Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 30: MAKING ROUNDS
Muffie Meyer’s immersive look at a cardiac care unit makes its debut today at NYC’s Cinema Village. Meyer, of course, is best known as one of the directors/editors of the iconic GREY GARDENS.
Set within Mount Sinai, Meyer’s film focuses on cardiologists Herschel Sklaroff and Valentin Fuster as they lead a group of young doctors and medical students in a good, old-fashioned round of bedside visits, a practice viewers soon learn is growing increasingly rare as doctors instead rely on technological advancements in testing for diagnostic assessment. Drs Sklaroff and Fuster demonstrate, however, that a few minutes spent establishing an empathetic connection with people who are frihtened to death, and, critically, actually listening to their experience of symptoms, yields dramatic results. Patients who have experienced frustration time and time again during past visits are discovered to have been misdiagnosed and finally receive treatment that helps their quality of life. Meyer’s film is strongest when she accompanies the physicians to the bedsides, putting the viewer in the shoes of the eager medical students learning from these acclaimed mentors. It’s less effective in a couple of brief, more conventional, interview sequences which feel tacked on. Regardless, the film’s simple yet important premise – that doctors shouldn’t lose sight of the patient as they try to treat their symptoms – is on the whole conveyed quite well.
what (not) to doc 