Responses

RESPONSES:

To play this film please click here or on the image above

All the responses to my films have been different and this is to be celebrated.

In this film I want to look at the responses or at least my sense of a divide that appears within the general range. Divide is perhaps too strong a word but it has appeared to me that there has been a more negative set of responses from those who like me are doctors in clinical medicine and those who are not. If this sense is right (and it may not be) I am left asking questions why this might be. Furthermore my instinct is that such questions are important not just to me but to the practice of medicine generally.

(1) Firstly.  
I wonder if my films are overly complex?

(2) Secondly.     
My films explicitly challenge what has become known in my profession as the ‘subjective-objective divide’. This may contribute to a feeling of discomfort.

(3) Thirdly.     
Boundaries in medicine are important and I am aware of this in making all my films. However it may be that doctors think it ‘inappropriate’ for a professional to show any side of his ‘real life.’ Here the medical  profession adopts a detached, but ‘un-real’ authority. I feel that as a filmmaker, and as a doctor I can respect boundaries and still be authentic to my self and the world I face.

(4) Fourthly.
All of the above may apply but it may simply be that because my films sometimes challenge prevailing understanding, doctors find they disagree or are uncomfortable. Yet our goal is the same: to improve understanding and thus care. Here my challenge is always to keep an open mind and to also consider the views of other disciplines: such as the medical humanities, ethics or philosophy.

I do not know the answers to the questions. I am maybe overly defensive in asking them. However responses are important and I have a sense that my sense here is also important.