Doctors in the Movies

Book excerpt: 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". Intended to be both fun and instructive, the book has a lighter side that looks at clichés and stereotypes, such as someone shouting "boil the water" when a baby is about to be delivered, doctors as "sex maniacs," and ludicrous portrayals of surgeons directing their own abdominal operations. On a more serious note, the movies illustrate what the public has valued in doctoring, the changing attitudes towards science, and the evolution of issues that still confront and divide us. Assisted suicide or "mercy killing," abortion, concerns about health care costs and impersonal high-tech medicine are all in evidence. Two chapters deal with the virtual invisibility of women and black doctors in film.