Explore This Issue
ACEP Now: Vol 33 – No 06 – June 2014Top to bottom: Danny Cheng, MD, and Jaime Eng, MD, (at left) with patient; Dave Pomeranz, MD, Ryan McGarry, MD, and Billy Mallon, MD, at bedside; Jamie Eng, MD, with patient; C-Booth at LA County Hospital.
KK: When did you have the epiphany that “I’m qualified to do this, and this story has to be told”?
RM: I can speak to the filmmaking qualifications first: I had none. I considered an MSA in film school, but I declined that on the notion that if I did want to pursue filmmaking someday, I’d have a lot more access to the human condition as a physician than as a film student. The documentary really formed itself when I was a rotating medical student at USC. I was with the old LA General hospital and in the middle of this special area of the ER called C-Booth. I was struck by the intensity of that space. I wanted to know, “Why does intensity matter?” And my answer is that intensity shows us priorities. We found that physicians and health care staff find nostalgia in that notion of “remember when you were just a training doc and your biggest priority was patient care.” I miss that most basic of concerns. Now I’m worried about the right RVUs, statisticians, documents, and Press Ganey.
KK: Does it come out in the documentary that you were focused on care, but you lost focus because of all the regulatory red tape?
RM: That’s a major theme. The three acts of the film mirror how an emergency medicine physician might mature along the way, especially in a big, busy trauma center. When physicians watch it, they grasp onto that. When laypeople watch it, I think they start to say, “I didn’t realize that this is going on. Why is the system so focused on not us and not my doctor?”
KK: Who’s working with you on this project?
RM: In the first days of the project, we had the support of some of the USC faculty: Drs. Ed Newton, Billy Mallon, Jan Shoenberger, and Diku Mandavia, along with the hospital administration and the LA County Board of Supervisors. Beyond that, there was the filmmaking world: Mark Jonathan Harris, who’s a three-time Academy Award winner in documentary film, and Marti Noxon, who scripted for ER.
KK: Do you think you’ll make another film?
RM: [The market research] says that a part two with just Billy Mallon might sell really well! As far as Code Black part two, we’ve probably said enough on this topic in the feature.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 | Single Page
No Responses to ““Code Black” Documentary about Los Angeles County General Hospital Captures the Challenge, Energy of Emergency Medicine”