Critical Care, and Awakenings. One can see the progression of medical students from naïve idealists in 1948's Miss Susie Slagle's to cynical nonconformists in Gross Anatomy. Similarly, changes are visible in the doctor's image from the kindly Country Doctor and the earnest Dr. Kildare to the arrogant egotists of The Doctor and Malice. The movies illustrate what the public has valued in doctoring, the changing attitudes toward science, and the evolution of issues that still confront and divide us. The book has an extensive filmography and bibliography. To order, call: (800) 500-8205 or write: MEDI-ED Press, #5 White Place, Bloomington, IL 61701.Peter E. Dans is the author of 'Doctors in the Movies: Boil the Water and Just Say Aah', published 2000 under ISBN 9780936741147 and ISBN 0936741147.