Join us for a screening of Bedside Manner (2016), a short film that explores the important role of performance in physician-patient encounters through the lens of standardized patient simulations. The screening will be accompanied by a discussion with the visiting filmmaker, Corinne Botz, and collaborator Dr. Alice Flaherty, who is a neurologist at Harvard.

RSVP here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P3KHG7K 

Key learning themes:
Communication, e.g., empathy, professionalism
Performance and health outcomes, e.g., help-seeking behaviours, physician wellness
Person-centred approaches to care

Synopsis:
In the 18-minute film Bedside Manner (2016, Winner, Grand Jury Prize for Best Short at the DOC NYC Festival, Oscar-qualifying), director Corinne Botz explores doctor-patient encounters through the lens of standardized patient simulations. It broadens the traditional medical gaze to include doctors as well as patients. It creates an uncanny space in which viewers and participants suspend disbelief and rehearse for trauma.

The film begins with the repeated simulation of a case of delirium that highlights the wavering boundary between reality and art in medicine. Standardized patients and students connect in an ensemble performance of acting sick and playing doctor, yet the encounters are also real. The film’s protagonist, the neurologist Alice Flaherty, plays herself as a doctor, standardized patient, and real patient, and raises questions about the importance of acting well.

Presenters:

Corinne Botz is a Brooklyn-based photographic artist, writer and filmmaker, whose work has been shown internationally. She is on the faculty of the International Center of Photography and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her best known book, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, first brought Frances Glessner Lee’s dioramas of violent death to the attention of the art world. The dioramas will be shown at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts this winter.

Alice Flaherty trained as a neurologist and now has a joint appointment in psychiatry. She has written three award-winning books, all of which have been translated into several languages. Two have been multiply dramatized. Her book The Midnight Disease explores the neurology of creativity. Flaherty is writing a book about the role of acting in both the art of medicine and the under-studied art of being a patient. In the course of her research she has appeared in over 25 television productions, and consulted on two Hollywood doctor show pilots.

Date: Monday, March 11, 6pm
Location: Mount Sinai Hospital (600 University Ave) – 18th floor auditorium
Time: 6:30-8pm