Doctors in the movies

Peter Dans compares the real-life changes in medicine to the changes depicted in film. 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 naíve 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". Intended to be both fun and instructive, the book has a lighter side that looks at clichés